Understanding the impact of growing conditions on oysters: a study of their sensory and biochemical characteristics

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maëva Cochet ◽  
Malcolm Brown ◽  
Peter Kube ◽  
Nick Elliott ◽  
Conor Delahunty
Author(s):  
Letizia Mondani ◽  
Giorgio Chiusa ◽  
Paola Battilani

Fusarium proliferatum has been reported as the main causal agent of garlic dry rot during the postharvest stage, but information on this fungus during the crop growth stage is lacking. We focused on the cropping season of garlic (Allium sativum L.) in the field, until its harvest, with the aim of clarifying the role of F. proliferatum in bulb infection as well as the impact of crop growing conditions on pathogen-plant interaction. Studies were conducted in Piacenza (northern Italy) for three seasons from 2016 to 2019. Six garlic farms were sampled. A different field was sampled every year. Soil samples were recovered at sowing time for the counting of fungal colony forming units (CFU). Plant samples were collected at three growth stages, from BBCH 15 (fifth leaf visible) to BBCH 49 (ripening), for which disease severity assessment and fungi isolations were performed. Fusarium was the most frequently isolated genus, of which F. proliferatum and F. oxysporum were the dominant species. F. proliferatum registered the highest incidence in all the farms tested, but F. oxysporum was dominant in the first year of the study. F. oxysporum incidence was correlated with dry weather, whereas F. proliferatum was correlated with rainy weather. In conclusion, our result confirms the association of F. proliferatum with garlic bulbs from the crop’s early growth stages, suggesting potential seed transmission as a source of this fungal pathogen. Further studies should investigate the link between fusaria occurrence in the field and dry rot outbreaks occurring postharvest and during storage of garlic.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zofia Nizioł-Łukaszewska ◽  
Maria Gawęda

Abstract Beetroot is a vegetable that accumulate heavy metals. This is largely dependent on the cultivar, methods and growing conditions. The aim of the study was to determine the composition of elements in the roots of 15 cultivars of red beet. The analysis assessed the content of macroelements (Na, P) and heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Mn, Zn). Most soils of the Lesser Poland region are exposed to the impact of industrial and transportation pollution. The soils of this region are characterized by strong acidification as well as natural or increased heavy metal content. The experiment was set up at the experimental field of the Department of Vegetable and Medicinal Plants of the University of Agriculture in Krakow, in 2009-2010. On the basis of the performed analysis, ‘Opolski’ was chosen as the cultivar that was characterized by a high content of macroelements and lower ability to accumulate heavy metals than the other tested cultivars. The lowest ability to accumulate heavy metals (Cd and Cr) was found in the cases of cultivars with cylindrical root shapes, such as Rywal or Opolski. One can indicate such cultivars as Astar F1 or Nabab F1 as cultivars recommended for cultivation in ecologically threatened areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (11) ◽  
pp. 1007
Author(s):  
Alena Konôpková ◽  
Eva Pšidová ◽  
Daniel Kurjak ◽  
Srđan Stojnić ◽  
Peter Petrík ◽  
...  

Understanding of the intraspecific variability in the physiological stress response of trees may enable to mitigate the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems in the future. We studied the photosynthetic performance of five silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) provenances originating from climatically distinct localities. The study was performed in the trial plot of the silver fir provenance experiment IUFRO 2005 on two dates: in the early summer and in the late summer. Heat waves and a decrease in water availability occurred between the two measurement dates, allowing us to study the response of the provenances to suboptimal growing conditions. The provenances were evaluated at the level of PSII photochemistry and CO2 assimilation by measuring photosynthesis-related pigment content, chlorophyll a fluorescence, and gas exchange parameters. Significant climatic clines were confirmed: the photosynthetic performance before and after the stress period increased with the increasing altitude and precipitation at the site of origin. In contrast, photosynthetic performance declined with the increasing temperature and Ellenberg’s quotient of the origin site. We concluded that provenances originating from high altitudes, corresponding well with more humid and colder conditions in Central Europe, showed the greatest photosynthetic performance and were less responsive to moderate heat and drought. This documents inter-population variation in physiological traits, which needs to be considered in setting rules and recommendations for the transfer of forest reproductive materials.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-140
Author(s):  
Capucine Baubin ◽  
Dorothée Ehrich ◽  
Virve Ravolainen ◽  
Svetlana Sokovina Abdulmanova ◽  
Svetlana Ektova ◽  
...  

Plant-herbivore relationships are important for the functioning of tundra ecosystems. Here, we report the first results from an exclosure experiment that, something very few studies have done, separated the impact of three sizes of herbivores (small, medium and large) on nine functional groups of plants in the low arctic tundra of the Yamal Peninsula (Russia). Herbivore faeces counts in the exclosures and pictures from automatic cameras proved that the experimental setup worked. The majority of plant groups did not respond to exclusion of herbivores, supporting our expectation that vegetation responses in tundra are generally too slow to be measured during one growing season. The plant groups with highest growth rates and palatability (forbs and grasses) increased their biomass in meadows associated to tall willow shrubs when reindeer were excluded. This result was expected based on studies from other arctic regions. Our results also suggested that willow meadows and forb tundra, which are focal habitat for herbivores, are resilient and have the capacity to increase their biomass over a short term. We expect this experiment to provide valuable information on how different plant functional types and habitats with different growing conditions and importance to herbivores respond to relaxed grazing pressure from a variety of tundra herbivores.


Author(s):  
Abel Louis Masson ◽  
Yves Caraglio ◽  
Eric Nicolini ◽  
Philippe Borianne ◽  
Jean-Francois Barczi

Abstract Tree structural and biomass growth studies mainly focus on the shoot compartment. Tree roots usually have to be taken apart due to the difficulties involved in measuring and observing this compartment, particularly root growth. In the context of climate change, the study of tree structural plasticity has become crucial and both shoot and root systems need to be considered simultaneously as they play a joint role in adapting traits to climate change (water availability for roots and light or carbon availability for shoots). We developed a botanically accurate whole-plant model and its simulator (RoCoCau) with a linkable external module (TOY) to represent shoot and root compartment dependencies and hence tree structural plasticity in different air and soil environments. This paper describes a new deep neural network calibration trained on simulated datasets computed from a set of more than 360 000 random TOY parameter values and random climate values. These datasets were used for training and for validation. For this purpose, we chose Voxnet, a convolutional neural network designed to classify 3D objects represented as a voxelized scene. We recommend further improvements for Voxnet inputs, outputs, and training. We were able to teach the network to predict the value of environment data well (mean error < 2%), and to predict the value of TOY parameters for plants under water stress conditions (mean error < 5% for all parameters), and for any environmental growing conditions (mean error < 20%).


2017 ◽  
pp. 120-127
Author(s):  
S.M. Svyderska

An important element of climate change is to assess changes in agro-climatic growing conditions of crops and the impact of these changes on their performance. Agriculture is the most vulnerable sector of  Ukraine's economy to fluctuations and climate change. Given the inertial nature of agriculture and the dependence of the efficiency on the weather, now need to make timely and adequate solutions to complex problems caused by climate change. Due to the expected increase in air temperature of the Northern Hemisphere food security Ukraine will largely depend on how effectively adapting agriculture to future climate change. This includes advance assessment of the impact of the expected climate change on agro-climatic conditions for growing crops. Potatoes - perennial, herbaceous, plant, but in nature is treated as an annual plant, so that the life cycle, beginning with germination and ending with the formation of bubbles and the formation of mature tubers, is one growing season. Potato is one of the most important crops grown and diversified use in almost all parts of our country. But the main focus areas of potatoes in Polesie and Forest-steppe. We consider the relative performance of the photosynthetic productivity of potato and agro-climatic conditions for growing potatoes for the period 1986 to 2005, and expected their changes calculated by the climate change scenarios A1B and A2 for the period 2011 to 2050 in Eastern and Western Forest-Steppe. We consider the agrometeorological and agro-climatic conditions in which there may be a maximum performance of potato.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 00130
Author(s):  
Olga Tolkach ◽  
Olga Dobrotvorskaya

The parameters of the undergrowth in the forbs and berry groups of pine forest types in 9 parks in Yekaterinburg and areas of natural forest have been investigated. Data on the species composition, density, and distribution by groups of heights of plants that make up the undergrowth collected. It has been established that the transformation of the undergrowth by an urbanized environment neutralizes the influence of the growing conditions of the considered forest types on it. In the forest-park zone, an increase in the density of the undergrowth is observed in comparison with the natural forest. The specificity of the forest park undergrowth is the floristic contamination with adventive species, the number of which is close to 50% of the total number of undergrowth species. The coefficient of floristic similarity of the undergrowth, according to the Sorensen coefficient between forest parks and a site of natural forest, was 0.26-0.46. In quantitative terms, the self-seeding of adventive species in the undergrowth is less than that of native plants. The invasive activity of ash-leaved maple in city parks and its dynamics over a 10-year period are considered, using the example of one of the parks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Alexey Semenovich Dorokhov ◽  
Andrey Grigoryevich Ponomarev ◽  
Vitaly Nikolaevich Zernov ◽  
Sergey Nikolaevich Petukhov ◽  
Alexander Gennadievich Aksenov ◽  
...  

Structural layouts of coulters and their groups in potato planters are justified in the article based on the morphological features of the potato plant, its requirements for growing conditions and ensuring the quality of the planting process. The purpose of coulter groups is to form a bed for placing tubers with a loose layer of soil in 5-8 cm and sealing them with loosened soil to a certain depth. To substantiate the type of potato planter coulters that meet the requirements for potato growing conditions to the maximum extent possible, optimize the parameters of coulter groups that automatically ensure the stability of the coulter travel depth when imitating irregularities of the field microrelief. A comparative analysis of the impact on the soil of the most common anchor coulters with a blunt angle of soil entry and a sharp angle with an individual floating suspension is given, and indicators of the quality of their operation are described. It was found that coulters with an individual floating suspension and an acute angle of soil entry meet the requirements for potato growing conditions to the maximum extent possible. In order to ensure travel stabilization of such a coulter at a given depth when imitating field irregularities, a version of the coulter group has been developed that provides automatic correction of the coulter's angle of attack when changing its travel depth. Experimental studies have optimized the parameters of the coulter suspension that ensure automatic imitation of field microrelief irregularities up to 20 cm deep within the initial requirements for potato planting machines. Coulters with an individual floating suspension and a sharp angle of soil entry most fully meet the requirements for potato growing conditions to the maximum extent possible. A coulter group with a suspension aspect ratio of 150:200:400:400 cm and an acute angle of coulter entry into the soil provides automatic maintenance of the set coulter travel depth within the initial requirements (±2 cm) for irregularities in the field microrelief of up to 200 mm. In this case, the bottom and walls of the furrow are not compacted.


AGROFOR ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghazi N. AL-KARAKI

Turf grasses are considered an integral part of landscape ecological systemsworldwide which provide functional, recreational and aesthetic benefits to societyand the environment. In arid and semiarid regions (e.g., Mediterranean region),turf grass is usually grown under harsh and unfavorable growing conditions withlow rainfall and high rates of evapotranspiration as well as in soils with nutrientdeficiencies. Hence, growing turf grass in these regions becomes dependent onapplication of high levels of fertilizers as well as on excessive use of irrigationwater, resulting in an environmental pollution. Therefore, it is important that turfgrass plantations are managed in a sustainable way to reduce the impact of turfgrass cultivation on ecosystems while maintaining healthy and productive turfthrough using such practices as mycorrhizal fungi technology. The application ofmycorrhizal fungi technology is an option that can benefit both agronomic planthealth and ecosystems. Mycorrhizae confer numerous benefits to host plantsincluding improved plant growth, mineral nutrition, water uptake, tolerance todiseases and stresses such as drought and salinity. The aims of this paper were toreview how mycorrhizal fungi might play a role in enhancing landscape turfestablishment and productivity in arid and semiarid regions and to evaluate theeffectiveness of application of commercial mycorrhizal inoculum to enhance plantgrowth and survival under field conditions. Field experiment was conducted tostudy the effects of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi inoculation on water useefficiency and establishment of a landscape turf. The results showed that turf grassinoculated with AM fungi used water more efficiently, established lawn morequickly and had more biomass than uninoculated turf grass. The conclusions of thispaper indicated the potential of mycorrhiza inoculation in improving the fastestablishment of turf landscape plants under arid and semiarid environments.


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