Award Data

Energy expenses are typically a significant portion of a farm's budget - often as much as 10 percent of total costs. Agriculture has been hit hard by recent energy price increases, with small farms feeling the negative effects the most. This project will assess the feasibility of using long-term thermal storage where renewable energy can be captured when available and cached into a thermal storage ...

Nitrate is an important nutrient for crop production. Soils with excess nitrate amounts and shallow groundwater tables pose a high risk to nitrate leaching into drinking water supplies. A shortage of nitrate decreases agricultural productivity. Measurement of soil nitrate content is a tedious, time consuming, and expensive process. Currently, there are no commercial sensors for in-situ nitrate det ...

Over the next decade there will be a renewed emphasis on the production of chemicals and liquid fuels from biomass, the use of agricultural wastes as feedstocks, and the development of crops and farming techniques optimized for fuel production. In view of the tremendous diversity of biomass feedstocks, a great need exists for a robust, comprehensive model that could be utilized to predict yields, ...

Agricultural activities produce large quantities of animal wastes in the form of manures. Currently, the accumulation of manures from animal husbandry operations is a serious threat to water supplies. The technology for conversion of poultry manure into fuel gases by using heat can be integrated with internal combustion (IC) engines, microturnines, or fuel cells and have widespread agricultural us ...

Up until the early twentieth century, several commodity chemicals were produced by the pyrolysis of hardwoods (e.g., methanol, acetic acid, acetone) or the extraction of softwoods (turpentine, terpenes, rosins, pitches, and tars). The expected long term increase in petroleum and natural gas prices will cause a gradual but steady return to biomass feedstocks over the next several decades. Other dri ...

Commercial carrot processors in the Midwest must rely on produce from the South and West during spring and early summer. The quality of these carrots is much poorer than the processors desire, and they must pay a premium price for the out-of-season produce. Their goal is to store locally grown, lower-cost carrots through winter and then use this produce in place of the more expensive carrots fro ...

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Apple sales (due to competition with Chinese imports) have dropped considerably causing many farms to close. A value added apple product has been invented, yet is inconsitant in its process. The purpose of this research is to find a method of creating and replicating Cider Syrup as a method to market apples while maintaining nutritive qualities of apples.

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