ABSTRACT
The purpose of research on the Farmer Empowerment Program in Wates Village is to increase knowledge in the field of sustainable agriculture and transfer of technology for the application of biopesticides containing the Biological Control Agent (APH) Streptomyces sp., Trichoderma sp. combined with shallot cultivation technology in the village of Wates Tulungagung. Innovative methods and Participatory Action Research (PAR) are used to encourage transformative action, by involving community members as PAR implementers in describing the types of plants being treated and applying them during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Wates village, Tulungagung District. The results of the evaluation and monitoring of the use of APH as a biopesticide and fungicide to control moler disease caused a decrease in the population of microorganisms, the population of Trichoderma sp. was absent (o) but Streptomyces sp. increase. Giving APH proved that microorganisms act as decomposers that increase the availability of N and P nutrients through their ability to accelerate the decomposition of organic matter given at the beginning of planting. The K nutrient content in the soil before and after treatment did not differ.
ABSTRACT
Moringa oleifera is an under-utilized vegetable plant known for its nutritional and medicinal properties. Current post-COVID-19 pandemic realities necessitate increased utilization of Moringa, with minimal postharvest losses. Thus, this study was conducted to compare the effect of different drying conditions on microbiological safety and assess shelf stability of dried Moringa leaves of Nigerian ecotype. Freshly harvested leaves were divided into four (4) parts and dried differently;sun-drying at day temperature of about 42°C for 7 hours, oven-drying at 45°C for 6 hours, shade-drying for 2 days while the last part was combined sun-shade drying. A second batch of fresh leaves was sun-dried and double-packaged in polythene pouches into rigid plastic plates that were subsequently stored in the dark at room temperature. Microbial enumerations of all freshly dried samples and the stored samples were conducted at monthly interval for five (5) months. Proximate composition, chlorophyll, iron and ascorbic acid contents were determined using standard methods. The results showed no growth on all freshly dried samples, irrespective of drying methods. Similarly, the result of shelf stability indicated acceptable levels of microbial growth throughout storage period. Proximate composition result indicated that storage length significantly (p < 0.05) affected the proximate composition of the samples. Moisture content increased with increasing storage time from 4.18±0.28 to 6.33±0.29 g/100 g;while protein, ash (total minerals), crude fibre, fat and carbohydrates contents all decreased to varying degrees with increasing storage time, from 36.10±0.51 to 35.40±0.50 g/100 g, 4.45±0.17 to 4.10±0.00 g/100 g, 6.55±0.40 to 6.13±0.05 g/100 g, 3.85±0.11 to 3.67±0.00 g/100 g and 44.87±0.44 to 44.37±0.44 g/100 g, respectively. This decrease is within acceptable standard that compares favourably with the levels that are found in other leafy vegetables. The chlorophyll content decreases with increasing storage length from 110.24±6.21 to 56.37±2.24 mg/100 g, with similar trend in iron and vitamin C contents. Hence, these results indicate that Moringa leaves can actually be dried using easily available methods of sun-drying, oven-drying and shade-drying for storage;while still maintaining acceptable standards of food safety and nutrient status. Therefore, dried Moringa leaves and powder can be exploited for commercial purposes in areas of abundant production for continuous distribution in Nigeria © 2022, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Most areas under spring sugar beet cultivation face severe water restrictions and increasing the area under cultivation of this crop in most of these areas is contrary to the principle of conservation of water and soil resources. The use of new areas for winter sugar beet cultivation should be the area under cultivation of this crop in hot and dry areas. Therefore, winter sowing (pending) of sugar beet with emphasis on the limitations of the country's water resources has been proposed as a solution. Materials and Methods: In this study, the quantitative and qualitative yield of 16 sugar beet genotypes in winter planting were studied as a randomized complete block design with four replications in the Torbat-e-Jam region in the two cropping years (2020-2021 and 2021-2022). The studied genotypes included F-20739, F-20837, F-21083, SBSI-5, SBSI-15, SVZA 2019-JD389, SVZA 2019-JD0402, SVZA 2019-JD0400, SVZA 2019-JD0401, FDIR 19 B 3021, FDIR 19 B 4028, F-20591, SBSI-6, SBSI-16, SBSI-7 and SBSI-17 are the breeding populations obtained from the gene bank of the Sugar Beet Seed Breeding Research Institute. In this research, traits such as root yield, sugar content, sugar yield, white sugar yield, Na, K, N, alkalinity, molasses sugar, white sugar content, and extraction coefficient of sugar were measured. Data were analyzed using SAS 9.1 software. The analysis of variance on test data and comparison to the middle of the Duncan test was performed at the 5% level. Factor analysis was calculated to identify the main factors using MINITAB software. Cluster analysis of the studied genotypes was obtained after standardizing the data by the Ward method and using Euclidean distance criterion with the help of SPSS software. Results and Discussion: The results of the combined analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between different genotypes of sugar beet at the level of 1% probability for all studied traits except for nitrogen content. The mean comparison showed that the SBSI-15 genotype had the highest root yield (60.66 ton.ha). It should be noted that this genotype in terms of yield index traits did not show significantly different from genotypes F-20739, SBSI-15, SVZA 2019-JD389, SVZA 2019-JD0402, SVZA 2019-JD0400, SVZA 2019-JD0401, and FDIR 19 B 4028. Also, the F-20739 genotype had the highest amounts of sugar content (19.5%), white sugar content (16.3%) and extraction coefficient of sugar (83.2%) and the lowest amount of potassium (4.24 meq .100 g-1 of root weight) and Molasses sugar (2.7%). In addition, the highest sugar yield (10.69 t/ha) and white sugar yield (8.68 t/ha) were in FDIR 19 B 3021 genotype. Investigating the correlation of traits showed the highest positive and significant correlation was between sugar yield and white sugar yield (0.99**) and the highest negative and significant correlation was between extraction coefficient of sugar and molasses sugar (-0.95**). Principal factor analysis based on the mean of the traits identified three factors that accounted for a total of 91% of the variability between the data. SBSI-15, SVZA 2019-JD0398, SVZA 2019-JD0402, SVZA 2019-JD0400, SVZA 2019-JD0401, FDIR 19 B 3021, and FDIR 19 B 4028 genotypes are distinguished different from other genotypes and they were as superior genotypes in terms of yield index traits. The dendrogram generated from the cluster analysis for white sugar yield classified genotypes into three main groups.
ABSTRACT
Wheat and rice are plants that contain many health benefits, such as chlorophyll, protein and phenolic compounds, which are very suitable for consumption during the current COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to observe the growth response of wheat and rice with various types of growing media. The use of the right planting media is expected to provide good content for wheat and rice plants so that they can be used as health drinks that are good for consumption. This study used a factorial completely randomized design using two factors, where : factor I = plant species with T1 (wheat) and T2 (rice) and factor II = type of growing media with P0 (top soil), P1 (top soil: husk charcoal). ) (1:1), P2 (top soil:cocopeat) (1:1), P3 (top soil:sawdust) (1:1) and P4 (top soil:husk charcoal:cocopeat:sawdust) (1:1:1:1). The results of this study indicate that the highest plant height data was obtained from rice plants with an average top soil planting medium of 18.13 cm. The highest protein content was found in wheat with top soil growing media: sawdust with a yield of 2.20 L/g. So it can be said that wheat can be used as a health drink because it contains high protein.
ABSTRACT
Food security is one of the key global challenges in this century. In Singapore, our research team has been using novel aeroponic technology to produce fresh vegetables since 1997. Aeroponic systems allow for year-round production of not only tropical, but also sub-tropical and temperate fresh vegetables, by simply cooling the roots suspended in aeroponic systems while the aerial parts grow under tropical ambient environments. It has also been used to investigate the impacts of root-zone CO2 on vegetables by enriching root-zone CO2 while their aerial portions were subjected to constant atmospheric CO2. To compensate for the lack of available land, Singapore also needs to develop a farming system that can increase productivity per unit land area by many-fold. Over the past 10 years, my research team has established a commercially viable LED integrated vertical aeroponic farming system to grow different leafy vegetables under different LED spectra, intensities, and durations in the tropical greenhouse. The results demonstrate that it is possible to increase shoot production and rate of shoot production of leafy vegetables by increasing light intensity and extending the photoperiod under effective LED lighting. Furthermore, temperate vegetable crops such as lettuce were able to acclimate to high light intensity under supplementary LED lights to natural sunlight in the greenhouse. Supplementary LED lightings promote both leaf initiation and expansion with increased photo synthetic pigments, higher Cyt b6f and Rubisco protein contents on a per area basis and thus improve photosynthetic capacity and enhance productivity. Plants sense and respond to changes in their immediate environments (microclimate), manipulating the root zone temperature (RZT) and water supply will impact not only their growth and development but also their nutritional quality. Our on-going research aims to investigate if the nutritional quality of leafy vegetables could be improved under suboptimal RZT and mild water deficit through deficit irrigation. If substantial energy and water savings in urban farming can be achieved without substantial yield penalty but with higher nutritional quality, the amount of water and energy saved can bring substantial benefits to society.
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The effect of substrate type and cultivation site in the urban fabric on growth, nutrient content and potentially toxic element (PTE) accumulation in tissues of the halophyte Crithmum maritimum was studied. Plantlets were cultivated for twelve months in containers with a green-roof infrastructure fitted and placed either on an urban second-floor roof or on ground level by the side of a moderate-traffic street. Two substrate types were used;one comprising grape marc compost, perlite and pumice (3:3:4, v/v) and one composed of grape marc compost, perlite, pumice and soil (3:3:2:2, v/v), with 10 cm depth. Plants grew well on both sites, although aboveground growth parameters and nutrient content in leaves were greater at street level. Both cultivation site and substrate type affected heavy-metal accumulation in plant tissues. Cu, Ni and Fe concentrations in leaves and Pb in roots were higher in street-level-grown plants compared to the roof-grown plants, and concentrations of Cu and Mn in leaves and Fe in both leaves and roots were lower in the soilless substrate compared to the soil-substrate, making the soilless type preferable in the interest of both safer produce for human consumption and lower construction weight in the case of green-roof cultivation.