Monday, January 27, 2020

Flax Seed Crop: Requirements for Growth

Flax Seed Crop: Requirements for Growth Garrett Sawatzky Devin Pouteau Flax has been produced in Manitoba for many years and once held a large portion of cropped acres throughout the province. Flax is still grown in some areas of Manitoba and there are many uses for the seed and straw. Flax is a sensitive crop and must be planted at the correct depth, seeding rate, and date to get the best production from it. Flax is typically sown later in the spring into warm soil at a depth of ÂÂ ¾ to 1 1/4 inches. A high seeding rate of 40 to 45 pounds is recommended to achieve 40 plants a square foot with the emergence rate of 50-60%. This high density is required to compete with weeds. Flax may be affected from seedling blight on rare occasions, the seeds waxy coating makes it hard to treat, meaning it often isnt treated. Flax has Specific nutrient needs and will not respond to higher rates of fertilizer. Excess nitrogen will cause prolonged maturation and lodging issues. Farmers should have a soil test done but a general fertilizer analysis following a grain crop is 40-60 lbs of nitrogen, 30 to 40 lbs of phosphorous, 30 to 60 lbs of potassium on sandy soils, and 15 lbs of sulfur. Chlorosis may be an issue due to a deficiency in zinc, ensure the soil has adequate zinc to avoid it. Flax is not a competitive crop meaning crop protection is important. Weed competition is the largest issue and can be controlled using high plant density and chemical herbicides. Herbicides that work well for flax are Curtail M which kills broadleaves such as thistles and volunteer canola. Centurian is also tank mixed which kills grasses such as wild oats. Typically, spraying herbicides twice is required as late weeds can still compete with established flax. Disease is not a huge issue in flax but rust, fusarium wilt, and powdery mildew are sometimes an issue. Some fungicides that help are Folicur, Headline, or Quadris which are sprayed at early flower. Flax reaches maturity in 90 to 125 days depending on the variety, once ripe the plant forms bolls that contain shiny flax seeds inside. The plant is mature when the bolls are brown, the seeds rattle inside when shook and the top opens slightly. Desiccation is often used to dry down the plant and the seeds to 10% moisture which is required for storage. Once dry, flax can be straight cut or swathed and rolled then harvested shortly after. Flax plants are very light and can easily be blown if swathed and left in the wind. The straw fibres are dropped and baled for the fibre if weed content is low or burned if it cannot be used. Typical yields for flax in Manitoba is 32 bu/ac on average, 45 on the high end and 17 on the low end. Flax seed is used for oil, nutritional supplement, and used in many wood finishes. The straw fibre is used for insulation, paper, linen, and livestock bedding. Although there are many uses for both the seed and plant the market is beginning to drop. Many of these products are now made with synthetic products rather than with flax seed or straw. Flax prices are currently at $12.25 a bushel and has been around that price for the past two months. Historical prices have been variable, being as high as $18.00 per bushel and as low as $10.00. The price is variable but typically averages between $12.50 and $13.00 a bushel yearly. Both globally and nationally supply will be similar or lower in the coming year as some people are removing flax from their rotation and adding more profitable crops such as soybeans. Demand will be similar as consumers continue to use flax for every day uses. Products manufactured from flax straw will be lower as less straws produced, and synthetic products replace it. Overall Flax can be a profitable crop, but may be challenging as it is not a competitive plant. Flax needs protection in all areas from planting, spraying and even during harvest. Market prices have been high, meaning with average yields flax Is very profitable. Its believe that consumers wont stop using flax as a healthy alternative in their diets, meaning the market will be here for the foreseeable future. Works Cited Manitoba Flax Growers Association, mfga.ca. Accessed 1 Feb. 2017. Flax Production and Management. Government of Manitoba, https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/production/flax-and-solin/index.html. Accessed 1 Feb. 2017. Flax Council of Canada, flaxcouncil.ca. Accessed 1 Feb. 2017.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

A scope statement for a spring concert Essay

Your roommate is about to submit a scope statement for a spring concert sponsored by the entertainment council at Western Evergreen State University (WESU). WESU is a residential university with over 22,000 students. This will be the first time in six years since WESU sponsored a spring concert. The entertainment council has budgeted $40,000 for the project. The event is to occur on June 5th. Since your roommate knows you are taking a class on project management she has asked you to review her scope statement and make suggestions for improvement. She considers the concert a resume-building experience and wants to be as professional as possible. Below is a draft of her scope statement. What suggestions would you make and why? WESU Spring Music Concert Project Objective To organize and deliver a 6-hour music concert by June 5th at cost to not exceed $40,000. Deliverables †¢Concert security †¢Contact local newspapers and radio stations †¢Separate beer garden †¢Six hours of musical entertainment †¢Design a commemorative concert t-shirt †¢Local sponsors †¢Food venues †¢Event insurance †¢Safe environment Milestones 1.Secure all permissions and approvals 2.Sign big-name artist 3.Contact secondary artists 4.Secure vendor contracts 5.Advertising campaign 6.Plan set-up 7.Concert 8.Clean-up Technical Requirements 1.Professional sound stage and system 2.At least five performing acts 3.Restroom facilities 4.Parking 5.Compliance with WESU and city requirements/ordinances Limits and Exclusions †¢Seating capacity for 8,000 students. †¢Performers are responsible for travel arrangement to and from WESU. †¢Performers must provide own liability insurance. †¢Performers and security personnel will be provided lunch and dinner on the day of the concert. †¢Vendors contribute 25 percent of sales to concert fund †¢Concert must be over at 12:15 A.M.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Marx long ago wrote that philosophers

One of most controversial socio-political ideas, which advocators of social change want to incorporate within the context of society, is egalitarianism. Egalitarianism aims to ensure that equality is being observed among men. Equality is viewed in egalitarian stance, in the sense that each individual must be treated equally and fairly wherein economic opportunities are available to all and wealth is distributed evenly. Hence, egalitarianism presupposes that each individual should have an equal social worth and moral status. John Locke posits the basic tenets of egalitarianism, which explicitly state that the validation of our natural rights will lead to the realization of social change. First, each individual has the right to do everything she chooses; in so far that he/she will not infringe other’s rights, in forms of fraud, force, violence, and the likes. Second, each individual has the right to ensure his/her safety, except if she gave up this right or transfer to others or to the government. And most importantly, each and everyone is the owner of themselves and all infants must be nurtured properly until they reach their adulthood by those who biologically create them. Thus, Locke’s concept of egalitarianism is focus on self-ownership. In this milieu, we can infer that egalitarianism proposed by Locke is geared towards social change because even if it gives so much stress on self-ownership, it can never denied that the validation of one’s natural rights is the primary step for equality among men, which happens to be the epicenter of man’s struggle.   Justice is served when there is equality. The basic drive of egalitarianism springs from the contrast between the claim of every human being to an equal status, in respect simply of our common humanity, and the inequality of income and wealth. That equality of status is expressed in our notion of rights inherent in every human being, by reason only of his or her sentient existence. We speak of ‘human rights’, and expect them to be recognized in every land, whatever the structure of its society or the policy of its government, simply because the inhabitants are human beings as are we. Every person who shares with us the experience of voyaging on this planet between birth and death is in like case with us, and in some respects is entitled to an equal consideration. Those respects appear in civic rights, such as free speech, access to justice, the vote, and protection of property. They appear also where duties are imposed, such as conscription, or jury service; even taxation is required to lay an equal burden on households' ability to pay. In all these and other respects, we feel it wrong to accord or deny rights to people according to their parentage, their abilities, their attainments and even (except in extreme cases) their conduct. Increasingly in recent years it has been held that we should make no distinction by gender. We rate the standing of a country in the scale of civilization by the extent to which it observes these rights. Yet even where they are observed most fully, and the people pride themselves on their civic equality, they are divided from one another by great differences in their income and wealth, with all the consequent differences in their way of life. The spirit of humanity works in one way, the market economy in quite another. To many people who look for no revolutionary change, this disparity is shocking. Contrariwise, egalitarianism for Karl Marx is necessary for as long as it is construed that capitalism is eliminated altogether, in which the existence of inequalities among men in the arena of economic market will not be ruled by capitalist establishments. Marx argues that it is permissible to distribute economic goods based on the criterion emphasized by norms, and not by capitalists. Norm is the basis for equal rights because people will not be exploited since the economic earnings that a person will be getting is justified by his/her labor contribution, or as the catchphrase, â€Å"to each according to his contribution†.[1] But since this kind of reasoning is still problematic, Marx posits that this will only be a stepping stone, until a society reaches a higher communist status wherein the law will be â€Å"to each according to his needs†.   Marx furthers that a society, in order to acquire a just society, must not equate norms to any moral principle because incorporating such concept emanates an attitude of enforcement. If Locke claims that self-ownership is the key in actualizing egalitarian perspective, Marx, on the one hand, construes that is the realization of a utopian society. Self-ownership is lacking for Marx because a person is still vulnerable to any kind of exploitations, especially in economic market and labor, wherein those who cannot claim their self will be left to be exploited. He postulates that exploitation (in terms of labor, economic distribution, etc.) will only be annihilated if the society will reach its utopian status because for this status to be realized, it is a principal prerequisite that every member of a society participates in a societal operation that gives value to one’s ability, and with regards to what the individual can contribute in that society it should not be attacked by any prejudices and biases. Everyone is equal even if there is a diversity of abilities or contributions. If equality exists within one’s society, then social change is achievable. It must be noted that social change asks for the re-landscaping of society’s status quo. And in present times, the distribution of wealth and equal opportunities is of major concern. Reference: Henry, B. P. (1991). Egalitarianism and the Generation of Inequality (Reprint ed.): Oxford University Press, USA. [1] Henry, B.P. Egalitarianism and the Generation of Inequality. Oxford Univ. Press, p. 122.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

How to Write a Research Essay on an Unfamiliar Topic

Sooner or later any student faces the task of writing an essay on a topic he or she doesn’t know anything about. Although it is a tough task no matter what kind of essay it is, the problem may be somewhat alleviated in case the essay in question is a research essay – because its very nature presupposes that you find out more about the topic in the very process of composing your paper. It, of course, helps if you have at least some inklings of what you are supposed to write about, but it is quite possible that your tutor has given you this task knowing that you are unfamiliar with the topic – for the sole purpose of teaching you how to do research. Before You Start Writing: Studying Research Essay Examples Practice makes perfect; nobody is going to argue against this maxim. But how are you supposed to practice if you have no idea what to begin with? You may be even familiar with theoretical aspect of research essay writing, but without ever seeing such an assignment completed by someone else you will hardly be capable of writing something along the same lines yourself. That is why it is a good idea to look for research essay examples before trying to write something on your own. You should, however, remember that there are a lot of essay databanks on the Internet, but not all of them are equally helpful. Some contain papers of extremely poor quality, often written by people who themselves have no idea of what they are doing and the standards they are supposed to use. These materials, of course, shouldn’t be used for reference. But how to find out which resources contain essays of sufficient quality? Unfortunately, in most cases the only way to filter out the second-rate sources is to get recommendations from the people you trust. A Sample Topic – Writing an Essay on Breast Cancer So, let’s say you have to write on this rather unpleasant topic. The first thing you should understand is that, essentially, research essays have a lot in common with argumentative ones, simply with a much greater emphasis on facts, statistics and personal research done as a part of the process of writing. It means that you have to determine the point you are going to support, and then do some research, looking for the information supporting your thesis. Of course, if you don’t know much about the topic in question, you will hardly be able to write something really profound, but still, you don’t want to repeat someone else’s thoughts too blatantly. Luckily, writing an essay on breast cancer leaves you a lot of freedom. You may try and prove a connection between certain lifestyle choices and the likelihood of breast cancer development, or study the rates of this disease in different decades of this and the previous centuries. In other words, choose whatever you like – just make sure you can find enough facts supporting your point.