Registration of ‘Purple Bounty’ and ‘Purple Prosperity’ hairy vetch

The hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cultivars ‘Purple Bounty’ (Reg. no. CV-12, PI 648342) and ‘Purple Prosperity’ (Reg. no. CV-11, PI 654047) were released in 2007 and 2008, respectively, by the USDA–ARS in collaboration with the Rodale Institute and the agricultural experiment stations of Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. Hairy vetch is a commonly used annual legume cover crop grown for its cold tolerance, fast growth, large biomass production, and ability to fix N2. However, this species has not been selected for the traits needed to optimize its use as a cover crop. Our breeding program focused on developing a cultivar that was both early flowering and had adequate winter survival and therefore adapted to mechanical termination in organic no-till production in the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity were developed between 1998 and 2005 using recurrent selection at nurseries in Beltsville and Keedysville, MD. In 2005–2006, selections were evaluated against commercial checks for flowering time in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and in the 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 seasons they were evaluated in 10 locations (12 total site-years) across the United States for winter survival. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity both flowered earlier than the commercial material against which they were tested (significance depended on the date and site); Purple Bounty was the earlier flowering of the two cultivars. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity also had equivalent or improved winter survival compared with ‘AU Early Cover’, an early-maturing cultivar developed in the southern United States, at all test locations. Purple Prosperity is no longer commercially available, but Purple Bounty is currently licensed and distributed by Allied Seed (Nampa, ID)

Deep Learning Mixture-of-Experts Approach for Cytotoxic Edema Assessment in Infants and Children

This paper presents a deep learning framework for image classification aimed at increasing predictive performance for Cytotoxic Edema (CE) diagnosis in infants and children. The proposed framework includes two 3D network architectures optimized to learn from two types of clinical MRI data , a trace Diffusion Weighted Image (DWI) and the calculated Apparent Diffusion Coefficient map (ADC). This work proposes a robust and novel solution based on volumetric analysis of 3D images (using pixels from time slices) and 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) models. While simple in architecture, the proposed framework shows significant quantitative results on the domain problem. We use a dataset curated from a Childrens Hospital Colorado (CHCO) patient registry to report a predictive performance F1 score of 0.91 at distinguishing CE patients from children with severe neurologic injury without CE. In addition, we perform analysis of our systems output to determine the association of CE with Abusive Head Trauma (AHT) , a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) associated with abuse , and overall functional outcome and in hospital mortality of infants and young children. We used two clinical variables, AHT diagnosis and Functional Status Scale (FSS) score, to arrive at the conclusion that CE is highly correlated with overall outcome and that further study is needed to determine whether CE is a biomarker of AHT. With that, this paper introduces a simple yet powerful deep learning based solution for automated CE classification. This solution also enables an indepth analysis of progression of CE and its correlation to AHT and overall neurologic outcome, which in turn has the potential to empower experts to diagnose and mitigate AHT during early stages of a childs life.Comment: 7 figure

Winter cereal species, cultivar, and harvest timing affect trade-offs between forage quality and yield

Volatile feed costs and extreme weather events are contributing to greater economic risk and precarity throughout much of the United States dairy industry. These challenges have prompted dairy farmers to seek ways to reduce feed imports without compromising milk production. For organic dairy farmers, the need to produce more homegrown forage is exacerbated by the high cost and limited supply of organic feed. Integrating winter cereals for forage as part of a double-cropping system is a potential solution, but increasing the amount of forage in dairy cow rations can reduce milk production if the forages are not managed for optimal quality. Organically managed field experiments in Maryland (MD) and New York (NY) were conducted to address two primary objectives: (1) determine the yield and quality of winter cereals—four cultivars each for barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), cereal rye (Secale cereale L.), and triticale (× Triticosecale Wittm. ex A. Camus.)—grown as forage and harvested at different crop growth stages, and (2) evaluate the trade-offs between yield and quality in relation to winter cereal phenology and harvest date. Mean yield at a commonly harvested growth stage, swollen boot (Zadoks 45), was 1.3, 2.2, and 2.2 Mg ha−1 in MD and 1.8, 2.5, and 2.9 Mg ha−1 in NY for barley, cereal rye, and triticale, respectively. Mean relative forage quality (RFQ) at the same growth stage was 180, 158, and 163 in MD and 179, 156, and 157 in NY for the three species. Overall, cereal rye reached swollen boot stage the earliest, barley produced the highest RFQ and retained high quality the longest, and cereal rye and triticale produced the highest yields. Based on these results, farmers should consider barley cultivars if quality is the priority and winter-hardiness is not a concern; cereal rye cultivars if an early harvest is most important; and triticale cultivars if greater harvest schedule flexibility would be most valuable. These findings can be used to better meet the needs of dairy farmers, enhance double-cropping system performance, and improve the synchronization of harvest timing with the specific needs of lactating dairy cows, dry cows, heifers, and calves

Confronting herbicide resistance with cooperative management

Resistance of pathogens and pests to antibiotics and pesticides worldwide is rapidly reaching critical levels. The common-pool-resource nature of this problem (i.e., whereby the susceptibility to treatment of target organisms is a shared resource) has been largely overlooked. Using herbicide-resistant weeds as a model system, we developed a discrete-time landscape-scale simulation to investigate how aggregating herbicide management strategies at different spatial scales from individual farms to larger cooperative structures affects the evolution of glyphosate resistance in common waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus).Our findings indicate that high-efficacy herbicide management strategies practiced at the farm scale are insufficient to slow resistance evolution in A. tuberculatus. When best practices were aggregated at large spatial scales, resistance evolution was hindered; conversely, when poor management practices were aggregated, resistance was exacerbated. Tank mixture-based strategies were more effective than rotation-based strategies in most circumstances, while applying glyphosate alone resulted in the poorest outcomes.Our findings highlight the importance of landscape-scale cooperative management for confronting common-pool-resource resistance problems in weeds and other analogous systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Seed-shattering phenology at soybean harvest of economically important weeds in multiple regions of the United States. Part 3: Drivers of seed shatter

Seed retention, and ultimately seed shatter, are extremely important for the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) and are likely influenced by various agroecological and environmental factors. Field studies investigated seed-shattering phenology of 22 weed species across three soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]-producing regions in the United States. We further evaluated the potential drivers of seed shatter in terms of weather conditions, growing degree days, and plant biomass. Based on the results, weather conditions had no consistent impact on weed seed shatter. However, there was a positive correlation between individual weed plant biomass and delayed weed seed-shattering rates during harvest. This work demonstrates that HWSC can potentially reduce weed seedbank inputs of plants that have escaped early-season management practices and retained seed through harvest. However, smaller individuals of plants within the same population that shatter seed before harvest pose a risk of escaping early-season management and HWSC

Seed-shattering phenology at soybean harvest of economically important weeds in multiple regions of the United States. Part 1: Broadleaf species

Potential effectiveness of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) systems depends upon seed shatter of the target weed species at crop maturity, enabling its collection and processing at crop harvest. However, seed retention likely is influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed-shatter phenology in 13 economically important broadleaf weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after physiological maturity at multiple sites spread across 14 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. Greater proportions of seeds were retained by weeds in southern latitudes and shatter rate increased at northern latitudes. Amaranthus spp. seed shatter was low (0% to 2%), whereas shatter varied widely in common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) (2% to 90%) over the weeks following soybean physiological maturity. Overall, the broadleaf species studied shattered less than 10% of their seeds by soybean harvest. Our results suggest that some of the broadleaf species with greater seed retention rates in the weeks following soybean physiological maturity may be good candidates for HWSC

Seed-shattering phenology at soybean harvest of economically important weeds in multiple regions of the United States. Part 2: Grass species

Seed shatter is an important weediness trait on which the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) depends. The level of seed shatter in a species is likely influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed shatter of eight economically important grass weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after maturity at multiple sites spread across 11 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. From soybean maturity to 4 wk after maturity, cumulative percent seed shatter was lowest in the southern U.S. regions and increased moving north through the states. At soybean maturity, the percent of seed shatter ranged from 1% to 70%. That range had shifted to 5% to 100% (mean: 42%) by 25 d after soybean maturity. There were considerable differences in seed-shatter onset and rate of progression between sites and years in some species that could impact their susceptibility to HWSC. Our results suggest that many summer annual grass species are likely not ideal candidates for HWSC, although HWSC could substantially reduce their seed output during certain years

Agricultural Research Service Weed Science Research: Past, Present, and Future

The U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) has been a leader in weed science research covering topics ranging from the development and use of integrated weed management (IWM) tactics to basic mechanistic studies, including biotic resistance of desirable plant communities and herbicide resistance. ARS weed scientists have worked in agricultural and natural ecosystems, including agronomic and horticultural crops, pastures, forests, wild lands, aquatic habitats, wetlands, and riparian areas. Through strong partnerships with academia, state agencies, private industry, and numerous federal programs, ARS weed scientists have made contributions to discoveries in the newest fields of robotics and genetics, as well as the traditional and fundamental subjects of weed-crop competition and physiology and integration of weed control tactics and practices. Weed science at ARS is often overshadowed by other research topics; thus, few are aware of the long history of ARS weed science and its important contributions. This review is the result of a symposium held at the Weed Science Society of America\u27s 62nd Annual Meeting in 2022 that included 10 separate presentations in a virtual Weed Science Webinar Series. The overarching themes of management tactics (IWM, biological control, and automation), basic mechanisms (competition, invasive plant genetics, and herbicide resistance), and ecosystem impacts (invasive plant spread, climate change, conservation, and restoration) represent core ARS weed science research that is dynamic and efficacious and has been a significant component of the agency\u27s national and international efforts. This review highlights current studies and future directions that exemplify the science and collaborative relationships both within and outside ARS. Given the constraints of weeds and invasive plants on all aspects of food, feed, and fiber systems, there is an acknowledged need to face new challenges, including agriculture and natural resources sustainability, economic resilience and reliability, and societal health and well-being