Mulch applied to tropical soil may increase soil health both through stimulation of microbiota beneficial to plant nutrient uptake and the suppression of plant disease. To test this hypothesis, we compared beans in three cropping systems: (1) mulched with secondary vegetation (slash/mulch), (2) mulched with foliage from alleycropped nitrogen-fixing trees, Calliandra calothyrsus, Gliricidia sepi...

Multilayer routing is an important problem in the physical design of integrated circuits as technology evolves towards several layers of metallization. MulCh is a channel router accepting specification of an arbitrary number of routing layers. Though several other channel routers for three layers of interconnect have been proposed, the only previously reported practical implementation for an ar...

This paper reports on the thermal characterization, via the thermal conductivity, of natural materials, such as mulch and lava rock and their usefulness as building insulation. Experiments were carried out using a scale one monitored wall (i.e. heat flux and temperature sensors) exposed to a heating source on one side and to an air conditioned space on the other. The wall system was composed of...

A ®eld experiment was conducted during the dry season of 1993/1994 at the Irrigation Research Farm, Institute for Agricultural Research, Samaru, Nigeria to evaluate water management options on the performance of tomato. The trial involved three furrow irrigation methods (conventional furrow, conventional furrow with cutback, and alternate furrow), two mulch treatments (without mulch and straw m...

The recent boom in construction activities and the continued urban development in Kuwait have resulted in the generation of massive quantities of construction/demolition material by-products that need to be removed from construction/demolition sites in the cities to landfill areas which are limited in the country. This paper explores the possibility and benefits of utilizing by-product material...

A model of unsaturated soil-water movement using a prediction model of basic physical soil properties for calculating correlation functions was developed using VADOSE/W. The reliability of the model was assessed by comparing the results with those of a soil-column test. Coefficients of determination, R2, between the simulated and the measured daily evaporation for sand-mulch thicknesses of 0 (c...

We have developed a mulch sheet made by inflation molding of PLA, Ecoflex((R)) and modified starch, which all have different biodegradabilities. A field test of use as an agricultural mulch sheet for mandarin oranges was carried out over two years. The mechanical properties of the mulch sheet were weakened with time during the field test, but the quality of the mandarin oranges increased, a res...

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is one of fourmajor food crops in the world. Weed control is a major component in potato production and has been accomplished using different methods, including but not limited to the use of herbicides and straw mulch. A combination of preemergence herbicide and straw mulch may improve weed control; however, no information is available for combining both methods, alon...

The effects of plastic mulch in Hawaiian pineapple culture on runoff generation and soil erosion are poorly understood and not covered in the literature. Field rainfall simulation experiments were conducted on an Oxisol commonly used in Hawaii for pineapple production. Four treatments were no cover (hereafter called bare), plastic mulch as the sole cover (plastic), pineapple crowns as the sole ...