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.
The existing study aimed to assess four soil moisture sensors’ capacitive (WH51 and SKU: S EN0193) and resistive (Yl69 and IC Station) abilities, which are affordable and medium-priced for their accuracy in six common soil types in the central region of Iraq. The readings’ calibration for the soil moisture sensor devices continued through two gravimetric methods. The first depended on the protocols’ database, while the second was the traditional calibration method. The second method recorded the lowest analysis error compared with the first. The moderate-cost sensor WH51 showed the lowest standard error (SE), MAD , and RMSE and the highest R² in both methods. The performance accuracy of WH51 was close to readings shown by the manufac
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The reducing of erosion and the solubility of irrigation canals soils which constructed on gypsum soil is important in civil and water resources engineering. The main problem of gypsum soils is the presence of gypsum which represents one of most complex engineering problems, especially when accompanied by the moving of water which represent dynamic load along the canal. There are several solutions to this problem, in this research “Poly urethane” is used to give the gypsum soil sufficient hardness to reduce the solubility and erosion, after compacting the soil in the canal, percentages of Poly urethane was used to making cover to the soil by mixing percent of soil with Poly urethane, and the ratio was as follows: (5 and 10) % an
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Trickle irrigation is a system for supplying filtered water and fertilizer directly into the soil and water and it is allowed to dissipate under low pressure in an exact predetermined pattern. An equation to estimate the wetted area of unsaturated soil with water uptake by roots is simulated numerically using the HYDRUS-2D/3D software. In this paper, two soil types, which were different in saturated hydraulic conductivity were used with two types of crops tomato and corn, different values of emitter discharge and initial volumetric soil moisture content were assumed. It was assumed that the water uptake by roots was presented as a continuous sink function and it was introduced into Richard's equation in the unsaturated z
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The primary components of successful engineering projects are time, cost, and quality. The use of the ring footing ensures the presence of these elements. This investigation aims to find the optimum number of geogrid reinforcement layers under ring footing subjected to inclined loading. For this purpose, experimental models were used. The parameters were studied to find the optimum geogrid layers number, including the optimum geogrid layers spacing and the optimum geogrid layers number. The optimum geogrid layers spacing value is 0.5B. And as the load inclination angle increased, the tilting and the tilting improvement percent for the load inclination angles (5°,10°,15°) are (40%,28%, and 5%) respectively. The reduction percent o
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Among the undesirable effects of soil compaction is a measurable reduction in plant growth and crop yield. The prevailing belief is that compacted tillage pans are caused by repetitive farming practices, heavy tractors, tillage tools, and field traffic. This experiment was conducted to determine and map the hardpan layers across an agricultural field through advanced technologies of precision agriculture. These valuable techniques such as data logger, yield map, and data analysis of performance indicators were linked with accurate global positioning systems (GPS) datasets. These important technologies provided the farmers and helped them to identify and manage areas of the fields with higher compacted layers. Three ground speeds 4.3
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Iraq has confronted a huge political transformations after 2003 which resembled and presented rapid changes from totalitarian regime into democracy's system , this phenomenon has become a feature embodied in a new political system, specifically is being a price for previous deprivation and despotism .So that, the nature of political work has been changed as a result of practicing new democratic values ,but the real challenges appeared by depending on the conformity and political compromise in dealing with all of crises and problems in the political life .
The future of political work in this nascent democracy could be prepared according to fulfillment an active doings values stretched on national unity and forgiveness from one side ,t
Pesticides serve a crucial function in contemporary farming practices, safeguarding agricultural crops against pest infestations and boosting production outputs. However, indiscriminate use has caused environmental and human health damage. This study aimed to develop and validate a gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) methodology for the direct and routine analysis of spiromesifen residues in soil, leaves, and tomato fruits. The proposed method prioritizes simplicity by avoiding derivatization steps, offering advantages over existing approaches that utilize lengthy multi-step extraction or derivatization prior to GC analysis. A key novelty of this work is the development of a QuEChERS extraction coupled directly to GC-FID
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