Two experimental procedures are employed to value both health and environmental benefits from reducing pesticides in Uganda. The first experiment, an incentive compatible auction involves subjects with incomplete information placing bids to avoid consuming potentially contaminated groundnuts/water in a framed field experimental procedure. Three experimental treatments (information, proxy good, and group treatments) are used. Subjects are endowed with a monetary amount (starting capital) equivalent to half the country's per capita daily income (in small denominations). Two hundred and fifty seven respondents were involved in a total of 35 experimental sessions in Kampala and Iganga districts. Tobit model results indicate that subjects place significant positive values to avoid ill health outcomes, although these values vary by region, by treatment and by socio-economic characteristics. Gender differences were important in explaining bidding behavior, with male respondents in both study areas bidding higher to avoid ill health outcomes than females. Consistent with a priori expectation, rural population's average willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid ill health outcomes was lower (by 11.4 percent) than the urban population's WTP possibly reflecting the poverty level in the rural areas and how it translates into reduced regard for health and environmental improvements. Tests of hypotheses suggest (i) providing brief information to subjects just prior to the valuation exercise does not influence bid behavior, (ii) subjects are indifferent to the source of contamination: WTP to avoid health outcomes from potentially contaminated water and groundnuts are not significantly different, and (iii) the classical tendency to free-ride in public goods provision was observed, and this phenomenon was more pronounced in the urban than the rural area. The second experimental procedure involved 132 urban respondents making repeated choices from a set of scenarios described by attributes of water quality, an environmental good. Water quality is represented by profiles of water safety levels at varying costs. Analysis using the conditional (fixed effects) logit showed that urban subjects highly discount unsafe drinking water, and were willing to pay less for safe agricultural water, a result not unexpected considering that the urban population is not directly involved in agricultural activities and thus does not value agricultural water quality as much as drinking water quality. Results also showed that subjects' utility increased with the cost of a water sample (inconsistent with a downward sloping demand curve), suggesting perhaps that they perceived higher costs to be associated with higher water quality. Some theoretically inconsistent results were obtained with choice experiments. / Ph. D.

C-Maize VT1.0 is a simulation model of corn (<i>Zea mays</i>) growth in a soil plant atmosphere continuum. The purpose of developing the C-Maize VT1.0 simulation model was to provide an additional tool to researcher’s investigating the affects of water and nitrogen stress on corn growth and the movement of water and nitrates in the soil. The user may select either a 1-dimensional or a 2-dimensional approach to the simulation of the soil system. After an initial series of runs and a preliminary assessment of the model’s credibility it was concluded that the 2-dimensional approach provided a ‘sufficiently credible’ solution to modeling all aspects of the soil-plant-atmosphere system. The 1-dimensional approach as currently programmed provides a ‘non-credible solution’. The 1-dimensional approach failed to adequately simulate the soil subsystem and failed to simulate the plant’s response to water and nitrogen stresses. / Master of Science / incomplete_metadata

Ecuadorian farmers do not play the investment game (Berg 1995) the same with community farmers as they do with agricultural technicians. Women exhibit a preference for trust in agricultural technicians (vertical trust). Using experimental and survey data from 191 farmers we examine factors associated with 1) farmer trust in community farmers, 2) farmer trust in agricultural technicians, and 3) differences between levels of trust in agricultural technicians and community farmers. Then we explore how our measures of trust correlate with pesticide knowledge and purchase of pesticide safety equipment; in addition, we consider how our measures of trust correlate with accessing bank loans. Farmers who place more trust in community farmers score lower on our pesticide knowledge exam and they are less likely to adopt our pesticide safety equipment technology. We find that farmers who exhibit a preference for trusting agricultural technicians score higher on our pesticide knowledge exam; they are also more likely to report having accessed a bank loan. / Master of Science

A diallel study of American Corn Belt maize (Zea mays L.) was conducted at Holland, Virginia in 1981 and 1982. All possible crosses of twelve inbred parents (A619, A632, B73, H60, H93, H96, Mo17, Oh7B, Pa91, Val7, Va.79:419, Va85) were planted in three replications with population density treatments of 39,536, 49,420, 59,304, and 69,188 pl/ha in strips across hybrid treatments. Analyses of variance and combining ability analyses were performed on traits measuring the timing of anthesis (pollen shed) and silk emergence, on ear components of yield, and on components of kernel size. Density effects were highly significant for all traits, except for that of pollen shed duration, in the analyses combined over years. Hybrid-by-year interactions were highly significant for all traits. Correlations between GCA effects of grain yield and GCA effects of silking delay (anthesis-to-silking interval), kernels per row on the ear, ear kernel number, and kernel depth[(ear diameter - cob diameter)/2] were -0.79, 0.64, 0.66, and 0.80 in 1981, and 0.24, 0.81, 0.71, and 0.26 in 1982, respectively. Moisture stress sufficient to cause wilting occurred before and during silking in 1981. Apparently, short silking delay was associated with high moisture stress tolerance for grain yield in 1981 and was associated with long ear shoot length in 1982. Deep kernel depth apparently was associated with drought stress tolerance for yield as well. The heritabilities of ear traits were higher the earlier they became established in the sequence of development. Heritabilities of silking delay and most ear components of yield were increased by increasing planting density. However, the correlations among flowering and ear traits largely were unaffected by density, perhaps because densities were not high enough to make barrenness a substantial factor in grain yield. The most important traits related to yield were silking delay, kernels per row, kernel depth, and kernel row number. GCA to SCA variance component ratios were increased by combining data over years and by the more optimum season for yield. / Ph. D.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1965 R215 / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 S42 / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 E27 / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 A47 / Master of Science / Agronomy

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1966 N562 / Master of Science