A major challenge in the production of pellets is the high cost associated with drying biomass from 30 to 10% (w.b.) moisture content. At Idaho National Laboratory, a high-moisture pelleting process was developed to reduce the drying cost. In this process the biomass pellets are produced at higher feedstock moisture contents than conventional methods, and the high moisture pellets produced are ...

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched on November 2009, is an unprecedented initiative to globally monitor surface soil moisture using a novel 2-D L-band interferometric radiometer concept. Airborne campaigns and ground-based field experiments have proven that radiometers operating at L-band are highly sensitive to soil moisture, due to...

The objective of this study is to get a better understanding of radar signal over irrigated wheat fields and to assess the potentialities of radar observations for the monitoring of soil moisture. Emphasis is put on the use of high spatial and temporal resolution satellite data (Envisat/ASAR and Formosat-2). Time series of images were collected over the Yaqui irrigated area (Mexico) throughout ...

Long-term measurements of soil nitrogen (N) transformations along an environmental gradient within the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory basin in western North Carolina showed a strong seasonal pattern and suggested that vegetation community typethrough its influence on soil properties-was an important regulating factor. Our objective was to determine the relative effects of biotic vs. abiotic fact...

The importance of spatial variability of antecedent soil moisture conditions on runoff response is widely acknowledged in hillslope hydrology. Using a distributed hydrologic model, this paper aims at investigating the effects of soil moisture spatial variability on runoff in various field conditions and at finding the structure of the soil moisture pattern that approaches the measured soil mois...

Pine-oak ecosystems are globally distributed even though differences in anatomy and leaf habit between many co-occurring oaks and pines suggest different strategies for resource use, efficiency and stomatal behavior. The New Jersey Pinelands contain sandy soils with low water- and nutrient-holding capacity providing an opportunity to examine trade-offs in resource uptake and efficiency. Therefo...

Complexes of the type (OCH2C(CH3)2CH2OB)2S2P(S)OR (where R=Me,Et,Pri,Bui,Ph,CH2Ph) have beensynthesized by the reactions of 2-chloro-1,3,2-dioxaborinanes and potassium salt of O-alkyl (O-aryl)trithiophosphates in 2:1 molar ratio in refluxing benzene. The product are formed as white or light yellowcoloured monomeric solid, soluble in common organic solvents and exhibit high sensitivity towardsat...

The temperature sensitivity (Q10) of soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh) is an important ecological model parameter and may vary with temperature and moisture. While Q10 generally decreases with increasing temperature, the moisture effects on Q10 have been controversial. To address this, we conducted a 90-day laboratory incubation experiment using a subtropical forest soil with a full factorial...

To determine the effect of forage moisture content on intake and digestion kinetics in sheep, a metabolism trial was conducted using 16 mature wethers (44 kg BW) in a completely randomized design. Forage was harvested at two maturities in early spring from a naturalized pasture composed of temperate grass and legume species. Herbage was harvested at either 8 (early) or 16 cm (late) in height an...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND AND AIMS The negative logarithmic relationship between orthodox seed longevity and moisture content in hermetic storage is subject to a low-moisture-content limit (m(c)), but is m(c) affected by temperature? METHODS Red clover (Trifolium pratense) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) seeds were stored hermetically at 12 moisture contents (2-15 %) and five temperatures (-20, 30,...