Design and Testing of a Laboratory Scale Deflection Apparatus

Comparisons Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Chickpea under Different Tillage Systems and Soil Residual Nitrogen

Abstract

Agricultural structures play an important role in the quality and quantity of products that are either produced or stored within a structure. Main characteristic of an agricultural structure is that it is generally smaller and lighter than other industrial structures. Hence, they require smaller scale and capacity laboratory equipment when conducting studies on structural behaviors of such structures. In this study, a deflection apparatus was designed and tested to determine if it is suitable for use in greenhouse mechanics studies. Design procedures, materials used in the design and performance of the system was discussed. Theoretically calculated deflections were compared to measured deflections that were obtained using the developed system. The results showed that calculated and measured deflections yielded stronger relationship with an R2 value of 0.99. It should also be noticed that the cost of the system (TL 5480 TL, $ 1000) makes it ideal for related studies.

Özet

This research was conducted with two years (2012/2013-2014/2015) period at research field of Faculty of Agriculture, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Eskisehir, Turkey. Main plots were composed to conventional (CT) and reduced tillage (RT). Wheat-wheat (WW); wheat-fallow (WF); wheat-chickpea (WC) crop rotations were placed in sub plots, and four nitrogen doses (0, 50, 100, 150 kg ha-1) were evaluated as sub-sub plots. All of the traits except for grain yield were significantly affected by years. The reason for differences between years may be ecological conditions, cultural practices and soil conditions. Plant protein ratio, plant N ratio and nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUtE) were higher RT than CT but nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and nitrogen uptake efficiency (NUpE) were higher CT than RT. Increasing nitrogen doses were not affected the plant protein ratio and plant N ratio as expected. The reason of this, the nitrogen doses were applied to the pre-plant instead of chickpea and the nitrogen might be lost by washing in the long period. NUE and NUpE decreased by increasing nitrogen doses but NUtE increased.