CHICKEN PERFORMANCE, FEEDING, MAJOR DISEASE INCIDENCE, AND HYGIENE IN TWO LOW-INPUT POULTRY PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN THE RURAL SECTOR OF FAYOUM GOVERNORATE.

Twelve cvs. of Papaya were evaluated for yield and tolerance to drought, high soil pH and disease incidence under a non-pesticide low-input system. Superior yields were obtained from Barbados Solo (BDX 584-1) - 67.1 Kg/tree (tr) and 987 g/fruit (fr), Guanica (GU 2-1) - 60.7 Kg/tr and 888 g/fr, PR 6-65 × Cariflora (CF) - 46.6 Kg/tr and 700 g/fr, and CF - 48.5 Kg/tr and 607 g/fr. Most cvs. survived 19 months with peak yields at 15 months. Pencil top was major disease and only the Palau cv. exhibited St. Croix decline symptoms. Vigorous cvs. included GU 2-1, CF, PR 6-65 × CF and Criolla (CR) several plants of which are fruiting 26 months after planting. Chlorophyll data indicated that CF and CR cvs. had best tolerance to high pH conditions. Cvs. with large pulp size included GU 2-1 (3.7 cm) and SRS × CF (4.2). Brix analyses indicated sweetest fruits were from CF (14.2), SRS × CF (13.4), GU 2-1 (13.7) and PR 6-65 × CF (12.9).

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Heritability Estimate for Antibody Response to Vaccination and Survival to a Newcastle Disease Infection of Native chicken in a Low-Input Production System

Frontiers in Genetics ◽

10.3389/fgene.2021.666947 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Blaise Arnaud Hako Touko ◽

Anold Tatah Kong Mbiydzenyuy ◽

Tebug Thomas Tumasang ◽

Julius Awah-Ndukum

Keyword(s):

Disease Resistance ◽

Antibody Response ◽

Newcastle Disease ◽

Production Systems ◽

Pedigree Information ◽

Initial Population ◽

Poultry Production ◽

Low Input ◽

Nested Design ◽

Selection Of

The Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is the deadliest chicken pathogen in low-input village poultry, and selecting for NDV resistance has been recommended as a sustainable strategy in backyard poultry production systems. However, selecting for disease resistance needs precision data from either a big population sample size or on many generations with good pedigree records for effective prediction of heritability (h2) and breeding values of the foundation stock. Such conditions are almost impossible to meet in low-input backyard production systems. This study aimed at proposing a realistic method for estimating the heritability of the immune response to vaccination and survival of NDV infection in village poultry production to inform a breeding strategy for ND resistance in Cameroon. A 1 and 3% selection intensity of cocks and hens for higher antibody (ab) response (ABR) to vaccination followed by progeny selection of chickens who survived an experimental NDV infection was conducted from an initial population of 1,702 chickens. The selection induced an increase of 1012.47units/ml (p<0.01) of the NDV antibody of the progeny as well as an effective survival rate (ESR) increase of 11.75%. Three methods were used to estimate the heritability (h2) of NDV antibody response to vaccination. h2 was low irrespective of the method with estimates of 0.2227, 0.2442, and 0.2839 for the breeder’s equation method, the graphical method, and the full-sib/half-sib nested design, respectively. The mortality rate of infected chickens was high (86%). The antibody response to selection was not influenced by sex and genetic type even though the opposite was observed (p<0.05) for the ESR to NDV infection with naked neck chickens recording an ESR of 14% against 2.25% for the normal feather type. A very low heritability (0.0891) was observed for the survival against NDV infection. We confirm the evidence of disease resistance and the effect of selection for antibody response to vaccination on the improvement of the survival against NDV disease. Although the full sib/half sib nested design is more appropriate in case of availability of pedigree information, the direct methods are still useful in case of unavailability of full pedigree information. It is recommended that gene expression analysis should be prioritized for disease-resistance assessment and selection of native breeds of poultry.

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Nitrate Leaching to a Shallow Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain Aquifer as Influenced by Conventional No-Till and Low-Input Sustainable Grain Production Systems

Water Science & Technology ◽

10.2166/wst.1993.0475 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 28 (3-5) ◽

pp. 691-700 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

J. P. Craig ◽

R. R. Weil

Keyword(s):

Management Practices ◽

Production Systems ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Cropping System ◽

Atlantic Coastal Plain ◽

Grain Production ◽

Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽

Mineral N ◽

Low Input ◽

No Till

In December, 1987, the states in the Chesapeake Bay region, along with the federal government, signed an agreement which called for a 40% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loadings to the Bay by the year 2000. To accomplish this goal, major reductions in nutrient loadings associated with agricultural management practices were deemed necessary. The objective of this study was to determine if reducing fertilizer inputs to the NT system would result in a reduction in nitrogen contamination of groundwater. In this study, groundwater, soil, and percolate samples were collected from two cropping systems. The first system was a conventional no-till (NT) grain production system with a two-year rotation of corn/winter wheat/double crop soybean. The second system, denoted low-input sustainable agriculture (LISA), produced the same crops using a winter legume and relay-cropped soybeans into standing wheat to reduce nitrogen and herbicide inputs. Nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in groundwater were significantly lower under the LISA system. Over 80% of the NT groundwater samples had NO3-N concentrations greater than 10 mgl-1, compared to only 4% for the LISA cropping system. Significantly lower soil mineral N to a depth of 180 cm was also observed. The NT soil had nearly twice as much mineral N present in the 90-180 cm portion than the LISA cropping system.

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Pretreatment with probiotics ameliorate gut health and necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens, a substitute to antibiotics

AMB Express ◽

10.1186/s13568-020-01153-w ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Danish Sharafat Rajput ◽

Dong Zeng ◽

Abdul Khalique ◽

Samia Sharafat Rajput ◽

Hesong Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Broiler Chickens ◽

Production Systems ◽

Economic Losses ◽

Necrotic Enteritis ◽

Poultry Production ◽

Gut Health ◽

Growth Promoters ◽

Broiler Performance ◽

Antibiotic Growth Promoters ◽

Microbial Strains

AbstractNecrotic enteritis (NE) is being considered as one of the most important intestinal diseases in the recent poultry production systems, which causes huge economic losses globally. NE is caused by Clostridium perfringens, a pathogenic bacterium, and normal resident of the intestinal microflora of healthy broiler chickens. Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of broiler chicken is considered as the most integral part of pathogen’s entrance, their production and disease prevention. Interaction between C. perfringens and other pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella present in the small intestine may contribute to the development of NE in broiler chickens. The antibiotic therapy was used to treat the NE; however European Union has imposed a strict ban due to the negative implications of drug resistance. Moreover, antibiotic growth promoters cause adverse effects on human health as results of withdrawal of antibiotic residues in the chicken meat. After restriction on use of antibiotics, numerous studies have been carried out to investigate the alternatives to antibiotics for controlling NE. Thus, possible alternatives to prevent NE are bio-therapeutic agents (Probiotics), prebiotics, organic acids and essential oils which help in nutrients digestion, immunity enhancement and overall broiler performance. Recently, probiotics are extensively used alternatives to antibiotics for improving host health status and making them efficient in production. The aim of review is to describe a replacement to antibiotics by using different microbial strains as probiotics such as bacteria and yeasts etc. having bacteriostatic properties which inhibit growth of pathogens and neutralize the toxins by different modes of action.

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