Pushing canola instead of windrowing can be a viable alternative

2010 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Irvine ◽  
G P Lafond

Compared with direct harvesting, windrowing canola (Brassica napus L.) crop reduces maturation time and seed losses caused by shattering; however, windrows are prone to wind damage. While direct harvesting canola may reduce costs and lower green seed content, new technologies are required to effectively reduce shattering losses. Pushing is a potential replacement for swathing where pod movement is restricted by mechanically lodging the crop and letting the crop mature while still attached to the root system. This system purports to limit shattering and improve seed quality. Trials were conducted over a 3-yr period in western Canada to determine the impact of pushing canola relative to windrowing. Field-scale trials showed that yield and oil content typically did not differ between canola pushed and windrowed on the same date. In plot trials conducted at Brandon and Indian Head, crop yields were not decreased nor were green seed numbers increased by early pushing. It was observed that pushing worked best when crop stand and growth were good as well as when canola was pushed at or before 30-40% of the seeds have changed color and therefore are physiologically mature. While further work is required to identify the earliest time at which a crop can be pushed without a negative impact on yield or quality, the current trials indicate that with canola, pushing could occur at the start of seed color change without any negative impacts on grain yield and oil quality. Key words: Canola, windrowing, pushing, harvest, yield, seed size, Brassica napus L.

Author(s):  
Vinayak Fasake ◽  
Nita Patil ◽  
Zoya Javed ◽  
Mansi Mishra ◽  
Gyan Tripathi ◽  
...  

: Nanobionics involves the improvement of plant or plant productivity using nanomaterials. Growth of a plant from a seed encompasses various factors which are directly or indirectly dependent upon the imbibition of micro and macro nutrients and vital elements from the soil. Since most of the nutrition is physiologically unavailable to the plants, it leads to mineral deficiencies in plant and mineral toxicity in soil. Either ways, it is not a favourable situation for the microcosom. The new era of nanotechnology offers a potential solution to the availability of the nutrients to the plants due to its unique chemical and physical properties of nanoparticles. Positive and negative impact of these nanoparticles on seed quality and plant growth varies according to the specific properties of nanoparticles. The present review is an attempt to summarize the impact of nanobionics in agriculture.


Author(s):  
Marina Yiasemidou

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic and infection control measures had an unavoidable impact on surgical services. During the first wave of the pandemic, elective surgery, endoscopy, and ‘face-to-face’ clinics were discontinued after recommendations from professional bodies. In addition, training courses, examinations, conferences, and training rotations were postponed or cancelled. Inadvertently, infection control and prevention measures, both within and outside hospitals, have caused a significant negative impact on training. At the same time, they have given space to new technologies, like telemedicine and platforms for webinars, to blossom. While the recovery phase is well underway in some parts of the world, most surgical services are not operating at full capacity. Unfortunately, some countries are still battling a second or third wave of the pandemic with severely negative consequences on surgical services. Several studies have looked into the impact of COVID-19 on surgical training. Here, an objective overview of studies from different parts of the world is presented. Also, evidence-based solutions are suggested for future surgical training interventions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2249
Author(s):  
Sadia Alam Shammi ◽  
Qingmin Meng

Climate change and its impact on agriculture are challenging issues regarding food production and food security. Many researchers have been trying to show the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on agriculture using different methods. In this study, we used linear regression models to assess the impact of climate on crop yield spatially and temporally by managing irrigated and non-irrigated crop fields. The climate data used in this study are Tmax (maximum temperature), Tmean (mean temperature), Tmin (minimum temperature), precipitation, and soybean annual yields, at county scale for Mississippi, USA, from 1980 to 2019. We fit a series of linear models that were evaluated based on statistical measurements of adjusted R-square, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). According to the statistical model evaluation, the 1980–1992 model Y[Tmax,Tmin,Precipitation]92i (BIC = 120.2) for irrigated zones and the 1993–2002 model Y[Tmax,Tmean,Precipitation]02ni (BIC = 1128.9) for non-irrigated zones showed the best fit for the 10-year period of climatic impacts on crop yields. These models showed about 2 to 7% significant negative impact of Tmax increase on the crop yield for irrigated and non-irrigated regions. Besides, the models for different agricultural districts also explained the changes of Tmax, Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation in the irrigated (adjusted R-square: 13–28%) and non-irrigated zones (adjusted R-square: 8–73%). About 2–10% negative impact of Tmax was estimated across different agricultural districts, whereas about −2 to +17% impacts of precipitation were observed for different districts. The modeling of 40-year periods of the whole state of Mississippi estimated a negative impact of Tmax (about 2.7 to 8.34%) but a positive impact of Tmean (+8.9%) on crop yield during the crop growing season, for both irrigated and non-irrigated regions. Overall, we assessed that crop yields were negatively affected (about 2–8%) by the increase of Tmax during the growing season, for both irrigated and non-irrigated zones. Both positive and negative impacts on crop yields were observed for the increases of Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation, respectively, for irrigated and non-irrigated zones. This study showed the pattern and extent of Tmax, Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation and their impacts on soybean yield at local and regional scales. The methods and the models proposed in this study could be helpful to quantify the climate change impacts on crop yields by considering irrigation conditions for different regions and periods.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003072702110049
Author(s):  
Mashudu Tshikovhi ◽  
Roscoe Bertrum van Wyk

This study examines the impact of increasing climate variability on food production in South Africa, focusing on maize and wheat yields. A two-way fixed effects panel regression model was used to assess the climate variability impacts, analysing secondary data for the period 2000 to 2019 for nine provinces in South Africa. The study found that increasing climate variability has a negative impact on maize and wheat production in South Africa. Specifically, the results indicated a negative correlation between mean annual temperature with both maize and wheat yields. A decrease in precipitation affected maize yields negatively, while the impact on wheat yields was positive, although insignificant. This analysis, therefore, depicted that crop yields generally increase with more annual precipitation and decrease with higher temperatures. The study recommends that funding initiatives to educate farmers on increasing climate variability and its effects on farming activities in South Africa should be prioritised.


Nafta-Gaz ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-214
Author(s):  
Michał Pajda ◽  
◽  
Wojciech Mazela ◽  

The aim of the work was to present the issue of eco-efficiency, based on the PN-EN ISO 14045:2012 standard in relation to the production of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). The ecoefficiency analysis takes into account economic and environmental aspects in the improvement of products and processes / technologies. Eco-efficiency considers the product and technology throughout the life cycle, from the construction phase, through use to decommissioning. The impact on the natural environment is assessed on the basis of: consumption of energy, materials, dust and gas emissions, waste and sewage. Total costs include: production costs, raw material costs, costs during the use phase including maintenance, repair and operating costs, product disposal or recycling. The eco-efficiency analysis is helpful in making decisions regarding the selection of a new product or designing a new technology, and enables the selection of the variant that is the most economical and has the least possible impact on the natural environment. These issues are particularly important in the case of biofuels. The rapid growth of their production and the European Union’s policy, which aims to increase the share of energy from renewable sources, cause concerns of many experts regarding the threats related to the production of biofuels, both for the environment and food security. In particular, efforts are made to minimize the amount of waste and residues by implementing the idea of a circular economy. This approach promotes the development of new technologies that are more environmentally friendly. Due to the regulations set out in the RED and RED II Directives, there is a chance that the biofuels will have a less negative impact on the environment. This results from the obligation to certify compliance with the sustainability criteria, which is carried out by voluntary systems recognized by the European Commission, such as the KZR INiG System.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kurt Herold

The introduction of new ICTs in education is usually discussed in terms of the many benefits new technologies offer, or of the negative impact they might have on the lives of their users. Focusing on the introduction of the 3D online world "Second Life" into higher education, this article shows how such discourses lead to an impasse between the advocates and the critics of new ICTs in education. To break the impasse, and to understand the impact of Second Life, or other ICTs, on education, requires a far more differentiated approach than the discourses around Second Life have shown so far. Based on the experiences of the author in creating a virtual campus for the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Second Life, the article advocates a shift in focus from the discussion of powerful ICTs and their impact on largely passive users, to the study of active individuals, and the ways in which they integrate new ICTs into their pre-existing social and technological practices.


Author(s):  
P. Havard

Abstract Low and medium level waste management means reducing the amount of waste generated during maintenance and operation of the plant, in accordance with the ALARA concept, while keeping not only the quality of the product but also the associated costs under control. All this waste is managed by ONDRAF/NIRAS, the Belgian Federal Agency responsible for waste management, including conditioning, intermediate storage and final disposal. Unfortunately, the actions taken by ONDRAF/NIRAS and the producers in order to reduce waste production have had a negative impact on waste treatment tariffs. It has become necessary to re-examine the relationship between ONDRAF/NIRAS and the producers, in order to control the costs of waste management. This problem concerns not only the treatment costs but also the disposal costs. The volume of waste has fallen from 30M3/Thwh in 1985 to 4.m3/Twh in 2000, not by chance but as the result of a new site organisation geared towards achieving this aim. This paper presents firstly the history of Belgian waste management, taking into account the impact on the associated costs, and secondly the measures that have to be taken in order to be able to decide which new technologies are necessary to go further with the objective of waste volume reduction in a new environment, namely deregulation and consequently high pressure on production costs. Finally, it presents a few conclusions.


Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hashem H.A. ◽  
Mansour H.A. ◽  
El-Khawas S.A. ◽  
Hassanein R.A.

The present study aimed to evaluate the potentiality of three seaweeds, which belong to different algal taxa (green alga Ulva lactuca Linnaeus, brown alga Cystoseira spp., and red alga Gelidium crinale (Hare ex Turner) Gaillon) as bio-fertilizers to improve the growth and yield of canola (Brassica napus L.) plants under greenhouse conditions. Furthermore, the impact of seaweeds in alleviating the effects of salt stress (75 and 150 mM NaCl) on canola plants was also investigated. The three examined seaweeds (applied as soil amendments) successfully alleviated the harmful effects of salinity on canola plants by significantly reducing the inhibition of chlorophyll a, b, total carbohydrate accumulation, and growth promoting hormones, while increasing antioxidative compounds, such as phenols, flavonoids, anthocyanin, and osmoprotectants, including total carbohydrates and proline. Phytochemical analysis of the three examined seaweeds suggests that their stimulatory effect on growth and productivity under normal and salinity growth conditions may be linked to their constituents of a wide variety of growth promotive hormones, including indole acetic acid, indole butyric acid, gibberellic acid, cytokinins, total carbohydrates, and phenolic compounds. U. lactuca was found to be the best candidate to be used as a bio-fertilizer to improve canola growth, yield, and salt stress tolerance.


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