PERFORMANCE OF PERLETTE TABLE GRAPES INSIDE GREENHOUSES WITH AND WITHOUT SOLAR HEATING AND IN THE OPEN FIELD

Greenhouse cultivation of table grapes is a challenge due to difficulties imposed by their perennial habit and chilling requirements. Despite difficulties, greenhouse cultivation allows ripening long before that in the open field. Nonetheless, for harvesting “Flame Seedless” in the most profitable periods, a cultural practices timetable has to be established. In this context, an estimation of development rate as a function of temperature becomes essential. This work puts forward a procedure to determine “Flame Seedless” threshold temperatures and heat requirements from bud break to ripening. “Flame Seedless” required an average of 1633 growing degree days (GDD) in the open field with a base temperature of 5 °C and an upper threshold temperature of 30 °C. Strikingly, only 1542 GDD were required within the greenhouse. This procedure forecast “Flame Seedless” ripening with an accuracy of three and six days in the open field and greenhouse, improving predictions based on the average number of days between bud break and ripening. The procedure to predict oncoming harvest date was found satisfactory, just four days earlier than the real date. If we used the typical meteorological year instead of the average year, then the prediction was greatly improved since harvest was forecast just one day before its occurrence.

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Chemically Contaminated Eel Fed to Pregnant and Lactating Mouse Dams Causes Hyperactivity in Their Offspring

International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research ◽

10.1024/0300-9831/a000288 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 86 (1-2) ◽

pp. 36-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Imen Dridi ◽

Nidhal Soualeh ◽

Torsten Bohn ◽

Rachid Soulimani ◽

Jaouad Bouayed

Keyword(s):

Open Field ◽

Early Life ◽

Home Cage ◽

Anguilla Anguilla ◽

Acetylcholinesterase Activity ◽

Female Offspring ◽

Significant Inhibition ◽

Standard Diet ◽

Early Life Exposure ◽

Cage Test

Abstract.This study examined whether perinatal exposure to polluted eels (Anguilla anguilla L.) induces changes in the locomotor activity of offspring mice across lifespan (post-natal days (PNDs) 47 – 329), using the open field and the home cage activity tests. Dams were exposed during gestation and lactation, through diets enriched in eels naturally contaminated with pollutants including PCBs. Analysis of the eel muscle focused on the six non-dioxin-like (NDL) indicator PCBs (Σ6 NDL-PCBs: 28, 52, 101, 138, 153 and 180). Four groups of dams (n = 10 per group) received either a standard diet without eels or eels (0.8 mg/kg/day) containing 85, 216, or 400 ng/kg/day of ϵ6 NDL-PCBs. The open field test showed that early-life exposure to polluted eels increased locomotion in female offspring of exposed dams but not in males, compared to controls. This hyperlocomotion appeared later in life, at PNDs 195 and 329 (up to 32 % increase, p < 0.05). In addition, overactivity was observed in the home cage test at PND 305: exposed offspring females showed a faster overall locomotion speed (3.6 – 4.2 cm/s) than controls (2.9 cm/s, p <0.05); again, males remained unaffected. Covered distances in the home cage test were only elevated significantly in offspring females exposed to highest PCB concentrations (3411 ± 590 cm vs. 1377 ± 114 cm, p < 0.001). These results suggest that early-life exposure to polluted eels containing dietary contaminants including PCBs caused late, persistent and gender-dependent neurobehavioral hyperactive effects in offspring mice. Furthermore, female hyperactivity was associated with a significant inhibition of acetylcholinesterase activity in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.

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