on-farm experiments were designed to investigate the response of maize establishment and grain yield to variation in tillage systems. the tillage treatments included arara ploughing followed by zig-zag harrowing and arara ridging (t1); emcot ploughing fol-lowed by zig-zag harrowing and emcot ridging (t2); mouldboard ploughing followed by disc harrowing and mouldboard ridging (t3); disc ploughin...

two field and laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of superabsorbent polymer (sap) and irrigation management on seed and essential oil yields of cumin, as well as the impact of water quality on water holding capacity of sap. salinity had a negative effect on the amount of water absorbed by sap (335 and 59 g h2o per g sap, for distilled water and solution of 0.5% nacl...

Recent studies have shown that stomata respond to changes in hydraulic conductance of the flow path from soil to leaf. In open-grown tall trees, branches of different heights may have different hydraulic conductances because of differences in path length and growth. We determined if leaf gas exchange, branch sap flux, leaf specific hydraulic conductance, foliar carbon isotope composition (delta...

The objective of the present study is to determine better eye end design of a mono leaf spring used in light motor vehicle. A conventional 65Si7 spring steel leaf spring model with standard eye, casted and riveted eye end are considered. The CAD model of the leaf springs is prepared in CATIA and analyzed using ANSYS. The standard eye, casted and riveted eye leaf springs are subjected to similar...

Relative absorptance of intact branches measured with an integrating sphere was compared to leaf area estimated by conventional methods (volume displacement and scanning area meter) for three conifer species: Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP, Pinus banksiana (Lamb.) and Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco. A consistent relationship between relative absorptance and surface area emerged for the three s...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS It is well known that plant aerial development is affected by light intensity in terms of the date of flowering, the length of stems and petioles, and the final individual leaf area. The aim of the work presented here was to analyse how shade-induced changes in leaf development occur on a dynamic basis from the whole rosette level to that of the cells. METHODS Care was tak...

Long-term declines in rainfall in south-western Australia have resulted in increased interest in the hydraulic characteristics of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata Donn ex Smith) forest established in the region's drinking water catchments on rehabilitated bauxite mining sites. We hypothesized that in jarrah forest established on rehabilitated mine sites: (1) leaf area index (L) is independent of in...

in this regard, the morphophysiologic and anatomic characteristics of six olive cultivars (nabali, feshomi, arbequin, zard, gordal and roghani) were investigated under drought. experiments were designed based on factorial and complete block random plot with two control treatments, -1.5 mpa stress and three replicates. the investigated factors were as follows: leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf...

The flammability of plant leaves influences the spread of fire through vegetation. Exotic plants invading native vegetation may increase the spread of bushfires if their leaves are more flammable than native leaves. We compared fresh-leaf and dry-leaf flammability (time to ignition) between 52 native and 27 exotic plant species inhabiting dry sclerophyll forest. We found that mean time to ignit...

The leaf economics spectrum (LES) describes multivariate correlations that constrain leaf traits of plant species primarily to a single axis of variation if data are normalized by leaf mass. We show that these traits are approximately distributed proportional to leaf area instead of mass, as expected for a light- and carbon dioxide-collecting organ. Much of the structure in the mass-normalized ...