Download or read book Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture written by Petra Moser and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-10-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The challenges facing agriculture are plenty. Along with the world's growing population and diminishing amounts of water and arable land, the gradual increase in severe weather presents new challenges and imperatives for producing new, more resilient crops to feed a more crowded planet in the twenty-first century. Innovation has historically helped agriculture keep pace with earth's social, population, and ecological changes. In the last 50 years, mechanical, biological, and chemical innovations have more than doubled agricultural output while barely changing input quantities. The ample investment behind these innovations was available because of a high rate of return: a 2007 paper found that the median ROI in agriculture was 45 percent between 1965 and 2005. This landscape has changed. Today many of the world's wealthier countries have scaled back their share of GDP devoted to agricultural R&D amid evidence of diminishing returns. Universities, which have historically been a major source of agricultural innovation, increasingly depend on funding from industry rather than government to fund their research. As Upton Sinclair wrote of the effects industry influences, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." In this volume of the NBER Conference Report series, editor Petra Moser offers an empirical, applied-economic framework to the different elements of agricultural R&D, particularly as they relate to the shift from public to private funding. Individual chapters examine the sources of agricultural knowledge and investigate challenges for measuring the returns to the adoption of new agricultural technologies, examine knowledge spillovers from universities to agricultural innovation, and explore interactions between university engagement and scientific productivity. Additional analysis of agricultural venture capital point to it as an emerging and future source of resource in this essential domain"--

Download or read book Yield Performance of Corn Under Heat Stress written by Keith Meyers and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting in the 1930s, commercial hybrid corn seeds rapidly replaced the once predominant open-pollinated varieties planted by farmers. By the mid-1950s almost all corn grown in the United States was of hybrid varieties. Observers have argued that the drought tolerant qualities of these hybrids were a major factor driving farmers' decisions regarding hybrid adoption, but there is little statistical evidence to substantiate this assertion. Hybrid seeds exhibited other attractive qualities, such as improved performance during prime weather conditions, resistance to wind damage, and increased suitability toward mechanized harvesting. Using historical evidence from Zvi Griliches's archival records, we reconstruct data on hybrid corn adoption and yields at a more disaggregated geographic level than previously available. We match these data with historical weather records to measure the extent to which hybrid seeds mediated the adverse effects of extreme heat. Our findings suggest that hybrid corns grown in Iowa from 1928 to 1942 did exhibit heat tolerance relative to open-pollinated varieties. This result is unique to Iowa as this reduced temperature sensitivity does not appear when comparing hybrid and open-pollinated grown in other states.

Download or read book Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture written by Petra Moser and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-10-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feeding the world’s growing population is a critical policy challenge for the twenty-first century. With constraints on water, arable land, and other natural resources, agricultural innovation is a promising path to meeting the nutrient needs for future generations. At the same time, potential increases in the variability of the world’s climate may intensify the need for developing new crops that can tolerate extreme weather. Despite the key role for scientific breakthroughs, there is an active discussion on the returns to public and private spending in agricultural R&D, and many of the world’s wealthier countries have scaled back the share of GDP that they devote to agricultural R&D. Dwindling public support leaves universities, which historically have been a major source of agricultural innovation, increasingly dependent on industry funding, with uncertain effects on the nature and direction of agricultural research. All of these factors create an urgent need for systematic empirical evidence on the forces that drive research and innovation in agriculture. This book aims to provide such evidence through economic analyses of the sources of agricultural innovation, the challenges of measuring agricultural productivity, the role of universities and their interactions with industry, and emerging mechanisms that can fund agricultural R&D.

Download or read book Drought Stress in Maize Zea mays L written by Muhammad Aslam and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on early germination, one of maize germplasm most important strategies for adapting to drought-induced stress. Some genotypes have the ability to adapt by either reducing water losses or by increasing water uptake. Drought tolerance is also an adaptive strategy that enables crop plants to maintain their normal physiological processes and deliver higher economical yield despite drought stress. Several processes are involved in conferring drought tolerance in maize: the accumulation of osmolytes or antioxidants, plant growth regulators, stress proteins and water channel proteins, transcription factors and signal transduction pathways. Drought is one of the most detrimental forms of abiotic stress around the world and seriously limits the productivity of agricultural crops. Maize, one of the leading cereal crops in the world, is sensitive to drought stress. Maize harvests are affected by drought stress at different growth stages in different regions. Numerous events in the life of maize crops can be affected by drought stress: germination potential, seedling growth, seedling stand establishment, overall growth and development, pollen and silk development, anthesis silking interval, pollination, and embryo, endosperm and kernel development. Though every maize genotype has the ability to avoid or withstand drought stress, there is a concrete need to improve the level of adaptability to drought stress to address the global issue of food security. The most common biological strategies for improving drought stress resistance include screening available maize germplasm for drought tolerance, conventional breeding strategies, and marker-assisted and genomic-assisted breeding and development of transgenic maize. As a comprehensive understanding of the effects of drought stress, adaptive strategies and potential breeding tools is the prerequisite for any sound breeding plan, this brief addresses these aspects.

Download or read book Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States written by U.S. Global Change Research Program and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers.

Download or read book Breeding for drought and nitrogen stress tolerance in maize From theory to practice written by M. Bänzinger and published by CIMMYT. This book was released on 2000 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction - why breed for drought and low N tolerance?; Conceptual framework - breeding; Conventional approaches to improving the drought and low N tolerance of maize; Conventional approaches challenged; The challenge of breeding for drought and low N tolerance; Maize under drought and low N stress; Conceptual framework - physiology; Water and the maize plant; Nitrogen and the maize plant; Maize under drought and low N stress - consequences for breeding; Stress management; Drought; Low N stress; Statistical designs and layout of experiments; Increasing the number of replicates; Improved statistical designs; Field layout; Border effects from alleys; Secondary traits; Why use secondary traits?; How do we decide on the value of secondary traits in a drought or low N breeding program?; Secondary traits that help to identify drought tolerance; Secondary traits that help to identify low N tolerance: Selection indices - Combining information on secondary traits with grain yield; Combining information from various experiments; Breeding strategies; Choice of germplasm; Breeding schemes; Biotechnology: potential and constraints for improving drought and low N tolerance; The role of the farmer in selection; What is farmer participatory research and why is it important?; What is new about farmer participatory research?; Participatory methodologies.

Download or read book Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Download or read book Water and Plant Life written by O.L. Lange and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Heat Stress Tolerance in Plants written by Shabir H. Wani and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-04-06 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demystifies the genetic, biochemical, physiological, and molecular mechanisms underlying heat stress tolerance in plants Heat stress—when high temperatures cause irreversible damage to plant function or development—severely impairs the growth and yield of agriculturally important crops. As the global population mounts and temperatures continue to rise, it is crucial to understand the biochemical, physiological, and molecular mechanisms of thermotolerance to develop ‘climate-smart’ crops. Heat Stress Tolerance in Plants provides a holistic, cross-disciplinary survey of the latest science in this important field. Presenting contributions from an international team of plant scientists and researchers, this text examines heat stress, its impact on crop plants, and various mechanisms to modulate tolerance levels. Topics include recent advances in molecular genetic approaches to increasing heat tolerance, the potential role of biochemical and molecular markers in screening germplasm for thermotolerance, and the use of next-generation sequencing to unravel the novel genes associated with defense and metabolite pathways. This insightful book: Places contemporary research on heat stress in plants within the context of global climate change and population growth Includes diverse analyses from physiological, biochemical, molecular, and genetic perspectives Explores various approaches to increasing heat tolerance in crops of high commercial value, such as cotton Discusses the applications of plant genomics in the development of thermotolerant ‘designer crops’ An important contribution to the field, Heat Stress Tolerance in Plants is an invaluable resource for scientists, academics, students, and researchers working in fields of pulse crop biochemistry, physiology, genetics, breeding, and biotechnology.

Download or read book Effect of Environment on Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1981-02-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Crop Stress and its Management Perspectives and Strategies written by B. Venkateswarlu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-22 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crops experience an assortment of environmental stresses which include abiotic viz., drought, water logging, salinity, extremes of temperature, high variability in radiation, subtle but perceptible changes in atmospheric gases and biotic viz., insects, birds, other pests, weeds, pathogens (viruses and other microbes). The ability to tolerate or adapt and overwinter by effectively countering these stresses is a very multifaceted phenomenon. In addition, the inability to do so which renders the crops susceptible is again the result of various exogenous and endogenous interactions in the ecosystem. Both biotic and abiotic stresses occur at various stages of plant development and frequently more than one stress concurrently affects the crop. Stresses result in both universal and definite effects on plant growth and development. One of the imposing tasks for the crop researchers globally is to distinguish and to diminish effects of these stress factors on the performance of crop plants, especially with respect to yield and quality of harvested products. This is of special significance in view of the impending climate change, with complex consequences for economically profitable and ecologically and environmentally sound global agriculture. The challenge at the hands of the crop scientist in such a scenario is to promote a competitive and multifunctional agriculture, leading to the production of highly nourishing, healthy and secure food and animal feed as well as raw materials for a wide variety of industrial applications. In order to successfully meet this challenge researchers have to understand the various aspects of these stresses in view of the current development from molecules to ecosystems. The book will focus on broad research areas in relation to these stresses which are in the forefront in contemporary crop stress research.

Download or read book Heat Stress in Food Grain Crops written by Uday Chand Jha and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heat Stress In Food Grain Crops: Plant Breeding and Omics Research is a timely compilation of advanced research on heat stress affecting crop yield, plant growth & development of common food grain and cereal crops. Chapters in the book cover several aspects of crop science including the identification of potential gene donors for heat tolerance, physiological mechanisms of adaptation to heat stress, the use of conventional and modern tools of breeding for imparting tolerance against terminal temperature stress and precise mapping of heat tolerant QTLs through biparental and genome wide association mapping. The use of genomics and phenomics methods is focused on through chapters dedicated to important crops such as groundnut, pearl millet, maize, chickpea, cowpeas and wheat. Authors of the respective chapters explain the importance of harnessing a diverse crop genepool for sustaining crop production under conditions of increasing heat stress. Readers will be able to understand the relevance of functional genomics in elucidating candidate genes and their regulatory functions contributing to heat tolerance.

Download or read book Rice written by C. Wayne Smith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2002-09-09 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thorough coverage of rice, from cultivar development tomarketing Rice: Evolution, History, Production, and Technology, the thirdbook in the Wiley Series in Crop Science, provides unique,single-source coverage of rice, from cultivar developmenttechniques and soil characteristics to harvesting, storage, andgermplasm resources. Rice covers the plant's origins and history,physiology and genetics, production and production hazards,harvesting, processing, and products. Comprehensive coverage includes: * Color plates of diseases, insects, and other productionhazards * The latest information on pest control * Up-to-date material on marketing * A worldwide perspective of the rice industry Rice provides detailed information in an easy-to-use format, makingit valuable to scientists and researchers as well as growers,processors, and grain merchants and shippers.

Download or read book Physiological Determinants of Crop Growth written by D. A. Charles-Edwards and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Crop Physiology written by Victor Sadras and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From climate change to farming systems to genetic modification of organisms, Crop Physiology, Second Edition provides a practical tool for understanding the relationships and challenges of successful cropping. With a focus on genetic improvement and agronomy, this book addresses the challenges of environmentally sound production of bulk and quality food, fodder, fiber, and energy which are of ongoing international concern. The second edition of Crop Physiology continues to provide a unique analysis of these topics while reflecting important changes and advances in the relevant science and implementation systems. Contemporary agriculture confronts the challenge of increasing demand in terms of quantitative and qualitative production targets. These targets have to be achieved against the background of soil and water scarcity, worldwide and regional shifts in the patterns of land use driven by both climate change and the need to develop crop-based sources of energy, and the environmental and social aspects of agricultural sustainability. - Provides a view of crop physiology as an active source of methods, theories, ideas, and tools for application in genetic improvement and agronomy - Written by leading scientists from around the world - Combines environment-specific cropping systems and general principles of crop science to appeal to advanced students, and scientists in agriculture-related disciplines, from molecular sciences to natural resources management

Download or read book County level Corn Yield Prediction with Deep Learning written by Yuchi Ma (Ph.D.) and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the world's leading corn producer, the United States supplies more than 30% of the global corn production. Accurate and timely estimation of corn yield is therefore essential for commodity trading and global food security. Recently, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models have been explored for corn yield prediction. Despite the success, there are still two major limitations of existing ML-based crop yield prediction models. First, most existing models mainly focus on predicting the crop yield without providing any information about the uncertainty which is important to provide quantified confidence interval of the prediction to users for their knowledgeable decision makings. Second, data-driven DL models require a large amount of reference data samples (i.e., yield records) for model training and tend to have low spatial transferability due to domain shifts between different regions. In this dissertation, we focused on addressing these two major limitations using Bayesian learning and unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) for corn yield prediction. Specifically, to address the first limitation, this dissertation proposed Bayesian neural networks (BNN) for corn yield prediction and uncertainty analysis. By applying Bayesian inference, the proposed BNN model can provide not only accurate yield prediction but also the corresponding predictive uncertainty. Feature variables were collected from multiple data sources, including remote sensing (RS) imagery, weather variables, soil properties, and historical average yield. Using preceding years since 2001 for model training, the developed BNN model achieved an average coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.77 for late-season prediction across the U.S. corn belt in testing years 2010-2019 and outperformed five other state-of-the-art ML models. Evaluation results of in-season yield prediction showed that the BNN model achieved the optimal prediction results by the middle of August, which is about two months before the harvest. We also assessed the predictive uncertainty and found that more than 84% of the observed yield records were successfully enveloped in the 95% confidence interval of the predictive yield distribution. Uncertainties in yield prediction were mainly induced by the observation noise and related to the inter-annual and seasonal variabilities of environmental stress such as heat stress and water stress. To address the second limitation, this dissertation utilized the UDA strategy to reduce the domain shift between the source domain and the target domain with the aim of accurately predicting corn yield in the target domain without using labeled data from the target domain. We first proposed two single-source UDA models for county-level corn yield prediction based on RS images and weather variables. The proposed adaptive domain adversarial neural network (ADANN) and Bayesian domain adversarial neural network (BDANN) have been proven to have better spatial transferability and outperformed other supervised learning models and DANN in transfer experiments across two ecoregions in the U.S. corn belt. Furthermore, we proposed a multi-source UDA method named multi-source maximum predictor discrepancy (MMPD) to address the remaining issues of single-source domain adaptation methods. First, the multi-source UDA strategy was adopted in MMPD to avoid negative interference among source samples from heterogeneous regions. Also, by using the maximum predictor discrepancy (MPD), MMPD was trained to align source and target domains by considering crop yield response in the target domain based on task-specific regression models. Experiments on three UDA scenarios in the U.S. corn belt and Argentina have been conducted to evaluate the model performance. It was observed that MMPD outperformed representative single-source and multi-source UDA methods. In summary, this dissertation introduced Bayesian inference and UDA to county-level corn yield prediction based on RS and weather variables. Novel solutions have been provided for quantifying predictive uncertainty in crop yield prediction and improving spatial transferability for deep learning-based crop yield prediction models. This dissertation provides a robust framework for the in-season prediction of crop yield and highlights the need for a deeper understanding of the impact of environmental stress on agricultural productivity and crop yield. Moreover, this dissertation applied the UDA for crop yield prediction and demonstrated the effectiveness of adversarial learning for improving the transferability of DL models on crop yield prediction.

Download or read book Agronomy written by Dr. Amanullah and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is a serious threat to field crop production and food security. It has negative effects on food, water, and energy security due to change in weather patterns and extreme events such as floods, droughts, and heat waves, all of which reduce crop productivity. Over six chapters, this book presents a comprehensive picture of the importance of agronomy as it relates to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. With an emphasis on the goals of Zero Hunger and Climate Change, this volume examines sustainable agronomic practices to increase crop productivity and improve environmental health.