Ammonium (NH3) is released from uric acid of chicken feces. Good management practices are required to depress ammonium concentration in a litter. Several research findings showed that application of ...CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) can decrease ammonium concentration in a litter. Eggshell as a by-product of hennery (hen stable) and hatchery is mainly constructed from CaCO3. This research aimed to evaluate the addition of hen eggshell powder at different concentration in litter on water content, pH, microorganism, and NH3 concentration of litter. Rice husk as litter material, hen eggshell powder at a concentration of 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% and hen manure were thoroughly mixed. After 24 hours, the concentration of water content, pH, microorganisms amount and NH3 in each treatment were measured. This research was completely randomized designed with 3 repetitions. Results showed the progressive addition of hen eggshell powder in litter until 15% increased pH and decreased water content, number of microorganisms and NH3 concentration. The addition of 15% hen eggshell powder in litter revealed best litter properties.Keywords: ammonium, hen eggshell, litter, pH, water content
This research aims at investigating the impact of microclimatic ammonia change on Broiler’s performance in closed house during dry season. Seven hundred and twenty broiler’s with their initial ...weight of 49.29 ± 1.13 grams are kept in a 60 x 12 m2 cage.The research consists of 4 treatments and 6 experiment units. The microclimatic ammonia change is measured at a distance of 0, ¼, ½, and ¾ of closed house’s length from the inlet. The parameters observed are feed consumption, body weight gain (BWG), feed convertion ratio (FCR), performance index (PI) and Income Over Feed Cost (IOFC). The obtained data are subjected to analysis of variance and several data related to microclimatic ammonia and heat stress index (HSI) are also calculted for their correlation to find out their correlation with the broiler’s’s performance. The research results indicate that the microclimatic ammonia change significantly reduces Broiler’s performance. This is shown by the significant increase of FCR value, decrease of feed consumption, BWG, PI and IOFC (P≤0.05) starting from a distance of ¼ of cage length from the inlet. The correlation analysis result shows a negative, significant correlation between performance with ammonia, while HSI does not show any correlation with the observed parameters. The conclusion of this research is that the increase in microclimatic ammonia at increasingly further distance from the inlet decreases Broiler’s performance in dry season.
•Conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification participatory research.•Reduced both labor use and production costs by 40%.•Increased gross margins by up to 25%.•Reduced drudgery for ...women and youth who do the majority of menial, laborious tasks.•Results applicable for a wide range of smallholder farming communities.
The Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia is a region of high rural poverty and low agronomic productivity, with crops grown using traditional management practices which are labor-intensive and uneconomical. Poor agronomic productivity is largely caused by unintentional, inefficient management practices which are exacerbated by labor shortages caused by increased migration away from rural areas as households require additional income from remittances. These labor shortages increase the cost of hiring labor, further contributing to low gross margins from cropping systems. The climates, soils and available water across the region indicate that, with improved management practices, this region has the potential to produce high yields for low production costs and labor requirements, ensuring high gross margins for smallholder farmers. We conducted on-farm participatory trials to compare the performance of traditional and improved conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification management practices to understand which used less labor, had lower production costs and returned higher gross margins to smallholder farmers. Our study showed that compared to traditional management practices, conservation agriculture-based sustainable intensification practices reduced both labor use and total cropping system production costs by around 40% and increased gross margins by up to 25%. Trials were conducted on over 400 farms and thus our results are both statistically rigorous and representative of a range of common crop production management across the Eastern Gangetic Plains. These results show there is potential to increase livelihoods and reduce the impact of labor shortages for smallholder farmers living in diverse climatic, edaphic and social circumstances across the region. They have broader applications in labor-constrained smallholder cropping systems throughout South Asia and worldwide.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
34.
Bioenergy Development Cushion, Elizabeth; Whiteman, Adrian; Dieterle, Gerhard
2010, 2009, 12-28-2009, 2009-12-28, 20100101
eBook, Book
Open access
These report overviews recent developments in the consumption and production of bioenergy. It examines the main issues and possible economic implications of these developments and assesses their ...potential impact on land use and the environment, especially with respect to forests. The report examines both solid biomass and liquid biofuels, identifying opportunities and challenges at the regional and country levels. The development of bioenergy presents both opportunities and challenges for economic development and the environment. It is likely to have significant impacts on the forest sector, directly, through the use of wood for energy production, and indirectly, as a result of changes in land use. The impact of bioenergy on poverty alleviation in developing countries will depend on the opportunities for agricultural development, including income and employment generation, the potential to increase poor peoples' access to improved types of bioenergy; and the effects on energy and food prices. Five main messages emerge from this report: solid biomass will continue to be a principal source of energy; developments in bioenergy will have major implications for land use; tradeoffs, including those related to poverty, equity, and the environment, must be evaluated when choosing a bioenergy system; there is considerable potential for making greater use of forestry and timber waste as a bioenergy feedstock; and the climate benefits of bioenergy development are uncertain and highly location and feedstock specific.
Problem Definition
:
Many production systems deteriorate over time as a result of load and stress caused by production. The deterioration rate of these systems typically depends on the production ...rate, implying that the equipment’s deterioration rate can be controlled by adjusting the production rate. We introduce the use of condition monitoring to dynamically adjust the production rate to minimize maintenance costs and maximize production revenues. We study a single-unit system for which the next maintenance action is scheduled upfront.
Academic/Practical Relevance
:
Condition-based maintenance decisions are frequently seen in the literature. However, in many real-life systems, maintenance planning has limited flexibility and cannot be done last minute. As an alternative, we are the first to propose using condition information to optimize the production rate, which is a more flexible short-term decision.
Methodology
:
We derive structural optimality results from the analysis of deterministic deterioration processes. A Markov decision process formulation of the problem is used to obtain numerical results for stochastic deterioration processes.
Results
:
The structure of the optimal policy strongly depends on the (convex or concave) relation between the production rate and the corresponding deterioration rate. Condition-based production rate decisions result in significant cost savings (by up to 50%), achieved by better balancing the failure risk and production output. For several systems a win-win scenario is observed, with both reduced failure risk and increased expected total production. Furthermore, condition-based production rates increase robustness and lead to more stable profits and production output.
Managerial Implications
:
Using condition information to dynamically adjust production rates provides opportunities to improve the operational performance of systems with production-dependent deterioration.
Citrus trees grown in the field undergo various types and levels of stress continuously. The stressors can be a number of things for example, heat, cold, drought, soil pH, chemicals, pests, and ...disease. In addition, the constant presence of Huanglongbing and psyllid–infestation adds additional stress to the trees, which compromises the plant response and makes the trees susceptible to number of other diseases. Off-season and prolonged flowering is a well-known response of trees when undergoing various stress conditions; this is also cultivar specific. For example, ‘Navel’ and ‘Valencia’ are well known to have prolonged flowering periods with sporadic flowering during the fall. Generally, off-season and prolonged flowering is not a great concern, but when combined with heavy rainfall and warm weather this can increase the threat of postbloom fruit drop (PFD).
Timely and accurate monitoring of crops is essential for food security. Here, we examine how well solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) can inform crop productivity across the United States. ...Based on tower‐level observations and process‐based modeling, we find highly linear gross primary production (GPP):SIF relationships for C4 crops, while C3 crops show some saturation of GPP at high light when SIF continues to increase. C4 crops yield higher GPP:SIF ratios (30–50%) primarily because SIF is most sensitive to the light reactions (does not account for photorespiration). Scaling to the satellite, we compare SIF from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) against tower‐derived GPP and county‐level crop statistics. Temporally, TROPOMI SIF strongly agrees with GPP observations upscaled across a corn and soybean dominated cropland (R2 = 0.89). Spatially, county‐level TROPOMI SIF correlates with crop productivity (R2 = 0.72; 0.86 when accounting for planted area and C3/C4 contributions), highlighting the potential of SIF for reliable crop monitoring.
Plain Language Summary
Crop monitoring is essential for ensuring food security, but reliable, instantaneous production estimates at the global scale are lacking. The monitoring of crop production in a changing climate is of paramount importance to sustainable food security. Accurate estimates of crop production are dependent on adequately quantifying crop photosynthesis. Our paper demonstrates that solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), an emission of red to far‐red light from chlorophyll is highly correlated with crop photosynthesis. We show that a new high spatial resolution satellite SIF data set is highly correlated with crop productivity in the United States, which is benchmarked by the United States Department of Agriculture county‐level crop statistics. These results will improve the understanding of crop production and carbon flux over agricultural lands, as well as provide an accurate, large‐scale, and timely monitoring method for global crop production estimates.
Key Points
The photosynthetic pathway (C3, C4) impacts the relationship between CO2 uptake and SIF, which helps to interpret satellite signals
TROPOMI SIF agrees well with the seasonality of crop gross primary production (GPP) when accounting for C3/C4 fractionation
TROPOMI SIF is highly correlated with USDA reported crop productivity at the county scale
Full text
Available for:
FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
•Techno-econoic and carbon footprint analysis for methylcyclohexane dehydrogenation in a membrane reactor (MR).•Levelized costs of H2 (LCOHs) for various H2 capacities obtained.•Effects of each ...techno-economic parameter on LCOH confirmed.•CO2 emissions from both a packed-bed reactor and an MR compared.
As the global trend towards transition to a “hydrogen society” continues to gain momentum, a lot of studies on alternative hydrogen (H2) production methods are on the rise. Among them, methylcyclohexane (MCH) dehydrogenation in a membrane reactor (MR) is reported here as one possible candidate, affording its enhanced H2 yield and a compact design. In this study, techno-economic analysis and carbon footprint analysis (CFA) of MCH dehydrogenation in an MR are carried out to investigate economic and environmental feasibility providing techno-economic and environmental guidelines for realizing it as mature technology. The economic parameters are determined through process simulation using Aspen Plus®, and the unit H2 production costs are obtained for a packed-bed reactor (PBR) and an MR in H2 production capacities of 30, 100, 300, and 700 m3 h−1. The effects of each economic parameter on the unit H2 production cost are identified through sensitivity analysis (SA) and scenario analysis is performed under various conditions to investigate the effects of technical parameters of the membrane, such as the H2 production capacity, temperature, and H2 permeance on the unit H2 production costs. CFA is also performed to investigate the environmental feasibility of MCH dehydrogenation in an MR by considering CO2 emissions at each part.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
In citrus, Huanglongbing (HLB) causes an increase in mature fruit drop rate up to 3 months prior to commercial harvest (“preharvest fruit drop”), resulting in a great reduction in yield and ...difficulty in grove management. In summary, research results demonstrate a clear relationship between HLB severity, fruit size and preharvest fruit drop. Fruit of severely symptomatic trees are smaller and have a higher tendency to drop prior to harvest compared to those of trees displaying less symptoms. This strongly suggests that maintaining tree health is a key to control preharvest fruit drop in HLB-affected trees.
PDF
