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Identification of Genomic Regions Associated With Color-Related Traits in Durum Wheat
Get PDFDurum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum Desf.) is one of the main crops for human consumption, and it is an essential ingredient for pasta production. The color of pasta can range from bright yellow to dim brown. Pasta brightness and yellowness are important quality indicators for producers and customers. Releasing durum wheat cultivars capable of producing pasta products with high yellow color can be an important goal for breeders. Yellow pigment content (YPC) is one of the important components that affect pasta color. The yellow color of pasta is not necessarily dictated by the presence of YPC; soluble brown pigment (SBP) and enzymes such as polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and peroxide (POD) are other factors that contribute to pasta color. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) can accelerate the selection process for breeding programs that develop new durum wheat cultivars with high yellow color. This dissertation used quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping to identify QTL for these color-related traits. Two populations, each with 192 recombinant inbred lines (RILs), were developed from crosses between Joppa and D12118 (Population one [POP1]) and Mountrail and Carpio (Population two [POP2]). The phenotyping of these traits was carried out in two locations in North Dakota, USA. Genotyping of the RIL populations was conducted using the wheat Illumina iSelect 90K SNP assay. There were significant phenotypic differences among the genotypes for all traits. In POP1, entry lines 32 and 78 with both high YPC and low SBP, and in POP 2 entry lines 1, 82, and 101 with high YPC could be excellent sources for improving the yellow color in durum wheat. In this study, 31 Additive QTL (A-QTL) and 370 minor digenic epistatic QTL (DE-QTL) associated with all four traits were identified. In Pop1, the most significant A-QTL were detected on Chromosomes 5A (D1.SBP5A.ndsu) for SBP and 5B (D1.YPC5B.ndsu) and 6B (D1.YPC6B.ndsu) for YPC. In POP2, major A-QTL were found on chromosomes 7A (D2.YPC7A.ndsu), 2A (D2.PPO2A.ndsu), and 3A (D2.POD3A.ndsu) for YPC, PPO, and POD, respectively. The information provided in the current study could be employed with MAS to increase selection efficiency and improve the color of durum wheat
Conceptual Cost Estimation of Highway Earthwork Construction in Iowa Using Spatial Statistical Modeling
Get PDFEstimating cost at the conceptual phase of highway earthwork construction projects is challenging owing to the limited amount of information present at the initial stages. Methods that have been applied in the past to perform such estimates are regression, mathematical equations, artificial intelligence, and others. The objective of this research is to use two spatial statistical methods ? indicator kriging and empirical Bayesian kriging ? together with exponential, whittle, and k-Bessel semi-variograms to build an appropriate model to predict highway earthwork construction cost at the conceptual stage. Iowa Department of Transportation provided the data for the study. The cross-validation results were used to compare the performance of the kriging algorithms. It was observed that the exponential semi-variogram showed better performance for both types of kriging when they were analyzed separately. However, indicator kriging results were more accurate than empirical Bayesian kriging when they were compared for the same type of semi-variogram
Corn Response to Sulfur in the Red River Valley
Get PDFSulfur (S) deficiency symptoms are becoming common to crops grown in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota. Corn (Zea mays L.) response to incremental sulfate-S (0, 11, 22, 33, and 44 kg S ha-1) was studied (n=12) during the 2018-2020 growing seasons in a series of experiments. Corn yield and S uptake did not respond to S fertilizer (P?0.05) additions, but yield varied across sites. Ten out of 12 sites showed an increase in grain yield over control but not significant. Corn, spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) responses to S forms were also studied. Only spring wheat showed a significant (P?0.05) response to S forms. Growers should follow the current recommendation to apply 11 kg S ha-1 to compensate for the grain S removal and avoid grain yield loss to S in susceptible areas of fields
A Numerical Study and Optimization of a Morphing and Pitching Boeing Vertol VR-12 Rotorcraft Airfoil
Get PDFThe helicopter blade has not undergone any major change in design in recent history, only minor adjustments like swept blade tips, variable twist blade, and application of small gurney flap style trailing edge devices. With the advancement of technology in both hardware and software this research aims to show the development of a modern shape morphing airfoil, specifically for helicopter application by utilizing high power computing and advanced turbulence modeling to find optimal shape morphing regimes. The experimental development and testing of the new airfoils were performed at North Dakota State University. The result of this research show that a system was developed in order to optimize the flow over a rotorcraft airfoil using advanced CFD methods. Three initial shapes to include leading and trailing edge deflections were chosen for their increase in aerodynamic performance over a wide range of angles of attack
Evaluation of the Relationship Between Size, Feeding Behavior, and Feed Efficency in Beef Cattle
Get PDFFeed efficiency in cow-calf operations can be influenced by multiple environmental and physiological factors. The current study examined the association between body size (weight, frame score, and volume), linear body measurements, and feeding behavior with different measures of feed efficiency in multiparous lactating beef cows. Prediction models for dry matter intake in cows using linear body measurements were also developed. Our findings indicate that body size measurements and feeding behavior may influence measures of efficiency. The inclusion of body measurements in prediction models of intake may serve as accurate and feasible methods for estimating intake of cows on farm. The associations between the traits measured may provide insight for further producing models to measure and predict efficiency traits that are easily accessible on farm. Body measurements and feeding behavior are two traits that should be accounted for when considering efficiency and selection criteria for cow-calf operations
Using Seed Source Diversity and Species Distribution Modeling for Evaluating Grassland Restoration Success and Suitability
Get PDFSeed sourcing for restoration often uses local populations presumed adapted to local environments. This may not be effective under changing climates. Thus, different seed sourcing strategies need testing including multi-source regional collections and their ability to persist in response to change. We compared first-year emergence for single and multi-source seed mixes on plant community diversity following restoration at two locations. There was no discernable effect of seed mix treatment on community establishment. However, land-use history likely has influenced early diversity. Following this, we evaluated which climate variables influence distributions across 26 grassland species? ranges. We produced contemporary species distribution models and evaluated how predicted habitat suitability changed in response to predicted carbon emission scenarios. The climate variables that influenced habitat suitability varied by species with predicted species- and functional-group specific responses to predicted change. These results may aid seed sourcing decisions and identifying regions to implement restorations in the future
Effects of Intensive Agricultural Management Practices on Soil Microbial Assembly and Recruitment
Get PDFSoil microbial communities play an important role in ecosystems in various ways to promote healthy and fertile soil. However, intensive agricultural practices with excessive tillage and fertilizer applications can affect the abundance and community structure of microbial communities in soil as well as their assembly and recruitment by plant roots. Using amplicon sequencing and microscopy, we have examined bacterial and fungal communities under different tillage and fertilizer treatments in a 34-year-old field-trial at the Carrington Research Extension Center of NDSU. We observed that fertilizer application has a significantly stronger effect than tillage on soil properties, as well as the overall soil microbial abundance and community structure. Significantly higher mycorrhizal colonization was found under organic manure application. Overall, the results of this study can improve our understanding of the effects of fertilizer application on soil microbial communities and how management practices can be optimized to reduce the imprints of intensive agriculture
Economic Benefits of Precision Agricultural Technologies
Get PDFThe purpose of this research was to build a model of profitability that can be used by individual farmers to calculate the net benefits of using precision agricultural technologies on their farms. Three case farms were selected. Partial budgeting analysis is used to calculate the net profit effect of adopting precision agricultural technology bundles. Two scenarios were compared: farms adopting precision agricultural technologies and farms not adopting. Revenues and costs that differ between the two scenarios are included in the model. A six-step process was employed and @Risk was used to account for risk. Results show that adopting PA is profitable for farms with moderate input use variability and this is amplified with higher input prices
Multi-Teacher Knowledge Distillation Using Teacher's Domain Expertise
Get PDFLarge BERT models cannot be used with low computing power and storage capacity. Knowledge Distillation solves this problem by distilling knowledge into a smaller BERT model while retaining much of the teacher?s accuracy in student. A teacher expert in predicting one class should be chosen, by student, over others for that class - we used the teacher?s domain expertise like this to train the student. We calculated per-class accuracy for the Student and the Teacher and recorded the difference between the student from the teacher for all k classes. With k differences, we calculated the median of the differences to quantify the student's overall deviation from the teacher over all k classes. Student trained using our approach eventually outperformed all its teachers for the MIND dataset where it was 1.3% more accurate than its teacher, BERT-base-uncased, and 2.6% more accurate than its teacher, RoBERTA, in predicting k classes
Sexual Dimorphisms in the Adipose Biology of Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide Deficient Mice
Get PDFBoth VIP and PACAP deficient mice display impaired fat storage, but only the molecular adipose characteristics of PACAP KO mice are known. While mice deficient in these peptides are lean, supplementation could promote weight gain in livestock after establishing tissue distribution. We investigated both sides of this 'metabolic coin' by measuring serum metabolites, adipocyte area, and pscWAT gene expression in VIP deficient mice and screening 15 ruminant tissues for VIP, PACAP, and their receptors using RT-qPCR. We found male VIP deficient mice displayed hypertrophic adipocytes, low serum FFAs, and suppressed relative mRNA expression of TMEM26. In ruminants, VIP and PACAP showed similar expression patterns, whereas their receptors had divergent tissue distributions. We conclude that VIP deficiency affects the investigated adipose characteristics in male but not female mice. Additionally, we predict that VIP supplementation in ruminants would promote weight gain since its mRNA distribution is similar to mice