Drainage water management impact on farm profitability

The representative farm planning model that is used for the 2005 Purdue University Top Farmer Crop Workshop base case was extended to include managed drainage activities in order to evaluate the impact of drainage management time on farm operations. The analysis considered two alternative enterprises: rotation corn soybeans with and without controlled drainage activities. The baseline solution assumed that controlled drainage has 10% higher average yields than free flowing drainage, one drainage control structure is needed each 20 acres, and all drainage management work was done on good field days. The results suggest that the baseline optimal solution was rotation corn-soybeans with controlled drainage where 1,500 acres were cultivated with corn following soybeans and 1,500 acres with soybeans following corn. Compared to the enterprise without controlled drainage, the annual returns to resources were 10% and 7.9% higher with and without EQIP subsidy respectively. Time opportunity cost for the managed drainage activities in each time period in the baseline solution was zero except for Dec. 6 Apr. 21 period when its value was $10/hour and 108.69 hours of labor were hired. This was because of the controlled drainage activities (both installation and boards removal occur in this time period) that completely utilize full-time field labor and require additional hours of part-time labor to be hired. When hiring part-time labor was not available, the optimal enterprise was rotation corn-soybeans with managed drainage on 2/3 of the farm and corn-soybeans without controlled drainage on 1/3 of the farmland for a total annual contribution margin of$675,505. Increasing labor available by one more hour would increase the profits by $281.30 (Dec 6 Apr. 21),$28.06 (Apr 22 Apr 25), $338.18 (Apr. 26 May 2),$229.48 (May 3 May 9), $9 (May 10 May 16),$28.07 (Nov. 1 Nov 14 and Nov 15-Dec 5). In the baseline scenario the yield advantage threshold for profitability of managed drainage was 2.3% and 4.5% with and without EQIP subsidy respectively.Farm Management,

SPATIOTEMPORAL MODELING OF AGRICULTURAL YIELD MONITOR DATA1

This paper shows that spatial panel data models can be successfully applied to an econometric analysis of farm-scale precision agriculture data. The application focuses on the estimation of the effect of controlled drainage water management equipment on corn yields. Using field-level precision agriculture data and spatial panel techniques, the yield response equation is estimated using the spatial autoregressive error random effects model with temporal heterogeneity, incorporating spatial dependence in the error term, while controlling for the topography, weather and the controlled drainage treatment. Controlling for random effects allows for the disentanglement of the effects of spatial dependence from spatial heterogeneity and omitted variables, and thus, to properly investigate the yield response. The results show that controlled drainage has a statistically significant effect on corn yields. The effect is generally positive but varies widely from year to year and field-to-field. For the two years of data controlled drainage was linked to a 2.2% increase in field average yield, but that varied from a -2.6% to a +6.5%. Evaluated at mean elevation and slope in the east part of the field, controlled drainage is associated with 10 bu/a increase and a 0.6 bu/a decrease in yields in 2005 and 2006, respectively. In the West part of the field, controlled drainage is associated with a 11 bu/a increase in 2006 and 2.81 bu/a decrease in 2005.Manufactured Housing; corn, drainage, precision agriculture, spatial panel model

Trapping of Rb atoms by ac electric fields

We demonstrate trapping of an ultracold gas of neutral atoms in a macroscopic ac electric trap. Three-dimensional confinement is obtained by switching between two saddle-point configurations of the electric field. Stable trapping is observed in a narrow range of switching frequencies around 60 Hz. The dynamic confinement of the atoms is directly visualized at different phases of the ac switching cycle. We observe about 10^5 Rb atoms in the 1 mm^3 large and several microkelvins deep trap with a lifetime of approximately 5 s.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; updated version, added journal referenc

Immense Potential of the Fisheries Industry as a Contributor to Oman’s Exports and Economic Development

Over the past 40 years, Oman has exhibited remarkable growth in various sectors such as infrastructure, retailing, manufacturing services and heavy industry. However, fisheries and related industries did not see much growth in the real sense. Previously, fish production in 2012 grew by 21% compared to 2011 and reached 191,000 tons in volume (or OMR142 million in value), striking an average growth rate of 6% between 2009 and 2012. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore the fisheries industry in Sultanate of Oman that could eventually help in Oman’s exports and economic development. The exploratory research and descriptive method that involving surveys and interview have been used in this study. As evident, three states of Oman being studied in this research: Sohar, Muscat and Salalah. Finally, the study found that the type of transportation used by the fishermen be traditional and modern boat because it has a significant relationship to the immense presence of fishes in the Arab waters. Traditional type of fishing boat can catch as many as 0 – 300 tons, while modern type boat can catch 0 – 500 tons of fish whenever they go fishing. This scenario can bring forth a better view on how Omani people can prosper vis-a-vis with Oman’s economic diversification where the government and the Omani people will unite with one purpose. Keywords: Fisheries Industry, Oman; Exploratory, Commercial Fisherman, Artisanal Fisherman DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-12-06 Publication date: April 30th 202

Riqueza específica de las Carabidae (Insecta, Coleoptera) de los suelos de la Reserva Integral Laguna de los Padres, Partido de General Pueyrredón, provincia de Buenos Aires : Resultados de diez años de muestreos (1999-2009)

Fil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICETFil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICE

Distribución temporal y espacial de Paranortes cordicollis y Pachymorphus striatulus (Coleoptera, Carabide) en dos ambientes edáficos de la Laguna Nahuel Rucá, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICETFil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICETFil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin

Dominancia estacional de las Carabidae edáficas (Insecta, Coleoptera) en dos ambientes de la Reserva Integral Laguna de los Padres, Partido de General Pueyrredón, provincia de Buenos Aires

Fil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICETFil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICE

Distribución temporal y espacial de Loxandrus simplex y Loxandrus planicollis (Coleoptera, Carabide) en la Laguna Nahuel Rucá

Fil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICETFil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICETFil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin

Rasgos biológicos y fenología estacional de Bradycellus viduus (Dejean, 1829) (Insecta, Coleoptera, Harpalini) en el sudeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICETFil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICE

Riqueza específica y estructura de dominancia del ensamble de carábidos edáficos (Coleoptera, Carabidae) del saucedal (Salix humboldtiana) de Laguna de los Padres (Buenos Aires, Argentina) durante el período invernal

Fil: Porrini, Darío P.. CONICETFil: Castro, Adela V.. CONICETFil: Cicchino, Armando Conrado. División Entomología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin