Three beef cattle diets were assessed for their potential to produce odorous compounds from cattle feces excreted during the growing and finishing periods. Eight pens containing 51 steers of varying proportions of Brahman and MARC III genotypes were fed either a chopped bromegrass hay diet or a corn silage diet for a 119-d growing period. After the growing period, all steers were switched to th...

Abstract Research on corn ethanol is overly focused on whether corn ethanol is a net energy yielder and, consequently, has missed some other fundamental issues, including (1) whether there is significant error associated with current estimates of the EROI of corn ethanol, (2) whether there is significant spatial variability in the EROI of corn ethanol production, (3) whether yield increases wil...

Through a geographically weighted panel regression analysis, we demonstrate the spatially varying relationship between weather and corn yields. A balanced panel data of 958 U.S. corn production counties for the period 2002-2006 is used. The results indicate that the relationship between weather and corn yield has large spatial variability. In specific, temperature tends to have negative margina...

The prime focus of ethanol production from corn is to replace the imported oil used in American vehicles, without expending more fossil energy in ethanol production than is produced as ethanol energy. In a thorough and up-to-date evaluation of all the fossil energy costs of ethanol production from corn, every step in the production and conversion process must be included. In this study, 14 ener...

Flint corn has a greater proportion of vitreous endosperm than dent corn (Philippeau et al, 1999). Philippeau and Michalet-Doureau (1997) observed that increased kernel vitreousness was associated with decreased ruminal starch degradation. Increased kernel vitreousness may explain the reduction in total-tract starch digestibility observed for mature whole-plant corn silage (WPCS; Bal et al., 19...

This paper considers a multi-task, principal-agent problem where risk-averse farmers possessing private information have two tasks, pollution control and corn production, but only direct incentive for corn production. Using a highly tractable reformulation of the standard uncertain production model, a general method for solving the associated constrained Paretian problem is developed and analyz...

Web-based expert system of wheat and corn growth management mainly to put the information of wheat and corn planting on web. It integrated much new knowledge of agriculture including weather, plant protection, expertise, GIS, Internet and computer technology. It provided the information of breed, soil, wheat and crop characteristic for the farmer of different area in Hebei Province on web. Furt...

Ammonia emission is a major concern for the poultry industry and can be lowered by dietary inclusion of fibrous ingredients and by lowering the dietary CP content. The objectives of this research were to determine the effects of dietary fiber and reduced-CP diets, which may lower NH(3) emission, on egg production and N balance in laying hens. A total of 256 Hy-Line W-36 hens were fed diets with...

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) production using renewable energy sources is gaining importance because of its flexibility and high-energy efficiency. Biomass materials, such as corn stover and forestry residues, are potential sources for renewable energy for CHP production. In Mississippi, approximately 4.0 MT dry tons of woody biomass is available annually for energy production. In this study, ...

production of thermostable alkaline protease in tray bioreactor for solid state fermentation is a unique process which may lead to an economical approach for production of enzyme from agricultural waste or low cost substrate. in solid state fermentation using tray bioreactor, several agricultural residues such as rice bran, sugarcane bagasse, wheat bran, barely bran, corn meal and corn husk wer...