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.
Al-Dalmaj marsh and the near surrounding area is a very promising area for energy resources, tourism, agricultural and industrial activities. Over the past century, the Al-Dalmaje marsh and near surroundings area endrous from a number of changes. The current study highlights the spatial and temporal changes detection in land cover for Al-Dalmaj marsh and near surroundings area using different analyses methods the supervised maximum likelihood classification method, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Geographic Information Systems(GIS), and Remote Sensing (RS). Techniques spectral indices were used in this study to determine the change of wetlands and drylands area and of other land classes, th
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In this study, the Earth's surface was studied in Razzaza Lake for 25 years, using remote sensing methods. Images of the satellites Landsat 5 (TM) and 8 (OLI) were used to study and determine the components of the land cover. The study covered the years 1995-2021 with an interval of 5 years, as this region is uninhabited, so the change in the land cover is slow. The land cover was divided into three main classes and seven subclasses and classified using the maximum likelihood classifier with the help of training sets collected to represent the classes that made up the land cover. The changes detected in the land cover were studied by considering 1995 as a reference year. It was found that there was a significant reduction in the water mass
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Diyala river is the most important tributaries in Iraq, this river suffering from pollution, therefore, this research aimed to predict organic pollutants that represented by biological oxygen demand BOD, and inorganic pollutants that represented by total dissolved solids TDS for Diyala river in Iraq, the data used in this research were collected for the period from 2011-2016 for the last station in the river known as D17, before the river meeting Tigris river in Baghdad city. Analysis Neural Network ANN was used in order to find the mathematical models, the parameters used to predict BOD were seven parameters EC, Alk, Cl, K, TH, NO3, DO, after removing the less importance parameters. While the parameters that used to predict TDS were fourte
... Show MoreA new reversed phase- high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method with Ultraviolet-Visible spectrophotometry has been optimized and validated for the simultaneous extraction and determination of organic acids present in Iraqi calyces of Hibiscus Sabdraffia Linn. The method is based on using ultrasonic bath for extracting organic acids. Limit of detection in µg/ml of Formic acid, Acetic acid, Oxalic acid, Citric acid, Succinic acid, Tartaric acid, and Malic acid 126.8498×10-6, 113.6005×10-6, 97.0513×10-6, 49.7925×10-6, 84.0753×10-6, 92.6551×10-6, and 106.1633×10-6 ,respectively. The concentration of organic acids found in dry spacemen of calyces of Iraqi Hibiscus Sabdraffia Linn. under study: Formic acid, Acetic acid,
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Experimental research was carried out to investigate the effect of fire flame (high temperature) on specimens of short columns manufactured using SCC (Self compacted concrete). To simulate the real practical fire disasters, the specimens were exposed to high
temperature flame, using furnace manufactured for this purpose. The column specimens were cooled in two ways. In the first the specimens were left in the air and suddenly cooled using water, after that the specimens were loaded to study the effect of degree of
temperature, steel reinforcement ratio and cooling rate, on the load carrying capacity of the reinforced concrete column specimens. The results will be compared with behaviour of columns without burning (control specime
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The global rise in temperature and the desert climatic conditions prevalent in Middle Eastern countries have exacerbated rutting distress in heavily trafficked highways. Conventional asphalt binders with a high-temperature performance grade (PG 70) have proven inadequate under such extreme conditions, necessitating the development of modified binders with enhanced high-temperature performance. While polymer modification using styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), an elastomeric polymer, and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), a plastomeric polymer, has been widely studied, limited research provides a direct comparison of their effectiveness at both the binder and mixture levels under extremely high-temperature conditions. This study addresses this gap
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This study was conducted in a lath house, Dept of Hort. and Landscape, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, Univ. During the 2021 growing season, Baghdad will investigate the influence of organic and Biological fertilizers on three Citrus rootstocks' growth and leaf mineral content. The first factor is the addition of liquid organic fertilizers Vit-Org (O) at three levels without addition (O0), soil addition at 10 ml.L-1 (O10) and soil addition at 20 ml.L-1 (O20). The second factor is the addition of nitrogen-fixing bacteria without addition (N1), add 30 ml.Transplant-1 of Azotobacter chroococcum (N2) and add 30 ml.Transplant-1 of Azospirillum brasilemse (N3). The third factor is three citrus rootstocks: sour orange (R1), R
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