Award Data

Farmers, crop consultants, and regulators are constantly faced with management/policy decisions that require the integration of current crop and soil conditions, and current and future weather conditions. Farmers and crop consultants must make these management decisions within a regulatory environment that is becoming more restrictive and complex. Regulators are forced to make policy recommendatio ...

Ethylene is a growth hormone for fruits and vegetables that is generated by the plants themselves; that is, it acts as a self-ripening agent. Hence, the removal of ethylene gas can play a central role in maintaining the freshness of these products. Whereas the temperature and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide gases are also important system variables that demand a significant economic invest ...

A. Water must be removed from biodegradable hydraulic fluids as they react with water and degrade insitu. B. Biodegradable hydraulic fluids for farm equipment provide a significant improvement over traditional petroleum based fluids due to decreased pollution. Increase the use and value of biodegradable hydraulic fluids by development of a membrane-based dewatering system.

The use of biodiesel offers significant advantages with regards to the reduction of total harmful engine emissions with the exception of NOx. Biodiesel is a renewable resource and soybean oil is known to be economically viable as a biodiesel fuel. Recent studies from the Environmental Protection Agency have shown that soybean oil alone or blended with #2 diesel fuel results in a significant decrea ...

Summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus) are a valuable commercial and recreational species with a natural range from the southern Gulf of Maine to South Carolina. Landings of Atlantic flounders decreased from 90,000 mt in 1984 to 25,000 mt in 1994. Total annual landings of summer flounder peaked at 39.9 million pounds in 1979, but recently from 1990-2003 landings have been much lower, fluctuating ...

Worldwide surpluses of wool have depressed the price of wool and nearly eliminated the wool market, especially for the small medium sheep meat producer. These producers have large quantities of surplus wool, an unwanted by-product, which creates a waste disposal problem. The purpose of this project is to create a new value-added product with commercial potential using raw wool, a renewable resourc ...

Osmotic distillation is an excellent method for highly concentrating thermally sensitive liquids at low temperatures. However, commercial success of this process has been limited due to lack of membrane stability during the processing of economically interesting liquids. We believe that our high flux, non-porous perfluoromembrane is an ideal candidate for OD in that it has high flux rates and will ...

We propose to field demonstrate a web browser based decision support system (DSS) providing real-time remote monitoring of various sensors placed at the root depth, and compiling weather station data to provide growers with important information for making irrigation decisions. Key features of the system are the ability to access multiple remote sites that contain monitoring equipment, using softw ...

Adding value to an undervalued forest resource at the local level will benefit the economic, ecological and cultural health or rural forest dependent communities. A large percentage of hardwood is relegated to low value uses by virtue of naturally occurring character (knots, coloration, etc.). Many rural communities have abundant supplies of low value wood yet few opportunities currently exist to ...

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