History of medicinal plants usage goes back to 60 thousand years ago in Shanidar cave in Kurdistan. Among the oldest medicinal plants, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) and fennel (Foeniculum vulgare var. vulgare) are used as flavoring and curative agents in food and pharmaceutical goo…
The soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is responsible for billions of dollars in yield losses for the soybean industry. This plant parasite infects the roots of soybean plants and feeds off the plant’s nutrients to complete its life cycle. Effective long-term control of SCN populations…
Existing date harvesting machines are vehicles equipped with a long arm to lift a man on a platform to harvest the fruits. The arm and the vehicle are heavy (4 to 8 tonnes), expensive (from £16 000) and are not sufficiently manoeuvrable in constricted date groves. Most dates in …
Nanoagronomy: processing and product development
A location-specific evaluation of hydrological landscape responses concerning past and projected climate and land use land cover (LULC) changes can provide a powerful intellectual basis for developing efficient and profitable agroecosystems, and overcoming uncertain and detrimen…
Drainage water recycling is a sparsely studied agricultural management practice which has the potential to both improve yields and reduce adverse water quality effects of row crop agriculture. This practice captures and stores subsurface drainage from agricultural fields for sup…
The sugarcane aphid (Melanaphis sacchari (Zehnter); (Hemiptera: Aphididae)) is a pest of (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) in the United States. While it was originally found infesting sorghum in Florida in 1977, it was not until 2013 that it started to cause widespread economic los…
Through land use and biomass utilization, humans are dominant forces in the planetary biosphere and carbon and nitrogen cycles. Economic subsidies and policy mandates for producing biomass-sourced fuels and electricity could increase further the human appropriation of planetary …
Agricultural, water resources and forest management applications require adequate information about evapotranspiration (ET) over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Several methods, with reasonable accuracy, exist for computing ET for clear sky conditions using satellite rem…
Discrete element method (DEM) as a numerical technique for modeling granular materials has been developed for predicting the dynamic behavior of bulk particulate systems. Simulation of bulk grain handling in crop harvesting machine using the DEM technique have been challenging o…
The increasing amount of food waste (FW) is one of the most challenging problems around the world. The remarkable amount of FW produced is driven by various factors such as population growth, modernization, safety policy, culture, lifestyle, and human behavior. FW commonly will …
New Mexico-pod type green chile (Capsicum annuum) is one of New Mexico's leading horticultural commodities. Cultivated acreage of green chile in New Mexico is threatened due to the high cost and unavailability of labor for hand harvest. Therefore, mechanization is necessary to s…
Paper coating layers are subject to various stresses and deformations in many converting processes such as calendering, printing, slitting, and folding of the paper. In some cases, products may crack during folding to generate a defect called cracking at the fold (CAF). The para…
Water scarcity and severe environmental degradation are causing water managers in Central Asia to reevaluate irrigation water use. The objective of this research was to investigate cropping systems that could improve food security in rural areas of the Fergana Valley of Uzbekist…
Wheat is the major cereal crop grown in Canada, and about 70% of its production is exported to various countries. Growth of fungi on the grain is the most common cause of spoilage of stored grain. The traditional fungal detection methods such as plate agar and microscopic detect…
The hydraulics of IDEal drip irrigation system components were analyzed under controlled laboratory conditions and the results can be applied to the design of IDEal systems. The hydraulic loss coefficient for the lateral-submain connector valves was determined based on laborator…