Evaluation of Herbicide Programs for Liberty Link Sweet Corn Hybrids

The recent introduction and availability of Liberty Link sweet corn hybrids provides growers with new options for postemergence weed control. The Liberty Link technology utilizes specially developed hybrids that are tolerant to Liberty 280 SL (glufosinate), a foliar applied, broad-spectrum herbicide with no residual control. The objective of this study was to evaluate and identify the best strategies for using Liberty 280 SL in a sweet corn weed management program

Evaluating Zidua Herbicide for Use in Potato Production

Zidua (pyroxasulfone) is a relatively new herbicide from BASF currently being used in corn, soybeans, and wheat. In the future, BASF would like to expand the Zidua label to include additional crops such as potatoes. In support of this goal, we conducted a field trial in 2014 to evaluate weed control effectiveness and potato crop tolerance to Zidua when used alone and in combination with other herbicides in a potato production system

Muscatine Island Research Farm Summary

Contains the Farm and Weather Summary for the Muscatine Island Research and Demonstration Farm

Quantifying Nitrogen Scavenging Benefits of Cover Crops in the Mississippi River Basin

The sandy soils of Muscatine County, Iowa, are prone to erosion and leaching. In the fall, leftover fertilizer applied to the corn and soybean crop is highly susceptible to leaching. Cover crops have been widely acclaimed to mitigate such issues as they prevent erosion and scavenge residual nitrogen. Although these attributes are widely known, adoption of cover crops has been slow. Information on cover crop planting dates, performance, and advantages are available, but few data are available that is applicable to Iowa soils and growing conditions

Investigation of Multi-Input, Multi-Output (MIMO) Random Control Applied to Direct Field Acoustic Testing

Direct Field Acoustic Testing (DFAT) offers potential cost and time savings over reverberant chamber acoustic testing of spacecraft. The NASA Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Program recently directed a series of acoustic tests on Orion structural test articles comparing DFAT and reverberant testing of the same test article with a view to qualifying DFAT for manned space flight vehicles. The verification process compared four parameters noise level compliance with the one third octave test specification, spatial uniformity of the acoustic field, spatial correlation of the acoustic field and vibration response of vehicle structure, including representative solar array panels. While the results of the verification were encouraging, MPCV Loads and Dynamics engaged Quartus Engineering to investigate whether alternative MIMO random control strategies might improve the spatial uniformity and/or the spatial correlation of the DFAT acoustic field. This paper presents the results of acoustic field simulations of the DFAT test and provides a better understanding of how MIMO random control systems originally developed for vibration and structural durability testing can be expected to perform in DFAT testing

Inductive Praxis and Management Research: Towards a Reflexive Framework

This paper examines how induction legitimately varies according to the impact of different knowledge constituting philosophical assumptions. As a result of its prevalence in qualitative management research, the paper focuses on grounded theory and uses this as a vehicle to explore the key parameters of the philosophical diversity articulated in judgements around neutrality, description and theorization. A reflexive framework of inductive praxis is offered as a heuristic device for interrogating the choices evidently at play in the variable constitution of inductive management research. We indicate how there are multiple modes of engagement, each of which is legitimate within its own philosophical commitments. This implies the need for a more tolerant pluralistic stance in the evaluation of qualitative management research

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM