Crop Management 80

Crop Management-80
	Objective Evaluation of integrated new cultural, harvesting and processing practices to achieve maximum protection to environmental resources, production efficiency, and grain quality while minimizing management problems, costs, and energy requirements. Projects funded under this heading deal with those other than variety performance and pest control. They include studies on production problems involving residue management, cropping systems, nutritional and environmental factors influencing yield, and irrigation water management. They also include studies to improve stand establishment, with emphasis on planting practices that use peroxychemicals, seed protectants, hormones, nutrients and other appropriate additives. Within the area of plant nutrition, studies on phosphorus, nitrogen and sulfur levels for soil and plant tissue tests are given highest priority. Residue Management There is increasing public pressure to reduce agricultural burning. With rice growers now annually producing about 1.5 million tons of rice straw in a concentrated area close to Sacramento Valley cities, there are very cogent public relations and political reasons why our industry needs to develop economical alternatives to burning crop residues. . There will always be situations where fire is the only tool for effective disease and pest control. Through cooperative research, rice field burning techniques have been developed which reduce emissions by 40 to 50 percent. The bottom line information which our industry-sponsored research must provide, however, is how to minimize the need for burning as a rice crop residue management tool. There is urgent need to find economical ways for gathering and storing rice straw, a potentially valuable resource, and converting it into useful livestock feed, building materials, or energy. Under a new project funded by the Rice Research Board, an experimental mobile gasifier will be extensively field tested on California rice farms beginning in 1981. Under a grant from Deere & Company, UCD agricultural engineer John R. Goss designed and built the equipment in 1978-79 to test the feasibility of generating electricity from processed corn cobs. It worked well. Rice straw will be fed into the machine and converted into low BTU gas which will be piped into a 130 horsepower diesel engine that powers a generator to produce 100 kilowatts o f electricity. Preliminary experiments will get under way early this summer , at UCD, using 1980 baled rice straw from the UCD Rice Research Facility. This fall the equipment will be field tested on several rice farms to provide electricity for rice drying and to pump irrigation water. Shown (1 to r) are Deere & Company engineer Glen Kahle, UCD's Dr. John R. Goss, and Deere & Company former engineer Thomas Hitzusen.

Crop Management-80

Objective

Evaluation of integrated new cultural, harvesting and processing practices to achieve maximum protection to environmental resources, production efficiency, and grain quality while minimizing management problems, costs, and energy requirements.

Projects funded under this heading deal with those other than variety performance and pest control. They include studies on production problems involving residue management, cropping systems, nutritional and environmental factors influencing yield, and irrigation water management. They also include studies to improve stand establishment, with emphasis on planting practices that use peroxychemicals, seed protectants, hormones, nutrients and other appropriate additives. Within the area of plant nutrition, studies on phosphorus, nitrogen and sulfur levels for soil and plant tissue tests are given highest priority.

Residue Management

There is increasing public pressure to reduce agricultural burning. With rice growers now annually producing about 1.5 million tons of rice straw in a concentrated area close to Sacramento Valley cities, there are very cogent public relations and political reasons why our industry needs to develop economical alternatives to burning crop residues. .

There will always be situations where fire is the only tool for effective disease and pest control. Through cooperative research, rice field burning techniques have been developed which reduce emissions by 40 to 50 percent.

The bottom line information which our industry-sponsored research must provide, however, is how to minimize the need for burning as a rice crop residue management tool. There is urgent need to find economical ways for gathering and storing rice straw, a potentially valuable resource, and converting it into useful livestock feed, building materials, or energy.

Under a new project funded by the Rice Research Board, an experimental mobile gasifier will be extensively field tested on California rice farms beginning in 1981. Under a grant from Deere & Company, UCD agricultural engineer John R. Goss designed and built the equipment in 1978-79 to test the feasibility of generating electricity from processed corn cobs. It worked well.

Rice straw will be fed into the machine and converted into low BTU gas which will be piped into a 130 horsepower diesel engine that powers a generator to produce 100 kilowatts o f electricity. Preliminary experiments will get under way early this summer , at UCD, using 1980 baled rice straw from the UCD Rice Research Facility. This fall the equipment will be field tested on several rice farms to provide electricity for rice drying and to pump irrigation water. Shown (1 to r) are Deere & Company engineer Glen Kahle, UCD's Dr. John R. Goss, and Deere & Company former engineer Thomas Hitzusen.