The effects of commercial rhizobium inoculants on the establishment of Trifolium subterraneum in southwest Oregon soils

Commercial inoculant products for subclover that are marketed in the Pacific Northwest were evaluated in field trials (supplemented by appropriate laboratory analysis) at four sites in southwest Oregon. The materials tested were Nitragin (Milwaukee, WI) and Northrup-King (Minneapolis, MN) peat-based inocula, and Celpril (Manteca, CA) inoculated, lime-pelleted subclover seed. Duplicate plots were included for the peat inocula at seeding rates equivalent to 136 kg seed/ha and the seed was inoculated according to the manufacturer's instructions and at twice the recommended dosage. The Celpril seed was tested at 196, 98, 49, and 25 kg seed/ha. (duplicate plots) and subclover variety Mt. Baker was used for all field trials. In plant infection assays, the Nitragin produce contained 3.7 x 10⁵ rhizobia/gram peat which were moderately effective while the Northrup-King peat yielded 3.0 x 10⁴ rhizobia/gram peat which were ineffective. The Celpril seed contained 77.3 rhizobia seed which were highly effective. Laboratory analysis showed that for the peatbased products the probability of ineffective nodulation was high. The field plots were established in October, 1978. The plants germinated and were then exposed to an unusually harsh winter which included the coldest average January temperature ever recorded for Oregon. Most of the plants inoculated with Nitragin and Northrup-King survived the winter and by March, 1979, had developed 12-14 true leaves and an immature, but well nodulated root system. The Nitragin-inoculated plants generally showed higher yields than Northrup-King-inoculated plants, most of the difference between them generally were statistically significant. In the Celpril plots, only a few plants at the higher seeding rates survived the winter. Those which survived showed vigorous growth and dry weights were generally significantly greater than those for the peatbased inoculated seeds. The results indicate that for winter legumes, a commercial product must contain a sufficient number of effective rhizobia, which are able to tolerate wet, cold soil conditions. Above all, no inoculant should contain rhizobia which ineffectively nodulate subclover. Celpril proved to be the superior product. This may be because pelleted products inoculated with single effective rhizobia are superior to multistrain peat-based inocula

Attempted density blowup in a freely cooling dilute granular gas: hydrodynamics versus molecular dynamics

It has been recently shown (Fouxon et al. 2007) that, in the framework of ideal granular hydrodynamics (IGHD), an initially smooth hydrodynamic flow of a granular gas can produce an infinite gas density in a finite time. Exact solutions that exhibit this property have been derived. Close to the singularity, the granular gas pressure is finite and almost constant. This work reports molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a freely cooling gas of nearly elastically colliding hard disks, aimed at identifying the "attempted" density blowup regime. The initial conditions of the simulated flow mimic those of one particular solution of the IGHD equations that exhibits the density blowup. We measure the hydrodynamic fields in the MD simulations and compare them with predictions from the ideal theory. We find a remarkable quantitative agreement between the two over an extended time interval, proving the existence of the attempted blowup regime. As the attempted singularity is approached, the hydrodynamic fields, as observed in the MD simulations, deviate from the predictions of the ideal solution. To investigate the mechanism of breakdown of the ideal theory near the singularity, we extend the hydrodynamic theory by accounting separately for the gradient-dependent transport and for finite density corrections.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication on Physical Review

Spontaneous Lorentz Violation and the Long-Range Gravitational Preferred-Frame Effect

Lorentz-violating operators involving Standard Model fields are tightly constrained by experimental data. However, bounds are more model-independent for Lorentz violation appearing in purely gravitational couplings. The spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance by the vacuum expectation value of a vector field selects a universal rest frame. This affects the propagation of the graviton, leading to a modification of Newton's law of gravity. We compute the size of the long-range preferred-frame effect in terms of the coefficients of the two-derivative operators in the low-energy effective theory that involves only the graviton and the Goldstone bosons.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, revtex4. v4: Replaced to match version to appear in Phys. Lett. B (minor corrections of form

TESS Data Release Notes: Sector 18 DR25

This release note discusses the science data products produced by the Science Processing Operations Center at Ames Research Center from Sector 18 observations made with the TESS spacecraft and cameras as a means to document instrument performance and data characteristics

TESS Data Release Notes: Sector 17, DR24

This release note discusses the science data products produced by the Science Processing Operations Center at Ames Research Center from Sector 17 observations made with the TESS spacecraft and cameras as a means to document instrument performance and data characteristics

TESS Data Release Notes: Sector 16, DR22

This release note discusses the science data products produced by the Science Processing Operations Center at Ames Research Center from Sector 16 observations made with the TESS spacecraft and cameras as a means to document instrument performance and data characteristics

TESS Data Release Notes: Sector 20, DR27

This release note discusses the science data products produced by the Science Processing Operations Center at Ames Research Center from Sector 20 observations made with the TESS spacecraft and cameras as a means to document instrument performance and data characteristics

Resilience Assessment : International Best Practice Principles

PURPOSE This document sets out international best-practice principles for resilience assessment being undertaken within an impact assessment (IA) of some project, plan, programme, or policy (in this context, its function may be different to that of a self-standing resilience assessment). Resilience assessment can contribute to impact assessment by defining specific disturbances that can lead to failure of natural, social, and engineered systems. The disturbance can be caused either by the proposed action, factors beyond the influence of proposed action, or combination of both. The impact assessment can consider all these factors within one coherent framework. It can identify synergies and knock-on effects that can cause potential system failures, and advise on interventions that avoid failures in the critical functions of the system BACKGROUND Resilience assessment evaluates the structure and function of a system of focus (hereafter ‘focal system’) and, in the context of an impact assessment, focuses on the effects of the proposed action on the resilience of that focal system. The focal system can include: socio-ecological, biophysical, engineering, technological, or other components. Resilience assessment should ideally examine the consequences of the proposed action in combination with internal or external factors that may collectively influence the resilience of the focal system (e.g., biophysical system change caused by global warming on engineered structures)

TESS Data Release Notes: Sector 9 DR11

This release note discusses the science data products produced by the Science Processing Operations Center at Ames Research Center from Sector 9 observations made with the TESS spacecraft and cameras as a means to document instrument performance and data characteristics