Prolonged tuber dormancy in yam (Dioscorea spp.) is crucial for storage and economic benefits but hinders production and improvement efforts. Understanding dormancy regulation is necessary for genetic manipulation to enhance postharvest management. This study, using tuber meristematic tissues of three yam cultivars – CRI-Ahoɔdenfoɔ (D. alata), Pona and Labreko (D. rotundata) investigated the influence of endogenous gibberellic acid (GA3) and the enzymes α- and β-amylase on tuber dormancy and sprouting over 90 days of storage. Sprouting occurred at the proximal end of the tubers and coincided with a significant increase in β-amylase activity and maltose levels in the D. rotundata and D. alata cultivars at 60 and 90 days after harvest (DAH), respectively. Starch content decreased during storage. α-Amylase activity increased initially, peaking at 30 DAH, before declining and then rising again during the later storage period. The study established that yam tuber dormancy could be maintained by keeping GA3 content below a threshold limit of 1.8 mg/g, and restricting β-amylase activity to less than a 2.5-fold increase compared to harvest values. The results suggest that dormancy is regulated by a combination of GA3 and β-amylase activity in the meristematic layer of tubers, with GA3 likely inducing α-amylase synthesis for enhanced glucose generation, and β-amylase producing more maltose.
Field of maize was conducted during the rainy season in 2021 and 2022 in Baré (Littorale Region - Cameroon) aiming to contribute to the improvement of the yield of maize by combining two organic fertilizers and pollinators insects. The main factor was pollination with two levels (plants left on free pollination and plants isolated from insects). The secondary aspect was fertilization with four points, mycorhize-poultry manure, mycorhize, poultry manure and control. The growth parameters, the diversity and foraging activity of pollinators insects, the influence of organic fertilizers and pollinator insects were evaluated on the yields. The results showed that the plants located on the plots treated with mycorhize-poultry, mycorhize and poultry manure showed significant growth on the number of the leaves (p<0.05) and collar diameter (p<0.05). In both years, a total of four orders of pollinator insects have been identified where Hymenoptera (90.94%) ranks first followed by Diptera (8.71%). Those insects harvested pollen (100%). Mean number of seeds per ears and the normal seeds left on free pollination was greater compared to those isolated from insects (p<0.001). The production (normal seeds and the mean number of seeds per ears) varies to 36.41 to 41.72 % in the plots having mycorhize-poultry manure, to 32.94 to 38.32 % plots having mycorhize and to 30.89 to 31.06 % to poultry manure plots associated with pollinators insect respectively. The use of organic manure especially the mycorhize-poultry manure and the maintenance of pollinators insect nest around the field mays by recommended to improve crop yield.
Land-use changes have remarkable effects on the dynamics of soil properties. The lowest mean of bulk density, the highest fraction of clay, soil pH, soil organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, cation exchange capacity, and exchangeable base were recorded in forest land. Also, soil depth data might fluctuate with increasing soil depth. This variation might be due to inappropriate land use management led to disturbance of soil nutrient status, indicating that the soil condition in the cultivated land and plantation forest is getting below the condition of soils under natural forest and grazing lands. Therefore, needs immediate intervention to protect the remnant natural forest and to replenish the degraded soil properties proper land use plans and soil water conservations are important to enhance and sustain soil fertility and agricultural productivity.
Farmer's training is a method of agricultural extension service delivery. This paper through a thorough review of literature aims to access the effectiveness of farmer training programs in Nepal for transfer of knowledge, creation of awareness, adoption of improved practices and technologies, and improvement in farmer efficiency and farm productivity.
In field conditions, the effect of plant growth regulators Ivin (N-oxide-2,6-dimethylpyridine), Methyur (sodium salt of 6-methyl-2-mercapto-4-hydroxypyrimidine), Kamethur (potassium salt of 6-methyl-2-mercapto-4-hydroxypyrimidine) on growth and productivity of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) variety Bastion was studied. The growth-regulating activity of plant growth regulators Ivin, Methyur and Kamethur was compared with the growth-regulating activity of the auxin IAA (1H-Indol-3-yl)acetic acid). It was found that the treatment of seeds before planting in the soil with water solutions of Ivin, Methyur and Kamethur, used at a concentration of 10-7M, contributes to an increase in morphological parameters (length of shoot and root, fresh weight of plant and basket) and biochemical parameters (content of chlorophylls a and b, and carotenoids) of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) variety Bastion grown in field conditions for 3 months. The growth-regulating activity of plant growth regulators Ivin, Methyur and Kamethur was higher than the growth-regulating activity of the auxin IAA used at the same concentration of 10-7M. The obtained results confirmed the possibility of using plant growth regulators Ivin, Methyur and Kamethur to increase the length of shoot and root, fresh weight of the plant and basket, and the content of chlorophylls in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) variety Bastion.
In industrial recirculating aquaculture, the feed required by fish accounts for a major part of the total expenditure. In this paper, a multi-factor decision making system based on aggregation FIFFB of fish feeding behavior, water temperature T of environmental factors and biomass weight W was proposed to solve the problem of feed waste under the traditional mode. To verify the performance of this model, a fuzzy inference FIS model is constructed for comparison. The experimental results show that the root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) between the predicted and actual feeding amount of ANFIS triplet are 0.78 and 0.19, respectively, which are much lower than the FIS model, and this model is more suitable for predicting the feeding amount decision. At the same time, growth parameters such as WGR, FMAE, K and FCR were compared. The fish growth specifications were fatter and the economic benefits were higher, and the feed conversion rate was increased by 12.35%. Therefore, the triplet ANFIS feeding prediction and decision-making system based on fish aggregation degree, water temperature and body weight is effective and has guiding significance for the precise feeding design of unmanned aquaculture.
This study was aimed to determine the characteristics of the soils of perennial ryegrass genotypes found in the natural flora in the Central Anadolu Region in Türkiye. Within the scope of the study, perennial ryegrass populations were collected from the provinces of Ankara, Eskişehir, Afyon, Konya, Aksaray, Karaman and Mersin and Antalya provinces in 2006 and 2007. Plants were collected and soil samples were taken and analysed from 87 sites in Ankara (20), Eskişehir (9), Afyon (5), Konya (39), Aksaray (1), Karaman (5), Mersin (2) and Antalya (6). According to the analysis results, the pH varied between 6.35-8.50, EC 52-1395 µS/cm, organic matter 0.04-9.1 %, lime 1.2-64.2%, P2O5 4.28-128.7 mg/kg, K2O 24.7-1360. 8 mg/kg, Ca 820-4030 mg/kg, Mg 32.7-3569 mg/kg, Na 0.6-2016 mg/kg, Fe 2.78-67.50 mg/kg, Zn 0.10-8.97 mg/kg, Cu 0.21-9.43 and Mn 2.33-42.34 mg/kg. As a result of soil analyses, large differences were observed between the locations where plants were collected in terms of the characteristics examined. This change shows the potential of developing grass varieties that can grow in different soil properties with a good breeding study of perennial ryegrass populations.
This research was carried out on the second crop oil sunflower, which was planted directly on the stubble in the Central Anatolia region. Increasing doses of boron (4.2 gr, 8.5 gr, and 16.8 gr) and increasing doses of IAA (12 ppm, 16 ppm, and 20 ppm) were applied to leaves of sunflower at R2 and R3 development stages of sunflower in order to increase the number of full seeds (Pieces/Capitulum) of the second crop oil sunflower. The data obtained from the experiment with 4 replications were evaluated statistically, and the difference between them was significant at the p<0.05 probability level. However, the difference between the potential seed number (Pieces/Capitulum) was insignificant. While 4.2 gr and 8.5 gr boron doses from the boron doses applied plots and 20 ppm IAA dose from the IAA applied plots had the highest grain yields, the lowest seed setting was observed in the 16.8 gr boron applied plots and the 12 ppm and 16 ppm IAA applied plots. It has been concluded that the IAA used in the research has both positive and negative effects on productivity against stress conditions created by environmental factors.
Cucumber downy mildew is a typical fungal airborne disease in which pathogenic spores are transmitted remotely by air currents, resulting in regional endemics. It is of great significance to study and analyze the temporal and spatial changes of downy mildew spores, especially the trajectory and sedimentation concentration of spores propagating with airflow in the air, for the prediction of downy mildew in cucumbers. Therefore, based on GDAS meteorological data from October to November 2017, this study uses the HYSPLIT-5 model to simulate the airflow propagation trajectory and sedimentation of downy mildew pathogen spores in the main cucumber planting areas in China, analyzes the trajectory frequency and sedimentation concentration in the long-distance and long-term series propagation process, and explores the transmission law of airborne disease spores, which provides a theoretical basis for predicting downy mildew in cucumbers.
The current study was conducted at the Alutouriya research station under the Agriculture Research Department in the Ministry of Municipality, Qatar, during the years 2020–2021, and 2021–2022, to test the response of various tomato cultivars against early blight. Early blight is the most devastating fungal disease of tomatoes, caused by Alternaria solani. It is one of the most common foliar diseases in tomatoes. The disease can occur in a wide range of climatic conditions but is most prominent in areas with moderate temperatures and high relative humidity. In this study, ten tomato cultivars were evaluated for highly resistant (HR), resistant (R), moderately resistant (MR), moderately susceptible (MS), and susceptible (S) reactions under natural net greenhouse conditions. Alternaria solani produces oblivious green, gray, and brown-to-black colonies when grown on PDA medium. Assessments on the mean percent disease index and severity grade of symptoms were recorded for each cultivar. Only one cultivar, 71 (banana legs), was recorded as moderately susceptible in both years with a high PDI value and symptom severity grade. The cultivars fruit weight for each cultivar was calculated to determine the productivity of the tomato plant. The maximum and minimum temperatures with relative humidity were recorded every week from November to February for the years 2022-2021 and 2021-2020. This data revealed that most of the cultivars used for this study were resistant to early blight.
The integrated cultivation of corn with forages leads to competition for production factors such as water, light and nutrients however, currently, it is being practiced to improve the chemical, physical and biological characteristics of the soil, in addition to increasing grain and straw production for the next crop. In this sense, the objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance of corn silage intercropped with the species Urochloa ruziziensis. The experiment was carried out on a rural property located in the municipality Abadia dos Dourados - Minas Gerais, Brazil. A randomized block design was used with two treatments (corn cultivated with and without intercropping with U. ruziziensis) and ten replications. The evaluations in the corn crop were carried out at 100 days after planting. The variables analyzed were: plant height, corn cob insertion height, corn cob weight and corn cob size. Data were selected for analysis of variance and level means of Tukey test models at 5% probability test. Urochloa ruziziensis when intercropped with a corn hybrid increased the height of the corn cob insertion, the size and weight of the corn cob reaching satisfactory levels.
In this study, the effect of moisture content on the physical attributes of baobab seeds was examined, along with the implications for the design of machinery for postharvest handling and processing of the seeds. The seed's volume, sphericity, aspect ratio, axial dimensions, arithmetic, and geometric mean diameters were all determined. Gravimetric properties including porosity, bulk density, and thousand grain mass were measured. Additionally, the seeds' frictional characteristics on different surfaces for handling after harvest were established. The arithmetic and geometric mean diameters were found to be in a range of 8.00 and 9.64 mm and 7.86 and 9.50 mm, respectively, with moisture contents between 5.4 and 20.6% on a dry basis. The seed's sphericity ranged from 78.18 to 80.38 percent. Densities for the bulk and particle ranged from 740.77 to 763.40 kg/m3 and 1155.22 to 1223 -29 kg/m3, respectively. The study revealed that among the four frictional surfaces, plywood surface had the greatest resistance to the flow of the seeds, and the least was registered for the glass surface material. The effect of moisture content on the seed’s physical properties were statistically significant (p≤0.05). Regression equations for future predicting the various physical properties at different moisture contents were developed. The study has produced valuable information that will help with the design of machinery for handling and processing baobab seeds after harvest.
The aim of investigation was to address the impacts of tropical forests conversion into agricultural land on changes in Oribatid mites’ communities as well as soil physico-chemical properties across 2–4 texturally distinct soils in La Mé and Grand Lahou, Côte d’Ivoire. The fieldwork was conducted in the humid period on two study sites: 1– rubber landscape (secondary forest, 7-, 12- and 25-year-old rubber plantations) and 2– oil palm landscape (secondary forest, 13-, 20- and 39-year-old oil palm plantations). Three sampling areas were established on each land-use type and age class, for a total of 24 sampling areas. In each sampling area, soil cores for Oribatid mite’s extraction were taken at a depth of 10 cm across a 40–50 m transect. The soil physical and chemical properties were also measured. The results showed a decrease in Oribatid density (–29% and –71%), species richness (–29% and –42%), diversity (–29% and –59%), soil organic carbon (–56% and –17%), total nitrogen (–55% and –12%) and soil organic matter (–56% and –17%), and an increase in bulk density (+28% and +21%), respectively after the conversion of the secondary forests into rubber and oil palm plantations. Whatever the study site, the soil physico-chemical and biological properties were more stabilized in the clay and clay sandy textures compared to sandy clay and sandy soil textures. Our findings suggest the incorporation of woody trees with an understory of nitrogen-fixing legume species as a cover crop, which can create a sustainable agroforestry system with improved land quality.
This study aimed to evaluate K, Ca, Mg, Al concentrations and active acidity (pH-H2O) in different cropping systems for onion. The study was conducted on a Humic Dystrudept in Ituporanga, Santa Catarina state, Brazil, where eight different cropping systems for onion were evaluated, namely: T1: maize-onion succession, T2: common vetch-maize/rye+fodder raddish-onion-maize/rye+fodder raddish-common bean, T3: rye-onion-maize/black oat-maize, T4: onion-velvet bean succession, T5: rye-onion-millet/black oat-onion-millet, T6: rye-onion-velvet bean succession, T7: onion-velvet bean+millet+sunflower succession, from T1 to T7 were conducted under no tillage system (NTS), T8, T8: maize-onion succession, was conducted under conventional tillage system. We used the randomized complete block design, with 5 replications. All the chemical samples were collected and evaluated at the 0-5, 5-10 and 10-20 cm soil layers. We observed that the different cropping systems were similar in terms of Ca, Mg and K concentrations in all the soil layers, significant differences were only found for exchangeable Al concentrations at the 0-5 cm layer. More time is needed to observe better the performance of the treatments since their effect on the soil depends a lot on the time of implantation.
A portable spectrometer was validated to determine optimum harvesting stage of ‘Ataúlfo’ using dry matter and skin color as fruit indicators. To build the model, samples were collected as follows: a. Unripe; b. Green Mature 1; c. Green Mature 2; d. Green Mature 3; and e. Fully mature. Fruit were scanned with a near infrared spectrometer at three temperatures (15, 25, and 35 °C). Skin color (‘a’ value) was measured with a Minolta 400 colorimeter. DM was attained in a conventional oven by drying samples for 72 h at 60 °C. Model was built and validated three times. The best model linearity was obtained on skin color ‘a’ (R2 = 0.98), whereas for DM the R2 was only 0.70. For the first validation, the best predicted value was skin color ‘a’ with an R2 = 0.9144, followed by DM with an R2 = 0.7056. On the second validation, the adjusted predicted value for skin color ‘a’ had an R2 = 0.8798, while DM had an R2 = 0.4445. When comparing NIR versus Heat Units Accumulation, in Nayarit, ‘Ataúlfo’ skin color average difference between the spectrometer vs the colorimeter was only -0.04. For ‘Ataúlfo’ from Sinaloa, skin color average difference was only -0.06, but the correlation was higher (R2 = 0.90). In conclusion, measuring skin color with the NIR spectrometer has potential as a nondestructive technique to determine the optimum harvesting stage of ‘Ataúlfo’ mango.
Field studies were conducted during the 2015 and 2016 growing seasons in south-central Texas to determine control of Palmer amaranth and annual grasses along with grain sorghum tolerance to quinclorac alone and in various combinations when applied to weeds < 5 cm (EPOST) or 10 to 16 cm tall (LPOST). When evaluated late-season quinclorac alone at 0.43 kg ae ha-1 controlled broadleaf signalgrass 72% when applied EPOST and 91% when applied LPOST. Combinations of quinclorac with either atrazine, pyrasulfotole + bromoxynil, dicamba, or dimethenamid-P controlled Palmer amaranth 88 to 100% when applied EPOST or LPOST; however, broadleaf signalgrass control with these combination was better when applied LPOST (75 to 95%) compared with EPOST (37 to 72%) applications. Texas millet control with quinclorac was poor in both years and was never greater than 54%. Quinclorac plus either atrazine, pyrasulfotole + bromoxynil, dicamba, or atrazine + dimethenamid-P caused at least 20% sorghum injury at one of three locations. No yield reductions from the untreated check were noted in either year; however, in 2016 all treatments with the exception of quinclorac alone at 0.29 kg ha-1 applied EPOST, quinclorac + pyrasulfotole + bromoxynil applied LPOST, quinclorac + atrazine + pyrasulfotole + bromoxynil applied LPOST, and quinclorac + dicamba at either application timing produced yields that were greater than the untreated check.
The thermal tolerance of four isolates of Beauveria bassiana and one isolate of Beauveria pseudobassiana was evaluated in vitro, by measuring the colonial diameters, on PDA medium, at temperatures between 5 and 35 ° C, during 14 days. The data obtained were used to calculate the growth rate of fungal colonies (mm / day), using linear regression. The representation of the values corresponding to the minimum, optimal and maximum temperature for vegetative growth was a curve described by a modified beta (ß) mathematical function. The minimum growth temperature of these isolates varied between 3.4 and 4.5 °C, the optimum temperature varied between 21.8 and 22.9 °C, except for one isolate of which optimal temperature was 26.8 °C, while the maximum temperature was varied for all isolates between 35.0 and 35.7 °C.
Visible light near infrared (VS-NIR) hyperspectral combined with three-dimensional laser scanning was applied to extract the VS-NIR features of lettuce nitrogen between 400-1700 nm and 3D morphological features of the plants. Such combination realizes the rapid quantitative detection of lettuce nitrogen. This study is based on the hyperspectral image data cube achieved from lettuce leaves with different nitrogen levels. Stepwise regression sensitive area was used and adaptive band selection method was combined to extract the characteristic spectrum and feature image of lettuce nitrogen and characterize the average image intensity. Also; the error caused by moisture variation content in lettuce nitrogen image features was compensated. Then a model of lettuce nitrogen hyperspectral image diagnosis was built. The reverse engineering software Geomagic Qualify was used to repair and smooth interference noise and discontinuous range which are based on the 3D laser scanning data of lettuce. Accordingly, the stem diameter, plant height, leaf area, and biomass features of different nitrogen levels of lettuce are obtained and the model of nitrogen detection about lettuce growth features was built based on reverse engineering and integral method. Multi-scale fusion lettuce nitrogen detection model is built by using the acquired hyperspectral images with growing features of lettuce nitrogen and adopting genetic algorithm combined with partial least squares regression. Results show the correlation coefficient R of the built model is 0.95; the model precision is much better than single feature of hyperspectral images and 3D laser scanning model. The feature extraction algorithm and the eigenvectors provide the reference for development of facilities for online monitoring system of crop growth information.
Salinity is one of the environmental limiting factors in agricultural production. The aim of this study was to find out one of more salt tolerant groundnut genotypes through monitoring the growth and changes in biomolecules under salt stress condition. Purposively four groundnut genotypes, including a Traditional variety, Zhingabadam, Binachinabadam-1 and Dacca-1 were grown under three salinity levels viz. 0, 3 and 5 dSm-1. The experiment was laid out in two factorial completely randomized design with three replications. This experiment was done in soil based pot culture up to 40 days. Increasing salt concentration drastically reduced all the growth parameters, and increase proline and sugar content of leaf. Among the varieties Traditional variety, Zhingabadam and Dacca-1 had statistically similar shoot and root dry weight. The leaves of the Traditional variety contain the highest amount of proline of 14.52 and 36.24 mg/100g fresh leaves in 3 and 5 dS/m salinity, respectively which was 236 and 737 % higher than that of respective control. At EC of 3 and 5 dS/m, the variety Binachinabadam-1 was appeared to be susceptible, having an increase of 6 and 113% proline content over the respective control. Based on the shoot dry weight, root dry weight, proline content, total sugar, reducing sugar and relative water content, the Traditional variety was strongly recommended to be grown in the coastal salt affected soils. The Zhingabadam and Dacca-1 variety also could be recommended as they had comparable performance of the Traditional variety.
Pod grains threshing using mechanical devices is essential in understanding the diversities involved in the application of machine–crop parameter combinations towards achieving best quality grain. The integration of pod grains’ physical properties in optimizing product quality which is vital to meet the increasing global requirement is limited. However, with computing and technological advancements into thresher design and evaluation have been found to be capable of meeting these needs which are of interest to researchers. Over the past three–four decades, the applications of the technology in reducing impact force through modification of peg geometry have attracted researchers’ widespread interest and the future looks promising. This review presents an overview of mechanical thresher development and the applications in the field of pod grain production chain. The role of grain physical properties in threshers design, operations and with force sensors to reveal the mysteries surrounding the causes of grain damage and how they can be minimised are stressed. The current trends and future advances of such studies are also presented.
