Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Agricultural Systems Technology (AGST)
Description: Fundamental principles of mechanics, heat, electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism and their relationship to energy utilization and conservation. Principles then applied to problem situations in agriculture and life sciences.
Description: Basic principles of describing and evaluating mechanized systems relevant to agriculture, food, energy, and water. Problem solving using systems-thinking. Exploration of major and career opportunities. Academic success and planning.
Description: Operational characteristics of IC engines, field, materials-handling, and processing machines and their components. Includes analyses, estimations, and objective comparisons of performance; principles for adjustment and calibration of metering systems; and cost-effective sizing of machines. Exercises include using ASABE Standards and available reports of machine performance (tractor test reports, etc.).
Description: Basic theory of electrical circuits, utilization of electric energy in production, processing, and residential applications. Theory and application of direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) principles, switch and outlet wiring, wiring installations, selection of safe and adequate circuit devices, service equipment sizing, conductor sizing, electric motor operation and their control are covered. Develop switch and relay circuit schematics and build both DC and AC functional circuits. Ladder logic diagrams will be studied to understand the basic controls implemented in industrial automation.
Open to AGST majors only.
Description: Use of computational tools to solve problems relevant to mechanized systems management. Professional communication of technical information. Discussion of current and emerging issues relevant to the major.
Prerequisites: Permission and advanced approval of plan or work.
Description: Student participation in physical systems applications. May include participation in mechanization-related areas of agribusiness, production practices, and processing operations; research in laboratory, greenhouse and field; or preparation of teaching materials.
Prerequisites: Junior Standing
Class meets once a week with the lecture and lab being taught concurrently to foster hands-on learning.
Description: Overview of the digital agriculture technologies and techniques to support crop and livestock production systems. Emphasis on data life cycle including generation, collection, storage, processing, visualization, and analysis. Hands-on experiences with agricultural IoT, sensing, data processing, and decision making with open-source programming tools,
Description: Watershed hydrology, soil erosion, erosion control, water management, and land surveying and mapping. Includes rainfall-runoff relationships; determination of watershed characteristics; terraces, waterways, vegetative filters, and residue management; ponds, wetlands, non-point source pollution control, and water conservation; profile and topographic surveying.
Description: Analysis of processing and handling operations. Chemical and physical characteristics of agricultural products. Application of pyschrometrics. Power requirements, capacities, and efficiencies of drying and conveying systems. Discussion of safety issues, logistics, and survey of industry technologies.
Prerequisites: FDST 205
Field trips are required and may occur outside of scheduled class time.
Description: The companion animal industry, products, processes and career opportunities.
Prerequisites: By permission
Completion of internship approval form is required. The internship proposal is subject to approval by the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. Pass/No Pass only.
Description: Practical experience, directed learning, and career exploration and development in a selected business, industry, agency, or educational institution.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Online course offered by Iowa State University through the AG*IDEA consortium. Contact CASNR Distance Education Consortium Coordinator for course details, prerequisites and registration information.
Description: Identifies safety and health risks in industrial work environments. Focus on how managers and supervisors meet their responsibilities for providing a safe workplace for their employees. Includes the identification and remediation of workplace hazards.
Online course offered by Iowa State University through the AG*IDEA consortium. Contact CASNR Distance Education Consortium Coordinator for course details, prerequisites and registration information.
Description: The science, engineering, economics and business of converting biorenewable resources into bioenergy and biobased products. Biorenewable concepts as they relate to drivers of change, feedstock production, economics, transportation and logistics, and marketing.
Online course offered by Kansas State University through the AG*IDEA consortium. Contact CASNR Distance Education Consortium Coordinator for course details, prerequisites and registration information.
Description: Systems, components, operation practices, and safety procedures used in the chemical application industry. Liquid and granular application systems and respective components will be studied along with procedures for equipment sizing and maintenance, minimizing drift, system calibration, and safe handling-transportation-storage-disposal and spill clean-up of agrichemicals.
Prerequisites: AGST 245
Description: Theory and application of fluids under controlled pressure to perform work in mobile and industrial applications. Positive displacement (PD) pumps, linear and rotary hydraulic actuators (hydraulic cylinders and motors), valves, and electric over hydraulic systems will be studied in detail. Fluid power circuit development on both hydraulic benches and computer simulated environments will be performed with emphasis on circuit analysis, and system troubleshooting.
Prerequisites: AGST 245 or permission.
Description: Application of sensors for measurement of process control variables and implementation of microcomputer-based measurement and control systems. Basic electrical and electronic instrumentation plus control of electrically, pneumatically and/or hydraulically powered systems.
Description: Principles and concepts of site-specific management. Evaluation of geographic information systems for crop production practices. Practical experience with hardware and software necessary for successful application of information affecting crop management.
Offered spring semester in even-numbered calendar years.
Description: Principles and procedures involved in testing agricultural equipment and tractors. Actual test planned, scheduled, conducted and reported. Test may be based upon procedures used at the Nebraska Tractor Testing Laboratory or involve other equipment being used for research in the department.
Description: Introduction to the basics of embedded controller programming, and the development of Controller Area Network (CAN) bus systems in agricultural applications. Interfacing sensors with analog and digital signals, closed loop control of actuators, transmission and reception of CAN messages, programming of CAN messages in a distributed controller set up for sensor data acquisition, and actuator control will be studied.
PLAS/SOIL 153 recommended.
Description: Irrigation management and the selection, evaluation, and improvement of irrigation systems. Includes soil-water measurement, crop water use, irrigation scheduling, irrigation efficiency, measurement of water flow, irrigation systems, groundwater and wells, pumping systems, applying chemicals with irrigation systems, and environmental and water resource considerations.
Prerequisites: Senior standing in AGST
Capstone course.
Description: Team-based activities to evaluate equipment systems, make technical and economic recommendations, develop professional written and oral reports. Topics include equipment system performance and management, project scheduling and planning, cost estimation, reliability analysis, and risk assessment.
Prerequisites: FDST/AGST 363.
Description: Unit operations and their applications to food processing.
Prerequisites: Junior standing; MATH 106; 4 hrs physics; physical or biological science major.
Description: Discussion and practical application of principles and practices of measuring meteorological and related variables near the earth's surface including temperature, humidity, precipitation, pressure, radiation and wind. Performance characteristics of sensors and modern data collection methods are discussed and evaluated.
Prerequisites: Senior standing.
Capstone course.
Description: Holistic approach to the selection and analysis of planning strategies for protecting water quality from nonpoint sources of contamination. Introduction to the use of methods of analyzing the impact of strategies on whole systems and subsystems; for selecting strategies; and for evaluating present strategies.
Prerequisites: Permission
Description: Subject matter in emerging areas of Mechanized Systems Management not covered in other courses within the curriculum. Topics, activities, and delivery methods vary.
Prerequisites: 15 hours in AGST or closely related area.
Description: Individual or group projects in research, literature review, or extension of course work under the supervision and evaluation of a departmental faculty member.
Prerequisites: Admission to the University Honors Program and permission
AGRI 299H recommended.
Description: Conduct a scholarly research project and write a University Honors Program or undergraduate thesis.