Plant Arrangement Research Articles

Vegetative and thermal performance of an extensive vegetated roof located in the urban heat island of a semiarid region

Vegetated roofs reduce temperature and heat flow fluctuations on the building's surface mitigating the urban heat island effects and improving other ecosystem services. The objectives of this work were to quantify thermal reduction and to evaluate the performance of vegetated-microcosm treatments during 15 months with different species composition and growth form combinations. Our results showed considerable attenuation of temperature through the whole system of extensive green roofs (EVRs) in both summer and winter periods. The EVRs decreased the outside temperature from 44.6 °C to 34.7 °C. Temperatures for the EVR showed a lower peak-to-valley-gap and better anti-interference performance during the day and along the year. At the same time, thermal insulation provided by soil and vegetation layers resulted in a negative heat flux (−40 W/m2) reducing the incoming heat flux during the day. Almost all treatments showed ≥90% of plant survival and ≥60% of coverage after the experimental period. Microcosm treatments with the highest diversity showed the best performance in both the short and long terms (particularly those with the native Eustachys distichophylla and the exotic Sedum spp.). Consequently, diverse plant arrangements are recommended when designing EVRs in semi-arid climates because they show a better performance in mitigating urban heat island effects by reducing temperature and heat flow fluctuations and also because they provide ecosystem services in urban environments.

What’s in a name? William Jones, ‘philological empiricism’ and botanical knowledge making in eighteenth-century India

ABSTRACT ‘What is Indian Spikenard?’, asked the eighteenth-century orientalist, Sir William Jones (1746–1794), in a famous paper, ‘On the Spikenard of the Ancients,’ published in Asiatick Researches, Volume II (1790). The question serves here as a point of entry into Jones’s method for creating culturally specific plant descriptions to help locate Indian plants in their Indian milieu. This paper discusses Jones’s philological method for identifying the jaṭāmāṁsī of the Sanskrit verse lexicon, the Amarakośa, and materia medica texts, a flowering plant with important medicinal properties and great commercial value, as the ‘Spikenard of the Ancients’. Philology, for Jones, was of a piece with language study and ethnology, and undergirded by observational practices based on trained seeing, marking a continuity between his philological and botanical knowledge making. The paper follows Jones through his textual and ‘ethnographic’ explorations, as he creates both a Linnaean plant-object – Valeriana jatamansi Jones – and a mode of plant description that encoded the ‘native’ experience associated with a much-desired therapeutic commodity. The result was a botanical identification that forced the jaṭāmāṁsī to travel across epistemologies and manifest itself as an object of colonial natural history. In the words of the medic and botanist, William Roxburgh (1751–1815), whose research on the spikenard is also discussed here, Jones’s method achieved what ‘mere botany’ with its focus on the technical arrangement of plants could not do.

Exogenous application of bio-stimulant and growth retardant improved the productivity of cotton cultivars under different planting arrangement.

Optimum planting arrangement is an important attribute for efficient utilization of available resources and to obtain high yield of cotton. Application of plant growth promoter and retardant on cotton in improved planting density are the innovative techniques in the establishment of more productive cotton crop. Therefore, we planned a field study to assess the role of bio-stimulant and growth retardant in the resource utilization efficiency of cotton cultivars planted under variable row spacing at Agronomic Research Area Bahauddin Zakariya University and Usmania Agricultural Farm Shujabad during Kharif 2012. Experimental treatments consisted of cotton genotypes viz. CIM-573 and CIM-598, cultivated under conventional (75 cm), medium (50 cm) and ultra-narrow row spacing (25 cm) with foliar spray of bio-stimulant (moringa leaf extract) and growth retardant (mepiquate chloride), either sole or in combination, keeping distilled water as a control. Exogenously applied MLE alone and MLE + MC significantly enhanced the number of squares, flowers and green bolls per plant leading to higher cotton seed and lint yield of CIM 598 cultivar cultivated under conventional row spacing. While application of MC alone and MLE + MC produced maximum micronaire value, fiber strength and fiber uniformity ratio of CIM 573 cultivar cultivated under conventional row spacing. The results suggested that application of MLE is a possible approach to enhance the cotton productivity and the use of MC to enhance the fiber quality attributes under conventional row spacing.

Water use efficiency of sugarcane clones under rainfed condition

Crop water use study is necessary for crop management. The purpose of the research was to determine water use efficiency (WUE) of sugarcane clones under rainfed conditions. A field trial was carried out in rainfed at Kediri, East Java, from August 2018 to June 2020 in two seasons of plant cane (PC) and first ratoon cane (RC1). A Split-Plot Design was used for the field trial with three replications. Three planting arrangements were allocated to the main plot. Sub-plots consisted of five clones and one check variety. The WUE is the ratio of sugarcane yield to total crop evapotranspiration. Crop evapotranspiration was the reference evapotranspiration multiply by crop coefficients. Reference evapotranspiration needs meteorological data and relied on the FAO Penman-Monteith method. The average sugarcane crop evapotranspiration for two seasons was 1260.9 mm/year in PC and RC1, with effective rainfall of 817.6 mm and 797 mm, respectively. Average water use efficiency to produce sugarcane were 11.47 and 10.85 t/100 mm and sugar 1.085 and 0.884 t/100 mm, respectively, in PC and RC1. The WUE benefit as criteria for crop selection and to calculate the potential yield given the available water.

Impact of earthing up on groundnut (<i>Arachis hypogaea</i> L.) pod yield and its components

<abstract> <p>Groundnut is an important crop grown by smallholder farmers in West Africa for both domestic and market consumption. In groundnut cultivation, earthing up, or covering the plant's base and lower nodes with soil, is a common practice. However, there is no consistent evidence about its economic benefit. From 2016 to 2018, a three-year experiment was conducted to assess the benefits of earthing up and establish the best time to do so to increase groundnut yield, thus filling a knowledge gap in the region. The experiment was set up in a split-plot design, with the planting arrangement as the main plot (ridge vs flatbed planting) and the timing of earthing up as the subplot. The earthing up timing was divided into ten treatments, ranging from no earthing up (control) to earthing up at 70 days after planting. Data was collected on the number of matured pods per plant, dry pod yield, dry haulm yield, shelling percentage, and 100 seeds weight. The results for the time of earthing up revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in dry pod yield and dry haulm yield except in 2017. Similarly, for the number of matured pods per plant, 100 seeds weight, and shelling percentage, there was no statistically significant difference between times of earthing up except for 100 seeds weight in 2018 and shelling percentage in 2017 and 2018. The individual years and combined analyses across years revealed no statistically significant difference between the main plots for all the five traits. The combined analysis for the times of earthing up showed a significant difference only for shelling percentage. Therefore, in the Sudan Savanah agro-climatic conditions of the semi-arid tropics of West Africa, earthing up may not be economically beneficial during a typical rainfall season with appropriate planting time. Instead, it could raise production costs, reducing the profit.</p> </abstract>

Performance silvicultural de eucalipto em dois modelos de plantio em sistema silvipastoril

The objective of this study was to evaluate the silvicultural performance of eucalyptus-urograndis hybrid (Eucalyptus urophylla x E. grandis) in two plantation models in a silvopastoral system, installed Paranaíta – Mato Grosso state (Brazil). The models of silvipastoral systems evaluated were: model 1 = simple lines of eucalyptus-urograndis, in spacing 6 x 35 m; and model 2 = simple lines of eucalyptus-urograndis associated with african-mahogany (Kaya ivorensis), in a 3:1 ratio, in a 4 x 35 cm spacing. In each of the planting arrangements, three plots of 20 trees randomly distributed were sampled. The dendrometric variables evaluated were: trunk diameter at 1.3 m above ground height (DBH), total height (Ht), crown area (Ac) and bark thickness. The proportion of damage to the bark caused by cattle and the height of damage to the trunk of the trees was also evaluated. The collected data were statistically analyzed by the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, followed by the Dunn test (p < 0,05). The eucalyptus-urograndis in the silvopastoral system in planting model 1 had the best silvicultural performance, due to the highest increments of Ht and DBH, in addition to the smaller amount of trees damaged by cattle.

A Methodology for the Automated Delineation of Crop Tree Crowns from UAV-Based Aerial Imagery by Means of Morphological Image Analysis

The popularisation of aerial remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), has boosted the capacities of agronomists and researchers to offer farmers valuable data regarding the status of their crops. This paper describes a methodology for the automated detection and individual delineation of tree crowns in aerial representations of crop fields by means of image processing and analysis techniques, providing accurate information about plant population and canopy coverage in intensive-farming orchards with a row-based plant arrangement. To that end, after pre-processing initial aerial captures by means of photogrammetry and morphological image analysis, a resulting binary representation of the land plot surveyed is treated at connected component-level in order to separate overlapping tree crown projections. Then, those components are morphologically transformed into a set of seeds with which tree crowns are finally delineated, establishing the boundaries between them when they appear overlapped. This solution was tested on images from three different orchards, achieving semantic segmentations in which more than 94% of tree canopy-belonging pixels were correctly classified, and more than 98% of trees were successfully detected when assessing the methodology capacities for estimating the overall plant population. According to these results, the methodology represents a promising tool for automating the inventorying of plants and estimating individual tree-canopy coverage in intensive tree-based orchards.

Agroeconomic Production and Antioxidant Activity of the Hibiscus Cultivated Under Organic Practices and Plant Arrangements

In order to obtain better productivity and a good level of secondary metabolites for cultivating plants with organic residues, it is necessary to define the method of application and the best combination considering plant density. Our objective was to study the influence of the plant arrangement and methods of application of poultry manure in the soil over agroeconomic performance and the antioxidant activity of the hibiscus. Treatments in the field consisted of two plant arrangements (single or double rows, both with 0.50 meters between plants) and four methods of application of poultry manure to the soil [incorporating (10 t ha-1), mulching (10 t ha-1), mulching (5 t ha-1) + incorporating (5 t ha-1) and a control—no poultry manure] and, in the laboratory, antioxidant activity in relation to the treatments in the field and preparation methods (maceration or infusion). Treatments were arranged in randomized blocks of 2 × 4 with four replicates. The greatest production of dried calyx (0.68 t ha-1) and of capsules (1.32 t ha-1), the greatest number of fruits (2.10 million ha-1) and the greatest net income (R$ 36,115.42) resulted of plants cultivated in single rows with the poultry manure covering the crops. The antioxidant activity of the hibiscus calyces showed no variation in relation with field treatments or with the method of preparation. Cultivation in single rows covered with poultry manure is adequate for the hibiscus plant.

Spatial Arrangement and Biofertilizers Enhance the Performance of Legume—Millet Intercropping System in Rainfed Areas of Southern India

Intercropping is a well-established practice to enhance the yield in low-input agriculture, and beneficial microbes such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) combined with plant growth promoting rhizobacteria are being used as an effective and sustainable measure to improve yields. In this study, we tested if biofertilizers can not only enhance the yield of crops in monoculture as has previously been demonstrated but can also enhance the yield of intercropping systems. We hypothesized that because AMF can form common mycorrhizal networks (CMN) that can transfer nutrients and water between different plant species, biofertilization can balance belowground competition between crop species and promote thus overall yields in intercropping systems. In our study, we used a pigeon pea (PP)—finger millet (FM) intercropping system that we grew for two consecutive growing seasons (2016/17 and 2017/18) at two contrasting sites in Bengaluru and Kolli Hills, India. We also tested if the spatial arrangement (i.e., different arrangement of component plants with similar plant density in intercropping system) of intercropped plants, using either a row-wise or a mosaic design, influences the effect of biofertilizers on yield and water relations of the PP-FM intercropping system. Our results demonstrate that intercropping can improve the straw and grain yield of PP and FM compared to the respective monocultures and that intercropping effects vary depending on the site characteristic such as climate and soil type. The spatial arrangement of component plants affected the total, straw, and grain biomass in intercropping treatments, but this effect also varied across sites. Most importantly, the results from the 2017/18 growing season clearly demonstrated a positive effect of biofertilizer on biomass yield, and this effect was irrespective of site, spatial arrangement, mixed or monoculture. Our study therefore shows that yield increase in intercropping systems can further be improved through the application of biofertilizers.

Structuring the Greening of Tourism Areas Developing the "Sweembath" Naga Sopa Tourism Village Realizes Community Welfare

Arrangement of Reforestation of Tourism Areas for the development of the "Sweembath" Naga Sopa Tourism Village, Bandar Huluan District, Simalungun Regency to Realize Community Welfare. The preliminary survey shows the need for further development so that it is expected to improve the welfare of the village community. The method of implementing the assisted villages is carried out with a participatory approach from the community managing the tourist area, elements of the Village/District apparatus and other relevant stakeholders. In-depth discussion and interview techniques are carried out to explore the root of the problem and developments in the short/long term that can be implemented or expected. the results of the implementation of plant arrangement, namely: (1) Reforestation of the Sweembat area (2) Focus Group discussion (3) Reforestation in the "sweembat" area (3) Mutual cooperation with the community (4) Arrangement of plants for reforestation (5) Installer of Simalungun Assisted Village Plank

Agroeconomic viability of intercropping taro and okra plants according to planting dates and plant arrangements

Agroeconomic viability of intercropping taro and okra plants according to planting dates and plant arrangements

UTILIZATION OF SPACE TO REALIZE A GREEN ALLEY IN CIBOGOR VILLAGE, BOGOR CITY

Greening activities along the alley by the housewives and several youths in RT01/RW03, Cibogor Village, Bogor City. Plant management is still individual or not collective and not in a neat and unplanned way. Therefore, it is necessary to assist the management of plants in the alley as a beginner step towards creating an attractive green. The purpose of the Community Service program is the optimal management of space along the alley for reforestation to create beauty and cleanliness in the alley environment. In this activity, the material taught is to carry out socialization activities to residents; Carry out training/assistance on plant management activities; and Carry out plant arrangement activities in the alley room and evaluate the understanding of the residents before and after the mentoring. The application of community service through plant arrangement activities in the alley room using this mentoring method is useful for introducing and practising and is easily applied at the community level. Technical assistance provided to residents based on residents' preferences in creating greenery in front of beautiful alleys. Efforts to optimize space along the alley have succeeded in creating beauty and cleanliness in the alley environment. The managerial implication is the residents can adopt other alley space utilization techniques by presenting various plants available around residents' homes such as varied from fruit plants, vegetables, medicinal, and ornamental plants.

Discussion on Plant Arrangement and Planning in Landscape Design

Discussion on Plant Arrangement and Planning in Landscape Design

Research and development of high efficiency low emission combined cycle power plant arrangements

Coal-fired steam turbine thermal power plants produce a large part of electricity. These power plants usually have low efficiency and high carbon dioxide emission. An application of combined cycle power plants with coal gasification equipped with carbon capture and storage systems may increase the efficiency and decrease the harmful emission. This paper describes investigation of the oxidizer type in the integrated gasification combined cycle combustion chamber and its influence upon the energy and environmental performance. The integrated gasification combined cycle and oxy-fuel combustion technology allow the carbon dioxide capture and storage losses 58% smaller than the traditional air combustion one. The IGCC with air combustion without and with carbon dioxide capture and storage has 53.54 and 46.61% and with oxy-fuel combustion has 34.94 and 32.67% net efficiency. Together with this the CO2 emission drops down from 89.9 to 10.6 gm/kWh. The integrated coal gasification combined cycle with air oxidizer has the best net efficiency.

Prediction of time-varying inner wall temperature of surge lines by a dynamic neural network

Thermal fatigue, mainly caused by thermal stratification, is one of the major factors for reliability degradation of surge lines in nuclear power plants and is well managed through on-line temperature monitoring. However, the vast amount of outer wall temperature data generated by on-line temperature monitoring requires an efficient way of calculating the inner wall temperature. In this paper, the time-varying inner wall temperature is predicted rapidly and precisely using a dynamic artificial neural network model based on outer wall temperature and flow velocity. By optimizing the length of time series, the time delay of heat transfer between the inner wall and outer wall temperature is fully considered in the dynamic model. Consequently, the best root mean squared error of the temperature prediction is as low as 3.78. More importantly, the importance analysis based on dynamic model is also performed to quantify the importance of outer wall temperature variables, which can be used to optimize the arrangement of outer wall temperature measurement points for further applications under different circumstances to reduce cost while maintain high prediction accuracy. The results in this study will be helpful for the optimization of measurement points arrangement and rapid on-line thermal fatigue evaluation of nuclear power plants.

Intercropping pea (pisum sativum) with lettuce (lactuca sativa) and its Impact on the Growth, Yield and Nutritional Quality

A field experiment was carried out during the two successive seasons of 2017/18 and 2018/19. The aims of the experiment were to investigate the effect of different planting arrangement patterns: T1 (3 pea: 1 lettuce), T2 (2 pea: 1 lettuce), T3 (1 pea:1 lettuce), T4 (side pea: side lettuce) in addition to sole lettuce and sole pea (control) treatments regarding the growth, yield, and nutritional quality, along with the financial aspects of applying intercropping systems for lettuce and pea productivity. The obtained results revealed that all intercropping treatments except for T4 (side pea: side lettuce) treatment reduced the pea yield by 17%-62.9% and 17.2%-61.6% but increased the lettuce yield by 12.2%-37.7% and 27.7%- 60 % in the first and second seasons respectively according to the intercropping system applied. The highest pea yields were produced by both sole pea andT4 treatments, while the lowest pea yield was form T3, in both seasons. T3 treatment depressed pea pod yield to 60% of its mono-cropped yield. On the other hand, T1 and T2 treatments produced the highest yield for lettuce in both seasons. Intercropping lettuce with pea, led to an improvement in the protein percentage in pea. LER of pea/lettuce intercropping treatments were more than unit. Moreover, the highest values for both LER and MAI obtained fromT1 treatment. Calculated “aggressiveness” suggested that all secondary crop treatments were more dominant than pea in all intercropping treatments.

Biological and economic efficacy of cowpea-radish association fertilized with organic manure in diverse planting arrangements

Green manuring and the spatial arrangement of planting intercropped crops are manageable factors to increase the bioeconomic effectiveness of intercropped systems. Therefore, the object of this study was to work out the bio-economic efficacy in cowpea-radish association under diverse Calotropis procera biomass amounts and planting arrangements in two cultivation seasons through biological and economic indices. The research was conducted in a design of randomized complete blocks with four repetitions. The treatments were made of combination of four C. procera biomass amounts placed into the soil (20, 35, 50 and 65 t ha-1) with three cowpea-radish planting arrangements (2:2, 3:3 and 4:4). The biological indices, land equivalent ratio (LER), area-time equivalency ratio (ATER), actual yield loss (AYL), and system productivity index (SPI) and the economic indicators gross revenue (GR), net revenue (NR), rate of return (RR) and profit margin (PM) were evaluated to express the bio-economic efficacy of the cowpea-radish association. The greatest biological efficiencies of the cowpea-radish association were attained with LER and ATER of 1.75 and 1.25; AYL and SPI of 1.48 and 13.15 t ha-1, respectively, in the amount of 62 t ha-1 of C. procera biomass in the planting arrangements 2: 2 and 3: 3. The largest net economic revenue (NR) of 16,382.85 R$ ha-1 was attained in the amount of 52 t ha-1 of C. procera in the planting arrangement 3: 3.

Barriers to sustainable intensification: overlooked disconnects between agricultural extension and farmer practice in maize-legume cropping systems in Tanzania

ABSTRACT Effective extension systems are vital to smallholder agriculture. Education on sustainable management involves complex interactions and communication flows among information providers and practitioners. Farmer practice is often overlooked within extension knowledge systems, resulting in incompatible recommendations and barriers to sustainable agriculture. This study investigates the diversity of smallholder agricultural practices, with a focus on maize-legume systems in Tanzania, including seasonal cropping patterns and management, as well as linkages to extension recommendations and information flows. We used a mixed methods approach to assess the state of extension and farmer practice around maize-legume production in Tanzania. Household and plot-level survey data (n = 220) and focus group discussions (n = 5) and extension information was ascertained through interviews with key stakeholders (n = 12) and a survey of village-based extension advisors (n = 193). We found legume management practices were highly local. In the Southern Highlands for example, farmers produced from one to three bean crops per year, using a range of planting arrangements. Further, extension recommendations often did not take into account the varieties, fertilizer or plant spacing used by farmers. This comprehensive study of extension knowledge systems in Tanzania highlights the persistent disconnects that occur at multiple levels, acting as a barrier to sustainable intensification of smallholder farming.

HIDROPONIK SEDERHANA SEBAGAI ALTERNATIF PENGHIJAUAN DI LINGKUNGAN SEKOLAH (STUDI PADA LINGKUNGAN SEKOLAH TK NURUL I’TISHOM, BINTARA, BEKASI)

Community Service in the form of Counseling on the Empowerment of Kindergarten Teachers in the reforestation of school land has been carried out at Nurul I'tishom Kindergarten Kel. Bintara, Kec. Bekasi Barat on Friday, January 29, 2021. Community Service in the form of Counseling on the Empowerment of Kindergarten Teachers in The reforestation of school land has been carried out at Nurul I'tishom Kindergarten Kel. Bintara, Kec. Bekasi Barat on Friday, January 29, 2021. The background of this program is carried out with the aim of the desire of the partners to carry out reforestation which is constrained by the limitations of the remaining outdoor space in the school environment.The hydroponic planting system is an alternative to reforestation on limited land. Extension materials are provided online, consisting of hydroponic planting systems and Hydroponic Plant Arrangement Design. Participants in the activity are teachers, education staff, parents of students and the surrounding community. This activity received a good response as evidenced by the large number of participants and enthusiastic participants in the discussion and question and answer session. From the partners, there is a suggestion that there be further activities in the form of training with a longer number of face-to-face hours. The methods used in the implementation are counseling, demonstration and training

Review: Planting time of haricot bean intercropping into the maize-based cropping systems under planting arrangements in south Gonder Ethiopia

Field experiments were conducted at Dera District south Gonder experimental field site, Fogra National Rice Research and Training Center from June to October during the years 2020 and 2021 cropping seasons. The aim of the study was to determine optimum time of intercropping haricot bean into the maize based cropping system under conservation tillage practices, The experiment was laid out in split-plot design, with tillage practices a) Tied-ridge and b) Zero-tillage as main plot and time of intercropping haricot bean 1) Planting haricot bean simultaneously with maize, 2) Planting haricot bean 15 days after maize was planted and 3) planting haricot bean 30 days after maize was planted as sub-plots. Intercropping was assessed on the basis of the performance of the main and component crops indices as grain yield, biomass weight, partial and total LER and competitive indices such as relative crowding coefficient (K), aggressivity (A), competitive ratio (CR) and system productivity index (SPI). There was no interaction between tillage practices and time of intercropping haricot bean in any of the indices studied. Main effects of tillage practices had no significant effects on all the indices considered during both 2020 and 2021 growing seasons, but grain yield, biomass weight, partial and total LER tended to be higher in the tied-ridge treatment during 2020 and vis-versa during 2021 seasons. The results obtained showed that the greatest intercrop yields of maize and haricot bean were obtained when both crops were planted at the same time. In both years, highest total land equivalent ratio (LERt) values were obtained when planting of maize and haricot bean was done at the same time followed by planting of haricot bean 15 days after maize was planted indicating the advantages of intercropping over the sole planting. Partial LERm was always higher than LERb during 2010 season and vis-versa during 2011 season. The results of competitive indices indicate that maize was the dominant crop in the mixture as measured by the positive values of A, and the high values of Km than Kb in the mixture. On the other hand, CR values of haricot bean were higher than maize in the mixture suggesting haricot bean was more competitive than maize in the intercropping system. Moreover, the data of SPI indicated that intercropping haricot bean at the same time with maize had higher SPI during both 2010 and 2011 season. In conclusion, intercropping of haricot bean simultaneously with maize exhibited an overall advantage over the other time of intercropping and sole cropping in terms of grain yield, partial LERm, LERb and LERt and competitive ratio indices and could therefore be recommended for Central rift valley areas of Ethiopia where maize and haricot bean are major crops.