Changes in Understorey Pasture Composition in Agroforestry Regimes in New Zealand

Long term Agroforestry trials were established in the North and South Islands of New Zealand between 1971-76. They compared a range of final tree stockings of Pinus radiata planted into pasture with open pasture control plots and were measured for tree growth parameters and agricultural production. This paper presents the results of pasture species changes over the period of tree age 10-22 years. Pasture species composition under Pinus radiata changed with time, dependent primarily on the rate of canopy closure. Changes occurred relatively rapidly in high tree stocked areas of 400 stems per hectare (sph) in the North Island trials where ryegrass (Lolium perenne L) and white clover (Trifolium repens L) were replaced with annual and native grass until canopy closure resulted in loss of all pasture by tree age 13 years. In lower tree stocked areas these changes occurred more slowly so that by tree age 19 years, pasture species such as Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus) and annual grasses (Poa Species) still contributed to the ground cover. In the South Island trials, pasture persisted longer into the tree rotation. Open pasture (0 sph) retained similar pasture species to that at the trial commencement in all locations. A point analysis technique at one North Island site gave a good measure of ground surface cover over time

The Effects of Shelterbelts on Adjacent Pastures and Soils in a Temperate Climate

Two trials were conducted to differentiate the direct (exposure) from the indirect (modified soil fertility due to nutrient transfer by grazing animals) effects of farm shelterbelts on associated pasture growth.Soil from close to “unmanaged”shelterbelts with dense shelter to ground level had relatively high potassium (K) levels and, in a glasshouse situation, provided more pasture growth than soil from further distances, or from adjacent to “managed” shelterbelts. Pasture grown in boxes of a common soil implanted at increasing distances from a shelterbelt also produced highest growth rates close to shelter. These results generally explain the pattern of resident pasture growth, except for the closest (5 metre) distance which had the lowest pasture growth.This appears related to relatively low soil moisture levels at these sites, due either to rain shelter or tree root competition effects

Utilizing qualitative components of risk management as evidence on how university strategies meet QA criteria and standards

Risk management (RM) in higher education is becoming a new paradigm applied to quality assurance (QA) as the appetite for regulatory compliance becomes stronger than the one for accreditation or audit processes. This paper discusses how elements of RM can be embedded within university units to provide QA agencies with evidence of performance from the perspective of how decisions are arrived at. One way of documenting decisions and subsequent actions relating to rationale for actions taken by higher education institutions (HEIs) is through the inclusion of a SWOT analysis into the risk assessment process and linking these into existing institutional evaluative frameworks. Rather than only relying on formulaic results derived from externally or internally determined thresholds to gauge and judge university actions – and hence only focusing on whether these satisfy expectations – the use of SWOT adds a qualitative component that documents how risks and tolerance parameters are identified and then monitored in relation to identified and enacted institutional decisions at the institutional, unit or subunit levels

Asteroid amphitrite: Surface composition and prospects for the possible Galileo flyby

Studies of the trajectory of the Galileo mission to Jupiter recently revealed that the spacecraft can pass close to one of the largest asteroids (#29 Amphitrite). NASA has therefore altered the mission plan of the Galileo spacecraft to include a possible close flyby of Amphitrite in early December 1986, if the condition of the spacecraft allows. If this option is actually implemented, Amphitrite will become the only asteroid for which any high-spatial resolution images and reflection spectra will be available. To evaluate the value of this data and place Amphitrite in the context of the more than 600 asteroids for which some compositional information exists. Existing data was reexamined, new telescopic spectra of Amphitrite were obtained, and simulated Galileo data sets were constructed

High spatial resolution telescopic multispectral imaging and spectroscopy of the Moon. 1: The Serenitatis/Tranquillitatis border region

The region of the moon near the border between Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquillitatis is one of the most geologically and compositionally complex areas of the nearside. The geologic history of this region has been shaped by impacts of widely-varying spatial scale and temporal occurrence, by volcanism of variable style and composition with time, and by limited tectonism. We have been studying this region as part of a larger multi remote sensing technique effort to understand the composition, morphology, geology, and stratigraphy of the moon at spatial scales of 2 km or less. The effort has been aided by the proximity of this area to the Apollo 11, 15, and 17 landing sites and by the occurrence of one of the primary lunar spectroscopic 'standard areas' within our scene (MS2). Here, some of the findings from the multispectral imaging and spectroscopy part of this effort are reported

Dynamics and gravitational wave signature of collapsar formation

We perform 3+1 general relativistic simulations of rotating core collapse in the context of the collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts. We employ a realistic progenitor, rotation based on results of stellar evolution calculations, and a simplified equation of state. Our simulations track self-consistently collapse, bounce, the postbounce phase, black hole formation, and the subsequent early hyperaccretion phase. We extract gravitational waves from the spacetime curvature and identify a unique gravitational wave signature associated with the early phase of collapsar formatio

Dynamics and Gravitational Wave Signature of Collapsar Formation

We perform 3+1 general relativistic simulations of rotating core collapse in the context of the collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts. We employ a realistic progenitor, rotation based on results of stellar evolution calculations, and a simplified equation of state. Our simulations track self-consistently collapse, bounce, the postbounce phase, black hole formation, and the subsequent early hyperaccretion phase. We extract gravitational waves from the spacetime curvature and identify a unique gravitational wave signature associated with the early phase of collapsar formation