Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology
Volume:21 Issue: 1, Jan 2019

Gardening products, like apple, are exposed to a variety of risks caused by unfavorable weather conditions. This kind of risk is unavoidable, but manageable. Agricultural insurance is an effective scheme in weather risk management. Nevertheless, current insurance schemes have challenges, such as high transaction costs, and problems caused by asymmetric information, i.e. adverse selection and moral hazard. Therefore, this study aimed to present an appropriate insurance scheme for apple production in Damavand, the so-called “weather-based index insurance”. In this regard, the information on apple yield and weather variables was collected between 1987-2016, from Iranian Agriculture Jihad Organization and the local meteorological station. The dependency structure between apple yield and weather variables was investigated by C-Vine Copula as a joint distribution to compute the expected loss. Then, according to the expected loss, weather-based index insurance premium was measured. The premium amount was equal to Thousand Rials 32,546.11 in the crop year 2016-17, which is different from the current insurance premium. This difference is because of the distinct nature of the two insurance schemes and the imperative and official mode of current insurance scheme.

Although Turkey's agricultural sector is important in terms of national economy, it faces some important structural problems such as decrease in human capital in the agricultural sector. In order to solve these problems, within the "National Agricultural Project", a policy instrument named "Support for Young Farmers Projects" (YFPS) was added to the support in 2016. The aim of this study was to evaluate the criteria used in the selection of the beneficiaries of young farmers' support within the scope of YFPS in Turkey. A survey was prepared to determine what features young farmers benefiting from project support have and the extent to which the selection criteria served the purposes of the support program. The survey was conducted in the TR 71 Region, which is at the center of Turkey, in June-August, 2017. A total of 248 young farmers (139 supported, and 109 non-selected farmers for support) were interviewed. The methodology used in this study was the Categorical Regression. The results showed that the applicants who benefited more from YFPS were in the following order: Female> married> those aged 18-30> people from rural areas with a population of 1,000 or less> those with education in agricultural production> the disabled / martyr’s relatives / ghazi, and those from enterprises with an annual income of TL 10,000 or less. YFPS has breathed new life into agriculture by encouraging youths in rural areas, but this support has to be aimed at creating economically sustainable and viable enterprises.

In Egypt, pamphlets are often used to disseminate agricultural information to farmers. The aim of this study was to construct and develop a scale of quality standards for agricultural extension pamphlets. The process to construct the scale involved the following steps: (1) The articulation of the construct; (2) Selection of response format; (3) Data collection; and (4) Psychometric analysis. The scale consists of 33 items measuring five domains: content; processing the information; the appearance of text; illustrations; and designing and formatting. Items analysis, reliability, and validity estimates were obtained by a group of experts (N= 78). The reliability of the domains was strong and ranged from (α= 0.81 to α= 0.91). The authors tested validation process by evidence of content validity, criterion-related validity, construct validity, and discriminant validity. Depending on the reliability and validity results, the scale was suggested as a reliable tool for assessing the quality of agricultural extension pamphlets. Implications for practice in planning and evaluation of printed materials for agricultural extension work are discussed.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of Organizational Learning (OL) on the relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and Organizational Performance (OP). The target population of the study comprised of all experts of Agriculture Jihad Organization (AJO) of West Azerbaijan Province in the northwest of Iran (N= 1004). Two hundred and forty subjects were selected using a stratified random sampling method based on Bartlett et al. (2001) Table. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) multivariate technique was used to analyze the data. The results showed that EO had a statistically significant positive effect on OP (P-value= 0.001, β= 0.660) and explained about 44% of its variances. Moreover, the variable OL mediated the relationship between EO and OP (P-value= 0.001, β= 0.423). After inclusion of OL as mediating variable in the model, the predictive power of the model increased by 17%. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that it is necessary for AJO to strengthen OL and its components in order to maximize the effect of EO on OP.

Three independent models were constructed for the prediction of yields of winter wheat. The models were designed to enable the prediction of yield at three dates: 15th April, 31st May, and 30th June. The models were built using artificial neural networks with MLP (multilayer perceptron) topology, based on meteorological data (air temperature and precipitation) and information on applications of mineral fertilizer. Data were collected in the 2008–2015 from 301 crop fields in the Wielkopolska region of Poland. The evaluation of the quality of predictions made using the neural models was verified by determination of prediction errors using the RAE, RMS, MAE and MAPE measures. An important feature of the constructed predictive models is the ability to make a forecast in the current agricultural year based on up-to-date weather and fertilization information. The lowest MAPE error values were obtained for the neural model WW30_06 (30th June) based on an MLP network with the structure 19:19-15-13-1:1, the error was 8.85%. Sensitivity analysis revealed which factors had the greatest impact on winter wheat yield. The highest rank (1) was obtained by all networks for the same independent variable, namely, the mean air temperature in the period from 1st September to 31st December of the previous year (T9-12_LY).

The effect of storage at 0 and 20°C for 30 days with and without a passive Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) and the effect of a freezing storage at -20, -40 and -80°C for 10 months followed by 1 week at 5°C on overall quality of Deglet Nour dates were studied. After the storage time, the physicochemical properties and sensory quality, microbial development, and moth infestation (Ectomyelois ceratoniae) of dates were monitored. It was observed that the storage temperature greatly affected the overall quality of dates. The 0°C was recommended for a short-term storage of fresh dates of one month. The MAP technique (6 kPa O2+12 kPa CO2) showed a positive effect on keeping overall quality of dates at 20ºC. However, for a long-term storage (10 months in frozen conditions plus 1 week at 5ºC), all freezing temperatures assayed kept the overall quality of dates and no differences were observed among them. In order to minimize the global costs, -20°C was considered as the most adequate temperature for a long-term freezing storage period. In conclusion, these chilling and freezing techniques could be recommended for commercial use at industrial scale.

In this work, to assess the temperature effect on dehydration parameters and physicochemical characteristics of mint leaves, the samples were dried at air temperatures of 40, 50 and 60°C and constant air flow rate of 1 m s-1. Energy consumption of the process was also studied. Fick’s second law was used to model mass transport in the leaves during the process. Moisture diffusivity and coefficient of mass transfer were determined to vary in the range of 5.09×10-9-1.73×10-8 m2 s-1 and 1.59×10-5-5.71×10-5 kgwater m-2 s-1, respectively. Both of the mass transfer parameters were increased with increasing temperature. Higher temperatures caused more total color change and destruction of both chlorophyll and carotenoids. While the rehydration capacity of the dried leaves increased, the specific consumed energy of the process diminished with increasing drying air temperature.

Cellular Automaton (CA) was applied, for the first time, to model mass transfer during the drying process. CA is a discrete model with powerful potential application for simulating complex systems. In this paper, a two-Dimensional (2D) model was applied to simulate drying process of banana slices. The system was designed for a grid with size of 30×90 square cells, four possible states, and von Neumann neighborhoods. The logical trends of the model results were examined by running program for different process conditions such as various temperatures, air relative humidity values, air flow velocities, and sample thicknesses. Validation of the model was performed by comparing estimated and experimental data of banana drying for three temperatures (60, 70, and 80°C). The model showed high accuracy for predicting moisture content (R2 values higher than 0.99). Notable accuracy based on simple rules to pattern the complexity of the system and flexibility indicated the superior application of cellular automaton for modeling food processes.

There is an increasing interest in Gluten-Free (GF) products as the prevalence of celiac disease. Sorghum, millet, and rice flours are the most suitable cereal flours for GF products. The objective of this study was to optimize mixtures of Sorghum Flour (SF), Rice Flour (RF), and Millet Flour (MF) for production of GF bread based on D-optimal mixture design approach. The characteristics of flours including moisture, proteins, fat, ash, fiber, and pH were measured. GF bread quality parameters such as specific volume, hardness, crumb structure, image characteristics and organoleptic evaluation were also analyzed. Our results revealed that three flour blends (SF, RF, and MF) had remarkable effect on physical and organoleptic properties of GF bread. Increasing MF and SF together with decreasing RF increased specific volume and mean cell area and produced GF breads with a softer texture. Color and taste improved with incorporation of RF, SF, and MF at high levels. The organoleptic evaluation of texture was correlated to instrumental texture analysis. The optimum formulation obtained according to organoleptic evaluation, specific volume, hardness, and crumb structure contained 67.18% SF, 17.82% RF and 15% MF with combined desirability equals to 0.791. In general, the results of the present study indicate that RF, SF, and MF can be used as a substitute for wheat flour in producing high quality GF bread. The data presented in this study could be useful in producing GF bread for celiac patients.

The egg parasitoid, Trichogramma evanescens Westwood, is used for inundative releases in biological control programs against the tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta Meyrick, in agro-ecosystems. One of the most important host-parasitoid interactions is functional response that its type and parameters are affected by different factors including host plant characteristics. In this research, functional response of T. evanescens to different egg densities (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64) of T. absoluta was investigated in a growth chamber (26±2°C, 50±10% RH, and 16:8 hours L:D photoperiod), on three varieties of tomato (Mobil, Riogrande, and Early Urbana-703). Type of functional response was determined by logistic regression and its parameters, i.e. searching efficiency and handling time, were calculated by nonlinear regression model using SAS software. Functional response of this parasitoid was type III on Mobil and Riogrande and type II on Early Urbana- 703. Searching efficiency (a) for each host density was 0.0368, 0.0736, 0.1472, 0.2944, 0.5888, and 1.1776 on Mobil, and 0.0374, 0.0748, 0.1469, 0.2992, 0.5984, and 1.1968 h-1 on Riogrande varieties, respectively. Also, on Early Urbana-703, the attack rate was 0.1045 h-1. The handling time was 1.0276, 1.1017, and 1.3289 hours with maximum parasitism of 23.3, 21.7, and 18.06 eggs on these varieties, respectively. It is suggested that physical structure of Early Urbana-703 variety may interfere with the parasitoid’s performance, resulting in an impaired searching efficiency and parasitism ability. Some applied aspects of the findings are discussed.

Proper planning and design of transportation networks in the cities is an important subject, and the avenues, boulevards and refuges in the cities give the cities an aesthetic and functional feature as open green spaces. In addition to their aesthetic qualities, planting in urban areas also plays an important role in preventing pollution and improving air quality in the cities. In this context, the existing woody plant taxa were identified on the boulevards located in Nilufer district of Bursa in Turkey. The soil characteristics and soil heavy metal accumulations of these woody plant taxa were also determined. In the studied boulevards, there were 34 genera, 31 species, 10 subspecies and varieties belonging to 23 families. Among the total woody species gathered, 72.73% of the woody species were tree species and the rest were shrubs. The soils found on the boulevards were usually sandy and clay loam, and inadequate in terms of organic matter contents. On the other hand, the heavy metal deposits in the territories of the boulevards situated in the industrial zones were higher than those in other housing areas but below the permissible values.

Nine tomato genotypes (‘NACGRAB-1’, ‘NACGRAB-2’, ‘NACGRAB-3’, ‘NACGRAB-4’, ‘NACGRAB-5’, ‘NACGRAB-6’, ‘NACGRAB-7’, ‘NACGRAB-8’and ‘NACGRAB-9’) from the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), Ibadan, Nigeria; with four commercial varieties (‘Petomech’, ‘Uc 82B’, ‘Yolince’ and ‘Derica’) and two landraces (‘Ekwunato’ and ‘Tomato Mmiri’) were evaluated for their agronomic performance in a derived savannah region. Morphological and floral data were collected on them. At maturity, forty tomato fruits, each from five selected genotypes, were immersed in 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 g L-1 AgNO3 varying concentrations of silver/neem (Azadirachta indica) solutions and a control to study the storability of the fruits. During storage, number of days to 10, 50, and 100% fruit rot incidences were monitored on the treated fruits. ‘NACGRAB-7' took the longest number of days to 10, 50, and 100% fruit rot and was significantly different from the other genotypes. The lowest number of days to fruit rot was obtained from 'NACGRAB-6'. Solution-B containing (8 g L-1 neem extract plus 0.2 g L-1 AgNo3) had the highest number of days to 10 and 50% fruit rot. The fruits that were not treated rotted faster than the treated fruits.

Peroxidases (POXs) and Catalases (CATs) are the main antioxidant enzymes involved in scavenging H2O2 in living cells. Different POXs and CATs may be capable of exhibiting interaction with the constituents of the plant cell. Whereas the activity or gene expression of POXs and CATs has been investigated in potato plants, their interactions with other proteins in this crop have not been investigated till now. Determining Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks could be important in providing crucial insights into the regulation of plant defense responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. STRING analysis revealed interaction of cationic, suberization-associated anionic, and Class III peroxidases in potato with several enzymes involved in lignin biosynthesis and phenylpropanoid pathways, which was in accordance with close phylogenetic relationship of the three potato peroxidases investigated in this study. The CAT1 enzyme in potato interacted with several enzymes involved in ROS production. Phylogenetic analysis of the CAT1 and CAT2 genes in this plant species referred to their close relationship. Demonstrating how each isoform of these enzymes responds to environmental stimuli and how it interacts with other proteins at transcriptional, translational, and post-translational levels seems to be useful in designing novel and effective plant protection strategies against different stresses.

The influence of the minimum air temperatures on the lemon fruits color change from green to yellow was studied in three climatic change scenarios. With the drop in temperature in early autumn, chlorophylls in the lemon fruits break down and they naturally take on their characteristic yellow colour. In this work, based on three climate models, in which the temperature change is predicted until 2100, the effect of climate change on natural degreening of lemons fruits was analyzed. According to these models, due to the rise in air temperature, the start of color development would be delayed by one week to two months. But, in none of these cases would the fruits reach their characteristic colour on the tree, therefore, it would be necessary to use degreening chambers to achieve the commercial coloration, implying an increase in production costs.

The scarcity of water, along with the concern of safe production of food, emphasizes the need for new agricultural techniques. Increasing dissolved oxygen concentration in water promotes the growth of plants in many ways. The aim of the present research was to investigate how cucumbers (Cucumis sativus L.) morphologically and physiologically respond to water enriched with air Micro-NanoBubbles (MNBs) as an oxygen saturating measure. The plants from early stage of seed planting (two groups, 32 plants in each) were cultured either with air-nanobubbles water or with tap water for 12 weeks, and the steric stability of MNBs in water was confirmed through zeta potential measurements (-20.47 mV). The number of blossoms in the plants irrigated by air MNBs water was almost 3.8 times more than the number of blossoms in those that were irrigated by tap water. MNBs water increased leaf area up to an average of 77%. Physiological indices such as chlorophylls a, b, and carotenoids were, respectively, 1.34, 1.44, and 1.35 times greater in the plants watered with MNBs than those with tap water. Overall, this study demonstrated that water with air micro-nanobubble had a positive effect on cucumber plants and is potentially an effective tool for the environmental friendly, economical, and profitable production of the plant.

Cucumbers were planted in soilless media in a split plot design with three replicates under a naturally ventilated greenhouse to study nutrient and water use efficiency in relation to fertigation management. Three fertigation levels (F1-100%, F2-85% and F3-70%) and three varieties (V1-Kafka, V2-Multistar and V3-PBRK-4) were applied to the main and subplots in the experiment. The amount of irrigation water applied for growing cucumbers was computed to be 2559.4 m3 ha-1. The Nutrient Use Efficiency (NUE) of macro and micro nutrients was computed to be in the order of S> P> Mg> N> Ca> K and Cu≥ Mo> Zn> B> Mn> Fe, respectively. Among the varieties, NUE in V2 remained statistically higher than V3 for each level of fertigation. Similarly, among fertigation levels, NUE under F3 remained statistically higher than F1 for each variety. Among interactions, NUE under treatment F3V2 was statistically higher than F2V3, F1V2, F1V1, and F1V3, respectively. Irrigation Water Use Efficiency (IWUE) was found significantly higher (51.4 kg m-3) under treatment F1V2 than F3V3 (34.5 kg m-3). Crop Water Use Efficiency (CWUE) was also found statistically different both among fertigation levels and varieties, having highest and lowest values of 179.9 and 120.6 kg m-3 under treatment F1V2 and F3V3, respectively. Thus, growing offseason seedless cucumbers in soilless media inside a naturally ventilated greenhouse, where the environment was partially under control, helped in improving nutrient and water use efficiency compared to conventional cultivation.

Cultivars of Cucumis melo L. are important economic crops planted in both saline and non-saline soils in Iran. Root rot on C. melo caused by Phytophthora melonis is one of the most devastating soil-borne diseases causing great loss. C. melo crops cultivated in saline soil adjacent to Maharloo Lake (salt lake) in Fars Province have been associated with diseases caused by Phytophthora species for many years. In this study, effect of salinity on Phytophthora root rot on C. melo under hydroponic system was investigated: Four-week-old plants of three cultivars, namely, Shahde-Shiraz, Dastanbo-Khorasan, and Kharbozeh-Mashhad grown in Nukaya solution were subjected to salinity stress for one week. A week later, all plants were inoculated with zoospore suspension of P. melonios. After 48 hours, inoculated solution was replaced by fresh nutrient solution and post-inoculation salt-stressed treatment was applied to some plants. Based on shoot dry weight and concentration of Na+, K+, and Cl-, cultivars Shahde-Shiraz and Dastanbo-Khorasan were sensitive and resistant to salinity and also with the highest and lowest colonization of roots by P. melonis, respectively. Interaction of salinity and infection by P. melonis reduced shoot dry weight in the salt-tolerant cultivar more than salt-sensitive plants. Salinity increased root colonization by P. melonis compared to non-saline condition. The increase in root colonization due to salinity was not significantly different in Shahde-Shiraz and Kharbozeh-Mashhad cultivars. In Dastanbo-Khorasan, due to its higher resistance to P. melonis, salinity resulted in significant increase in root colonization, indicating reduction of root resistance due to salinity stress.

Morphological, biological, and phylogenetic approaches were undertaken for the identification of pathogenic species F. temperatum in the Serbian population of F. subglutinans collected in the 1999-2010 period from Zea mays (3 root, 15 stalk, and 6 seed samples), Sorghum bicolor (two seed samples), Hordeum vulgare (one seed sample) and Taraxacum officinale (one seed sample). Based on interspecies mating compatibility analyses and the maximum parsimony analysis of EF-1α sequences, only two strains, originating from S. bicolor seed (MRIZP 0418 and MRIZP 0552), were identified as F. temperatum, while the remaining 26 single-spore strains were identified as F. subglutinans Group 2. In situ detached barley leaf assay and artificially stalk and ear inoculation of two maize hybrids demonstrated that both F. temperatum and F. subglutinans strains were medium and strong pathogens under laboratory and field conditions, respectively. These are the first data on the F. temperatum as seed-borne pathogens of sorghum, as well as pathogenicity of F. temperatum strains on maize.