High tunnels, or unheated plastic greenhouses, are becoming increasingly popular among organic vegetable growers across the United States. However, the intensive production typical of these systems presents soil health challenges, including salinization due to high fertilizer or compost inputs coupled with lack of rainfall to leach salts. Legume cover crops may improve soil health in high tunnels by reducing the need for external inputs, while adding organic matter. We tested the soil health effects of a winter hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cover crop used to replace fertilizer N in an organic tomato cropping system in high tunnels. Studies were replicated across three sites differing in climate and soil type (Kansas, Kentucky, and Minnesota) over three years. We measured vetch cover crop effects on a suite of soil health indicators, including potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN), permanganate oxidizable carbon, and microbial biomass. Preliminary results suggest that vetch effects on PMN were highly variable. Soil mineral N, meanwhile, was often lower in the vetch treatment than in a fertilized control, both in spring and in fall. While further work on vetch effects on crop yields is needed, our results suggest that even legume cover crops such as vetch have the potential to reduce nitrate leaching.
Ultrasonic Extraction method followed by gradient HPLC was carried out for the simultaneous determination of four insecticides are [imidacloprid (Imi), thiamethoxam (Thi), indoxacarb (Ind) and abamectin (Aba)] used to combat the major insect pests in Iraq, whitefly, Dubas Bug, worms fruits as well as to combat the spiders – dream respectively in eco-soil samples. The extraction recovery was in the range of 99.77 to 109.1 %. The dissipation kinetics and residual levels of these insecticides in soil sample was studied under field ecosystem. The half-life of the mix insecticides was determined. The half-life was in range of 0.38 to 4.06 days with the soil samples were brought from the Agricultural Land called Nahrawan located in th
... Show MoreThis work represents the set of measurements of radon and thoron concentrations levels of soil-gas in Al-Kufa city in Iraq using electric Radon meter (RAD-7). Radon and thoron concentration were measured in soil-gas in 20 location for three depth of (50, 100 and 150) cm.
The results show that the emanation rate of radon and thoron gas varied from location to anther, depending on the geological formation. The Radon concentration in soil has been found to vary from (12775±400) Bq/m3 at 150 cm depth in location (sample K2) to (41.45±17) Bq/m3, for depth 150 cm in location (sample K20). The thoron concentration in soil has been found to vary from (198±8.5) Bq/m3 at 150 cm depth in location samples (K1 & K2) to undetected in the mos
This research was conducted to determine content levels of heavy metal pollution. Samples taken from Ishaqi River bank and adjacent agricultural soils area, in ten sites, distributed along 48 km of the Ishaqi River, north Baghdad. The evaluated metals were Zinc, Copper, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Chromium, Cadmium, Vanadium and Lead. PH and Electric Conductivity (EC) were measured to evaluate the acidity and (EC). Results showed that most site were contaminated with metals evaluated. Among these metals, Zn, Mn, Fe and Ni were consistently higher in all the samples (both river bank and adjacent soil) followed by PB, CU, V, Cd, Co and Cr. The level concentrations of river bank were almost higher than that of adjacent soil. As will be re
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In this work, a single pile is physically modeled and embedded in an upper liquefiable loose sand layer overlying a non-liquefiable dense layer. A laminar soil container is adopted to simulate the coupled static-dynamic loading pile response during earthquake motions: Ali Algharbi, Halabjah, El-Centro, and Kobe earthquakes. During seismic events with combined loading, the rotation along the pile, the lateral and vertical displacements at the pile head as well as the pore pressure ratio in loose sandy soil were assessed. According to the experimental findings, combined loading that ranged from 50 to 100% of axial load would alter the pile reaction by reducing the pile head peak ground acceleration, rotation of the pile, and lateral displacem
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Background: Periodontitis (PD) is well-known chronic disease affecting the periodontal ligament and alveolar bone, Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint disease with compound reasons characterized by synovial inflammation, subchondral bone remodeling, also the formation of osteophytes, that cause cartilage degradation. Chronic periodontitis and osteoarthritis are considered widely prevalent diseases and related to tissue destruction due to chronic inflammation in general health and oral health. The aim of this study is todetermine the association of chronic periodontitis and osteoarthritits in patients by analysing tumor necrosis factor alpha TNFα and high sensitive c-reactive protein (hsCRP) in the serum. Materials and Method: A tot
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The present study aimed at ((building an educational -learning design based on the theory of Merrill in (CDT) and measuring the effectiveness of this design in the motivation and achievement of the high school fifth grade students to art education in the subject of the history of modern art)). The research community is made of fifth grade preparatory students in the secondary school of Umm Ayman in the Directorate of Education of Baghdad / Ar-Rusafa in a simple random way. The study sample (58 students) was chosen from section (e) to study according to Merrill theory (CDT) and section (d) to study according to the traditional way.
The pilot design of the control and experimental equivalent groups that have partial control in t
The reform process is a dynamic process going on, especially the administrative and financial reform, which contributes to the work and directing operations towards success and continuous development, which requires determining the validity and the responsibility and the rights and duties of all officials in the school settings (within the formations educational institutions) for the purpose of reducing the administrative and financial corruption, and then ensure management efficient and effective way by taking advantage of the physical, financial and human resources available to achieve the greatest benefit at the lowest cost to the fact that the follow-up performance on an ongoing basis in accordance with the specific of powers
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Background: Polymorphisms in the TNF-α gene affect the development and progression of rheumatoid arthritis. Objective: To investigate the associations between (-806 T/C) and (-857 T/C) SNPs with rheumatoid arthritis severity and susceptibility in a sample of Iraqi patients. Methods: A case-control study was conducted in Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty healthy controls and 63 patients confirmed to be newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis were included. Those are divided into two groups (patients and controls), and the patients were further subdivided into severe and mild-moderate groups. Samples from those participants were analyzed for clinical and inflammatory parameter measurements. Genotyping by the Sanger method was performed to stu
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Background: The displacement of artificial teeth during complete denture construction presents major processing errors in the occlusal vertical dimension which were verified at the previous trial denture stage. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of delay in processing after final flask closure and tension application on the vertical acrylic and porcelain teeth displacement of complete dentures constructed from heat cured acrylic and the results were compared with the conventional processing method. Materials and methods: forty samples of identical maxillary complete dentures were constructed from heat polymerized acrylic resin. These samples were subdivided into the following experimental subgroups in which each subgroup contai
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