Farmer preferred traits and genotype choices in Solanum aethiopicum L., Shum group

Background Solanum aethiopicum L. is a nutrient dense African indigenous vegetable. However, advancement of its improved varieties that can increase productivity, household income, and food security has not been prioritized. Further still, studies on some of the crops that have been worked have indicated that it is not a guarantee that the improved varieties will be accepted by the end users and therefore there is need to identify and profile what genotypes are of interest to farmers and their preferred traits through inclusive participatory evaluations. Methodology Farmer participatory evaluations were conducted to profile farmers’ traits of interest and preferred genotypes. A total of 24 genotypes were established in three replications in 6 farms in 3 districts; Wakiso, Mukono, and Luwero as these are the major producing districts of the vegetable in Uganda. A total of 177 sex-disaggregated farmers were engaged in scoring the genotypes for pest, disease and drought tolerance, general appeal, leaf yield, leaf texture, and seed yield for best 10 genotypes under each variable. Results Non-significant differences in trait (p > 0.05) and genotype preferences (p > 0.05) were obtained between men and women. The most desired farmer traits were seed and leaf yield, followed by pest and disease resistance. The overall preferred genotype in terms of disease and pest resistance, leaf yield, leaf texture, and seed yield were E12 followed by E11. Conclusion Gender does not seem to influence farmer choices for the S. aethiopicum, Shum group, indicating an opportunity for single variety prototype advancement by breeders and dissemination by seed companies.

Pear (Pyrus communis L.) cultivars self-fertility

The author presents the results of determining the self-fertility degree of forty pear cultivars, including the varieties and elite forms bred in Melitopol and those introduced, when pollinating with own pollen. That simulates the conditions of pollination in single-variety orchards. The analysis of the data obtained when studying while infructescense, showed that the varieties Forel zymova, Devo, Triumf Pakgama, Melitopolska 4103, Levavasser, Serpneva, Kiure, Kook Starking, Vesta, Yuzhanka turned out to be self-fertile ones. Four autogamous varieties, namely: Melitopolska 4103, Cook Starking, Devo and Triumph Pakgama appeared to possess the highest percentage of the actual fruit-setting, while the two latest ones – even high homeostatic coefficient concerning the relative fruits mass per 100 pollinated flowers. ‘Vesilna’, ‘Pryiemna’, ‘Doctor Til’, Kirgizskaia zimniaia’ proved to be self-sterile varieties.

Evaluation of Promising Sugarcane Clones in Plant Cane against Natural Infection of Pokkah Boeng Disease

Pokkah boeng caused by Fusarium sp is becoming a serious fungal disease on basis of its rapid spread during last few years, posing new threat to sugarcane cultivation. Earlier Pokkah boeng disease was of minor importance but now it has become matter of concern as it is spreading rapidly in sugarcane growing areas having monoculture of single variety. The present investigation entitled “Evaluation of promising sugarcane clones in plant cane against natural infection of pokkah boeng disease” was carried out at Regional Sugarcane and Rice Research station, Rudrur, Nizamabad, Telangana (India) to identify the source of resistance with single series design. Among the ten promising sugarcane clones evaluated in plant cane against Pokkah boeng disease three clones viz., 2014R11, 2010R854 and 83R23 showed resistant reaction.

GBCNet: In-Field Grape Berries Counting for Yield Estimation by Dilated CNNs

We introduce here the Grape Berries Counting Net (GBCNet), a tool for accurate fruit yield estimation from smartphone cameras, by adapting Deep Learning algorithms originally developed for crowd counting. We test GBCNet using cross-validation procedure on two original datasets CR1 and CR2 of grape pictures taken in-field before veraison. A total of 35,668 berries have been manually annotated for the task. GBCNet achieves good performances on both the seven grape varieties dataset CR1, although with a different accuracy level depending on the variety, and on the single variety dataset CR2: in particular Mean Average Error (MAE) ranges from 0.85% for Pinot Gris to 11.73% for Marzemino on CR1 and reaches 7.24% on the Teroldego CR2 dataset.

Perceptions of Pakistani Learners of English about Standard British and American English: An Exploratory Approach

Pakistani learners of English are exposed to the same degree to both the British and the American variety of English language. There is no state policy or direction regarding the preference of one variety over the other in being used for getting education. Overall society and educational institutes are free to adopt or promote any variety that they deem proper. Both the varieties are used extensively, are quite popular, and enjoy sufficient means and reasons to be effective in society. The lack of uniformity in adopting a particular variety leads to multiple problems, including an English variety having features of both American and British English in different degrees, depending on each user’s different degree of exposure to both the varieties. For ensuring uniformity and avoiding confusion, the researcher thought it compulsory to make a recommendation for the adoption of a single variety out of the two, based on its suitability and utility. However, the researcher feels it urgent that before making recommendations to the government for the adoption of a single variety, the wishes and predilections of the people of Pakistan have to be considered and the reasons why some prefer British variety and some the American variety have to be identified and assessed. If they preferred a feature of English, then did they know which variety it belonged to and if they knew then why did they like it. In the process, the researcher also strove to find out as to what extent the knowledge of literature and history of the country of the variety, contributed to affecting the preference of the Pakistani people. Data was gathered from sixty-six participants from two universities of Pakistan, namely Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST) Kohat from the KP Province on the provincial level, and National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Islamabad from the Federal capital, Islamabad, on the federal level; participants were enquired about their approaches, attitudes, and feelings towards the variety of English they preferred and to explain reasons and motives behind the selection/rejection of one or other of the two varieties, through a questionnaire having seven close-ended and three open-ended items.

Relative Proximate Composition and Mineral Analysis of Three Garlic Varieties Available in Bangladesh

Garlic is one of the most common spices in south-east Asian cuisine. Since ancient times, it has been used as traditional medicine, herbal remedies and flavoring ingredients. Large varieties of garlic are available across the world. The majority of Bangladeshi markets are availed with three of its varieties. These are Imported Large Multi-clove garlic from India or China, Bangladeshi Indigenous Multi-clove and Single-clove garlic. This study was aimed to investigate proximatecomposition, mineral concentration and energy value of Imported Large Multi-clove variety, Bangladeshi Indigenous Multi-clove and Single clove garlic. Imported Large Multi-clove variety was found to contain 6.53±0.08% moisture, 70.25±0.27% carbohydrate, 18.92±0.04% protein, 0.57±0.16% fat and 3.72±0.03% ash, whereas Indigenous Single-clove and Multi-clove contain 7.80±0.04% & 6.51±0.04% moisture, 71.41±0.09%&72.73±0.06%carbohydrate, 17.37± 0.06% and 17.40±0.04% protein, 0.19±0.01% and 0.21±0.02% fat, 3.22±0.01% and 3.14±0.02% ash respectively. Few Significant Distinction Were observed in nutrient and calorie contents. No single variety could be adjudged nutritionally superior or inferior to others.

EXPOSURE TO ENGLISHES IN LISTENING CLASSROOMS: THE PERSPECTIVES OF INDONESIAN ESL LEARNERS

Due to the global scale of English use, English as a lingua franca (ELF) is at play. Given this reality, exposes to different varieties of English rather than a single variety of English, preparing second language learners to Englishes is paramount for readiness to involve in ELF communication. This paper reports on the classroom instruction of exposing college listeners with Englishes via TED talks using a portfolio to find out how they see these varieties and what they can learn from them. Data were from records of portfolio and questions at the end of the instruction. Using general inductive analysis, there were three lessons learned from the instruction. Acknowledgement of many models of English, Englishes can be the ‘right’ English, and Englishes as a marker of identity were lessons observed to appear from the Englishes exposure. The exposes to Englishes also brought about complexities of wholehearted adoption to Indonesian accent. Pedagogical implications for classroom instructions are also made.

Evaluation of technological characteristics of Crimean native grape variety ‘Shabash’ for brandy production

The article presents the results of study of physicochemical and biochemical parameters of the Crimean native grape variety ‘Shabash’ and their influence on the composition of aroma-forming complex of wine materials and young brandy distillates. The phenolic complex of grapes was characterized by higher parameters of technological stock of phenolic substances of grapes, the ability of grapes to give off phenolic substances in grape-crushing, the weight concentration of phenolic substances of the must after maceration. The resulting wine materials also differed by a high content of phenolic substances and the degree of their oxidation. Main features of the composition of the base aroma-forming components of brandy wine materials and distillates, characterized by an increased content of higher alcohols and a reduced content of medium-chain esters, were revealed. A close connection of a number of parameters of grapes with the composition of the volatile components of wine materials and distillates was established. It is shown that the native variety possesses high potential for the fine brandy production using the technology of single variety. The studies conducted are the stage of the scientifically grounded formation of the base of row materials for brandy production in the Russian Federation.