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    Effect of irrigation frequency on root water uptake in sugar beet

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    A 2-year trial was performed on autumn-sown sugar beet grown in pots in order to study the influence of irrigation frequency on the water used by plants along the soil profile. The outdoor pots, containing one plant each, were 1.3 m high and had circular openings, through which Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) apparatus wave guides could be inserted. Three irrigation intervals were compared and plants were watered whenever the soil layer explored by roots had lost 30% (SWD1), 50% (SWD2) and 70% (SWD3) of the total available water (TAW). During the irrigation season, the water extracted by the plants from each layer along the soil profile (RWU) was determined by monitoring volumetric soil moisture content (θ), by TDR. At harvest time, root length density (RLD) along the soil profile was assessed using the Tennant method. The applied irrigation frequencies significantly affected the RWU. With the SWD3 protocol, irrigation was at longer irrigation intervals (9 days) and watering volumes were as high as 84 mm. In this treatment, the plants lost almost 60% of total water from the lower soil layer (0.6-1.0 m). In treatment SWD1, the irrigation interval was very short (3 days), and water extraction from 0.0-0.6 m soil depth was 92.0%. In the intermediate treatment, the irrigation interval was 5.5 days and a more uniform water depletion was observed along the root zone, approximately equal between the 0-0.6 and 0.6-1.0 m soil layer. Water extraction of sugar beet plants at the deeper soil layers in response to long irrigation intervals was related to an increase in water uptake efficiency of the deeper younger roots and not to an increase in root length density, which, on the contrary, decreased. This morpho-physiological acclimatization to progressive soil water deficit was coupled with an increase of the root/shoot ratio

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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