Agricultural Education
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/8
The Division of Agricultural Education is dedicated to serving the needs of all students and agricultural professionals through a dynamic and comprehensive program of rural leadership, technological advancement, and proven scientific and educational practices. The program is grounded in basic and applied research aimed at improving professional and technical skills in the realm of Montana agriculture.
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item Interactions and Regulatory Functions of Phenolics in Soil-Plant-Climate Nexus(MDPI, 2023-01) Misra, Deblina; Dutta, Writupana; Jha, Gaurav; Ray, PujaPhenols are major compounds produced by plant species as a peripheral stimulus or as a regulatory defense mechanism under different environmental biotic stresses. These secondary metabolites are generated from shikimic and acetic acid metabolic pathways. The aromatic benzene ring compound plays an important role in plant development, especially in the defense forefront. They provide structural integrity and support to the plants. Phenolic phytoalexins released by pathogen/arthropod-attacked or wounded plants nullify or repel organisms for the advantage of the host. The allelopathic potential of phenolic compounds is observed in both natural and managed ecosystems. The global impacts of climatic variabilities such as drought, increased carbon dioxide, or greenhouse gas emissions alter the quantitative response of plant phenols. This review primarily discusses the different aspects of phenolic interactions concerning health, antioxidant properties, and insect-plant interaction as a nexus of soil and plant relations in response to variable climatic conditions.Item Safety in Flight Training - An Analysis of the NTSB Data 2014-2018(ERAU Hunt Library - DIGITAL COMMONS JOURNALS, 2023-01) Walach, Michael FThere were 7,500 safety events in the NTSB data sets from 2013-2018. These events were analyzed using Chi-square, Cramer’s V, and the odds ratio. Major findings in the study determined that while pilots crash aircraft for the same reasons whether they are in a training environment or not, student pilots are typically less likely to be killed, or seriously injured. The aircraft that student pilots fly however, do not share the same relative safety in some event types. Students destroy and substantially damage more aircraft than their non-training counterparts in abnormal runway contact events. The top five causes of safety events for all pilots are loss of control in flight, system component failure of the power plant, abnormal runway contact, fuel related issues, and loss of control on the ground. While the data analyzed in this study cannot explain the causation of these findings, they set the stage for further study of training accidents to determine possible explanations of these differences. Building on findings in similar studies, this researcher suggests that annual flight reviews for general aviation pilots contain more scenario-based simulation under real flight conditions as is found in the training for part 121 operators. It is theorized that some of the safety found in the training environment may come not just from the supervision of the flight instructor, but also from the repeated practice and attention to safety procedures. General aviation has been plagued with a poor safety record for a long time with little to no progress in reducing safety events, and more importantly, fatalities. It is the hope of this researcher that findings from this study may help others to dig deeper into some of these issues and find areas of focus that may help reduce the risk of injury or death for general aviation pilots.Item Agricultural Machinery Safety Behavior Among Youth(American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2023-01) Pate, Michael L.; Lawver, Rebecca G.; Perry, Dustin K.; Smalley, Scott W.; Wille, Celina; Edgar, Don; Hafer, Jim; Young, MarvinThe Supervised Agricultural Experience Safety Award program was launched with Montana, South Dakota, and Utah agriculture teachers. A combination of video conferencing and in-person training workshops were offered to school-based agriculture teachers in Montana, South Dakota, and Utah. Zoom webinar workshops were held with teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The five annual training topics were Year 1) Tractor/Equipment Roll over hazards, Year 2) ATV/UTV operation hazards, Year 3) Tractor/Equipment Operation Hazards, Year 4) PTO/Entanglement hazards, and Year 5) agricultural machinery transport hazards associated with use on public roadways. To assess the influence of agricultural machinery safety training on students’ student work-based, journal reflections were collected through the Agricultural Experience Tracker to qualitatively describe students’ production-based agricultural experiences as coded by NASS Commodity codes, describe students’ safety reporting using Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) journal entries, and quantify teachers’ workshop participation as related to student safety reporting. A total of 2215 journal entries were reviewed from Montana, Utah, and South Dakota. A total of 905 journal entries were associated with a teacher participating in the training program. Most student journal entries focused on machinery operations. A total of 80 journal entries specifically reported safety as the main topic. A total of 204 journal entries reported the use of tractors. A total of 82 entries (25.1%) noted Hay production as the agricultural production work experience. The results provide recommendations for developing an application model for translation using an FFA Award structure.Item Assessing Youth Safety Knowledge with the Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET)(American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2022-01) Smalley, Scott W.; Perry, Dustin K.; Shultz, Alyx; Lawver, Rebecca G.; Pate, Michael Lynn; Hanagriff, Roger; Ewell, ClayThe purpose of this study was to assess the safety knowledge of youth in high school agricultural education. The target population consisted of youth ages 14 to 18 who were enrolled in school-based agricultural education (SBAE) programs that used the Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET) safety knowledge assessment between May 2019 and June 2020 (N = 1,451). The safety knowledge questions were randomly generated from the curriculum resources of the National Safe Tractor and Machinery Operation Program (NSTMOP). The test consisted of 50 multiple-choice questions, with one point awarded for each correct answer, and covered topics such as safety basics, agricultural hazards, tractors, connecting and using implements with tractors, and materials handling. The majority of students were male (n = 847, 58.4%). The highest proportion of students were enrolled in the 11th grade at the time of the test. Most respondents indicated that they were from a rural area (52.0%). Test scores for the 1,451 students ranged from a minimum of 4% to a maximum of 98%. Within each independent variable, test scores averaged in the low 60s, with the exception of test scores for students in 9th grade, which averaged 56.43%. Research and continuing education are needed to influence the behavior of young workers in agricultural settings.Item Kinematic-Based Multi-Objective Design Optimization of a Grapevine Pruning Robotic Manipulator(MDPI AG, 2022-07) Molaei, Faezeh; Ghatrehsamani, ShirinAnnual cane pruning of grape vineyards is a time-consuming and labor-intensive job, but no mechanized or automatic way has been developed to do it yet. Robotic pruning can be a perfect alternative to human labor. This article proposes a systematic seven-stage procedure to design a kinematically optimized manipulator, named ‘Prubot’, to manage vineyards’ cane pruning. The manipulator structure was chosen, resulting in a 7R (Revolute) manipulator with a spherical shoulder and wrist. To obtain the design constraints, the manipulator task space was modeled. The robot’s second and third link lengths were determined by optimizing the global translational version of the measure of manipulability and the measure of isotropy of the manipulator arm section. Finally, simulations confirmed the appropriateness of the manipulator workspace. Furthermore, sampling-based path planning simulations were carried out to evaluate the manipulator’s kinematic performance. Results illustrated the impressive kinematic performance of the robot in terms of path planning success rate (≅100%). The simulations also suggest that among the eight single-query sampling-based path planning algorithms used in the simulations, Lazy RRT and KPIECE are the best (≤5 s & ~100%) and worst (≥5 s &≤25%) path planning algorithms for such a robot in terms of computation time and success rate, respectively. The procedure proposed in this paper offers a foundation for the kinematic and task-based design of a cane pruning manipulator. It could be promisingly used for designing similar agricultural manipulators.