Research paper
David Kiprono Lelei Kiprono Rutto; Elizabeth Nabwile Nabwile Omami; Julius Onyango Onyango Ochuodho
Abstract
Production of high quality seeds in African leafy vegetables has not been practiced due to varying reasons including incorrect harvesting stages and fertilizer rates. Jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) pods do not ripen simultaneously and fruits left to dry on mother plant long before harvesting, which ...
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Production of high quality seeds in African leafy vegetables has not been practiced due to varying reasons including incorrect harvesting stages and fertilizer rates. Jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) pods do not ripen simultaneously and fruits left to dry on mother plant long before harvesting, which face seed quality deterioration. Timely seed harvesting ensures maximum seed quality attributes of purity, germination and vigour. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of harvesting stages and nitrogen fertilizer on seed quality and yield of Jute mallow. Seed samples from four Jute mallow morphotypes (GEMS, GLMT, BEMS, and BLMT) were planted. Completely randomized block design was used for analysing the effects of nitrogen fertilizer levels (0, 60 and 120 kg/ha) with three replicates. Five plants were randomly tagged per plot and seed harvested at three maturity stages of green, tan and black. Seed quality test of purity, germination and vigour were done as per ISTA (2004) and means separation done by DMRT at p≤0.05. Results showed that harvesting stage significantly influenced seed quality attributes, in a way that the maximum purity, germination and seed vigour was detected at tan pod stage and their lowest levels were observed at black pod stage. It can be concluded that best agronomic practices of Jute mallow seed can be attained when they harvested at tan stage together with use of N fertilizer for high seed quality and yield.
Research paper
Md. Farid Hossain
Abstract
To investigate the effects of organic fertilizers and irrigation frequencies on yield and quality of cherry tomato an experiment was conducted using six fertilizer doses including control (no fertilizer), NPK fertilizer (urea at 300 kg, TSP 200 kg and MoP 250 kg), cow-dung at 5 t ha-1, cow-dung at 10 ...
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To investigate the effects of organic fertilizers and irrigation frequencies on yield and quality of cherry tomato an experiment was conducted using six fertilizer doses including control (no fertilizer), NPK fertilizer (urea at 300 kg, TSP 200 kg and MoP 250 kg), cow-dung at 5 t ha-1, cow-dung at 10 t ha-1, poultry manure at 5 t ha-1 and poultry manure at 10 t ha-1 with two levels of irrigation frequencies including alternate day irrigation and two day interval irrigation in a split plot design with three replications. Data on yield and quality attributes of cherry tomato like plant height, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant (g), yield (t ha-1), TSS (%) and vitamin C contents (mg 100 g-1) were recorded. Results revealed that poultry manure had significant effects on the yield and quality of cherry tomato. Among the fertilizer treatments, poultry manure at 5 t ha-1 showed the best results on yield and quality of cherry tomato. On the other hand, cherry tomato showed best performance in relation to yield and quality when field was irrigated in one-day interval. It can be concluded that application of poultry litter at 5 t ha-1 in combination with one day interval result in highest yield and quality on cherry tomato.
Research paper
Aldo Tava; Marcello Iriti; Sara Vitalini
Abstract
Achillea moschata Wulfen (Asteraceae) is an endemic species growing on the Alps and traditionally used in several medicinal remedies. For its aromatic properties, it is also collected for food purposes. Chemical content and biological activity of A. moschata oil are not extensively studied. We investigated ...
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Achillea moschata Wulfen (Asteraceae) is an endemic species growing on the Alps and traditionally used in several medicinal remedies. For its aromatic properties, it is also collected for food purposes. Chemical content and biological activity of A. moschata oil are not extensively studied. We investigated whether the different lithological and geomorphological features of two alpine areas including Vallone dello Scerscen and Valle dei Ratti, located in the Sondrio Province (Northern Italy), can influence the essential oil (EO) composition and the related antioxidant activity of the respective A. moschata populations. The essential oils obtained by steam distillation from the dried aerial parts were investigated by GC/FID and GC/MS. Several compounds were identified belonging to different chemical classes, including monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes as the most abundant constituents, together with ketones, alcohols, phenols, acids and esters. A variation in the quantitative composition of several constituents was recorded in the two oils. The main constituents were camphor (23.4-34.2%), 1,8-cineole (9.8-16.4%), trans-tujone (3.6-13.4%), sesquicineole (3.5-5.8%), borneol (1.1-4.8%), -caryophyllene (2.7-4.4%) and myrcene (1.3-4.2%). Their antioxidant activity was measured in vitro by the 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS⋅+) and 2,2-diphenyl-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH⋅) stable radical assays. The essential oils showed similar and significant scavenger effects, possibly due to the synergistic action of all components including compounds present in small quantities.
Research paper
Leila Baghazadeh Daryaii; Davood Samsampour; Abdolnabi Bagheri; Majid Askari Seyahooei; Mojdeh Raam
Abstract
Investigating genetic diversity in plant species provides a platform for further insight in plant breeding and conservation. Therefore, in the present study genetic diversity of 13 geographically isolated genotypes of Zhumeria majdea, as a seriously endangered medicine plant growing exclusively in Hormozgan ...
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Investigating genetic diversity in plant species provides a platform for further insight in plant breeding and conservation. Therefore, in the present study genetic diversity of 13 geographically isolated genotypes of Zhumeria majdea, as a seriously endangered medicine plant growing exclusively in Hormozgan province (South of Iran) was studied. To do so, the leaf samples of Z. majdea were collected from the main growing habitats of this spices including Haji Abad, Geno and Bastak regions. The collected leaf samples were subjected to DNA extraction followed by PCR assay, using Inter-Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) markers. Twelve markers produced totally 121 polymorphic bands and revealed a clear-cut among and within Z. majdea genotypes. The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed 86% and 14% variations within and among populations, respectively. Cluster analysis divided genotypes into four main groups. The first and second principle coordinates allocated 28.81% and 15.71% of the variations, respectively. In addition to the innate differences of the individuals, the high intra population variation of Z. majdea, can also be explained by differences in the presence or absence of endophytes and differences in the type and genetic pattern of their endophytes.
Research paper
Afsaneh Rashnoo; Zahra Movahedi; Majid Rostami; Mehdi Ghabooli
Abstract
In two independent experiments, acclimatized chicory plants were transferred into an aeroponic system and to the soil. Then, the effects of biofertilizer (Nitrokara) and culture filtrate of Piriformospora indica were investigated on some plant characteristics in both aeroponic and soil cultivation system ...
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In two independent experiments, acclimatized chicory plants were transferred into an aeroponic system and to the soil. Then, the effects of biofertilizer (Nitrokara) and culture filtrate of Piriformospora indica were investigated on some plant characteristics in both aeroponic and soil cultivation system under greenhouse conditions. The plants were foliar sprayed with three different biofertilizer concentrations (1, 2, and 3 g/L) and P. indica culture filtrate (2.5, 5, and 7.5 mL in 100 mL water) following 20, 40 and 60 days after transplanting to the aeroponic and soil culture media. Results showed that the highest vegetative growth (e.g. plant height, root length, number of leaves per plant, root and shoot dry weights) and physiological traits (e.g. relative water content, proline, anthocyanin content, chlorophyll a, and chlorophyll b) were observed with 7.5 mL of P. indica culture filtrate in both aeroponic and soil culture media. Besides, the best results for all studied traits were obtained from 3 g/L of biofertilizer application in the both culture media. In both experiments, better results were obtained from the aeroponic system than the soil culture for P. indica production.
Research paper
Amin Reza Jamshidi; Ahmad Ghazanfari Moghaddam; Fatameh Mozafari Ghoraba
Abstract
The development of aeroponic cultivation technology has led to more efficient use of water and plant nutrients for producing high quality agricultural commodities. In this research, cucumbers were grown in columnar aeroponic systems for nine weeks and the effect of spraying rate and spraying duration ...
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The development of aeroponic cultivation technology has led to more efficient use of water and plant nutrients for producing high quality agricultural commodities. In this research, cucumbers were grown in columnar aeroponic systems for nine weeks and the effect of spraying rate and spraying duration on the cucumber average yield and water usage efficiency were investigated. The experiments were performed using factorial experiment based on completely randomized designs. The spraying rate had three levels of 125, 250 and 375 mL/min, and the spraying durations were 10, 15 and 20 min. During the experiment, the spraying pumps were turned off for 15 min between each spraying time. Then, the two factors were simultaneously optimized using response surface methodology to maximize fruit yield and water usage efficiency. The ANOVA results showed that both responses were significantly affected by the main effects of the factors (α = 0.01) and by their interaction effects (α = 0.05). The comparison of first and second-order models to show the average yield and water usage efficiency as functions of sparing rate and sparing time indicated that the second-order models fitted with higher accuracies (R2> 80%) to the experimental data than the first-order model. Simultaneous optimization showed that the most suitable spraying rate was 233.37 mL/min and for the spraying duration, it was 16.06 min. At the optimum conditions, the average yield per plant yield was 2.96 kg and the water usage efficiency was 110.37 kg/m3.
Research paper
Hesamaddin Afshari-Jafarbigloo; Saeid Eshghi; Ali Gharaghani
Abstract
Some cultivars of grapevine have very compact cluster which adversely affect its quality and marketability. ‘Yaghouti’ is a commercial early table grape cultivar that has very compact clusters. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of mechanical and chemical thinning as well ...
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Some cultivars of grapevine have very compact cluster which adversely affect its quality and marketability. ‘Yaghouti’ is a commercial early table grape cultivar that has very compact clusters. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of mechanical and chemical thinning as well as GA3 application on cluster morphology and berry size of grapevine cv. ‘Yaghouti’. Treatments were chemical thinning agents including: NAA (7.5 and 15 mg/L), Ethephon (75 and 150 mg/L), Sevin (750 and 1500 mg/L) and mechanical thinning by a comb (comb thinning), applied a week after fruit set and unthinned clusters as control with 3 replications, 10 days after thinning, clusters were immersed in GA3 solution at 60 mg/L. Results indicated that berry numbers were reduced in all thinning treatments. Length, width and weight of berries increased significantly when treated with hand or chemical thinning. GA3 alone and Sevin at 750 mg/L in combination with GA3 treatment improved yield and the quality of berries. Total phenolics compounds, TSS and berries colour were improved in all thinning treatments. In general, application of Sevin at 750 mg/L combined with GA3 and hand thinning along with GA3 are proposed to improve quality of grapevine berries.
Research paper
Ghasem Eghlima; Azizollah Kheiry; Mohsen Sanikhani; Javad Hadian; Mitra Aelaei; Samad Nejad Ebrahimi
Abstract
Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.) as a strategic and highly valuable medicinal plant in Iran with numerous beneficial pharmaceutical properties contributes substantially to Iranian herbs exports. In the present study, a variation on the phytochemical and antioxidant activity of 25 populations of valuable ...
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Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.) as a strategic and highly valuable medicinal plant in Iran with numerous beneficial pharmaceutical properties contributes substantially to Iranian herbs exports. In the present study, a variation on the phytochemical and antioxidant activity of 25 populations of valuable and profitable medicinal plant of G. glabra was investigated. The climate variables and soil properties were evaluated in various habitates of G. glabra. Total phenol (Folin–Ciocalteu method), total flavonoid (Aluminum Chloride method), anthocyanin (pH difference method) and antioxidant activity (DPPH method) were studied. Glycyrrhizic acid, glabridin, liquiritigenin and liquiritin content of root were evaluated by liquid chromatography. The content of major components in G. glabra varied in different regions. Outstanding quantitative variability of glycyrrhizic acid, glabridin, liquiritin and liquiritigenin content were observed in roots of licorice from different regions of Iran. Glycyrrhizic acid content was varied from 93.89 (mg/g dry weight) for the Sepidan population to 20.68 (mg/g dry weight) for the Ahar population. The maximum and minimum amounts of glabridin were recorded in Kashmar and Bajgah populations, respectively. The highest levels of liquritin and liquiritigenin were in the population of Kazerun and Yasuj, respectively, and the lowest was observed in Kashmar. Also, the highest antioxidant activity (the lowest IC50) for licorice root was associated with Semirom population. In conclusion, The populations with high amount of each active ingredient in licorice root and those with considerable antioxidant activity can be exploited depending on the purpose of breeding and cultivation.
