Agriculture

Mycotoxin contaminations are ubiquitous in livestock diets. This comes under many generic names of which Fumonisin B1 (FB1) was the object of evaluation on its influence on growth and laying performance of laying birds fed with graded level of FB1 with or without vitamin C supplementation. One hundred and five (105) point-of-lay Isa brown breed at 18 weeks and twenty-one (21) cocks at 25 weeks were purchased for the experiment. The birds (layers) were assigned to Seven (7) dietary treatments of 15 birds each at three (3) birds per replicate. The treatments were classified according to inclusion level of Fumonisin B1 and Vitamin C. Treatment A served as the control, B (10 mg/kg of FB1), C (20 mg/kg of FB1), D (30 mg/kg of FB1), E (10 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), F (20 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), and G (30mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C). Feed intake and weights of the birds were taken for performance evaluation. Eggs were daily collected and counted and analysed for Hen-house and Hen-day production. The relative weight of organs were taken to examine the influence of fumonisin on them. It was observed that there are no significant difference (P>0.05) in the final weight, total weight and daily weight gain of hens when compared with the control. Increased inclusion of FB1 resulted in significant (P<0.05) increase in total feed intake, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. There were no significant difference in the organ weight for treatment and levels of inclusion. The weight of the laying hens was reduced with increased feed intake. This showed that FB1 caused poor feed conversion rate which was evident in the result of this study. Meanwhile, the Vitamin C effectively ameliorated the toxic effect of the FB1. It is therefore important to include Vitamin C in the diet of laying hens so as to reduce the negative effects of FB1 on the performance and Carcass characteristics.

Nine genotypes of grain amaranthus (Amaranthus hypochondriacus) were evaluated for nine characters to evaluate field performance. Experiments were conducted at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Hill Campus, Ranichauri, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand during kharif 2011 and 2012. The results revealed that, the genotype Durga followed by IC35468 showed minimum days to 50% flowering during both years and Durga was found to be best for the character days to maturity having minimum days. The highest yield was recorded by PRA 2010-1 followed by PRA3, however, genotype PRA3 showed stability for many characters like germination per-cent, Days to 50% flowering, Spikelets as well as inflorescence length and can be used for improvement of these traits in breeding programme. Genotype PRA2010-1 performed better for almost all the characters over checks.

Determination of suitable probability distribution function in among frequency distribution models in evaluating occurrences for any phenomena is very important. The gradient ratio is the one of the best important parameter for evaluation of envelope clogging. To conduct this research, data of each replicate was divided into four hourly periodic lengths of 24, 48, 72, and 96. Then, with analysis of data in time series according to HYFA software output and goodness fit of Relative Residual Square Mean, suitable frequency distribution function for each envelope was selected. Based on relative frequency, the best fitted distribution was found to be Three Parameter Log Normal distribution (Moment method) and Two Parameter Log Normal distribution (maximum likelihood method) for synthetic envelope of PP450, Normal distribution (Moment method and maximum likelihood method) for synthetic envelope of PP700, Three Parameter Log Normal distribution (Moment method) and Two Parameter Log Normal distribution (maximum likelihood method) for synthetic envelope of PP900 and Pearson type III distribution (Moment method) and Normal distribution (maximum likelihood method) for envelope of gravel.

The purpose of this study was to determine the morphological diversity of banana and plantain in the province of Maniema and to identify criteria for the choice of planting material, as well as the different uses of banana in the study area. To do this, a survey was carried out using the questionnaire established by Bioversity-CIALCA, on the morphological characterization of the different cultivars. These surveys identified 19 banana cultivars as follows: 4 French type plantains, 3 false horns, 2 true horns, 6 dessert bananas and 4 cooking plantains not belonging to the first three groups. The results also showed that dessert-type bananas are the most diversified in the study area (Maniema Province) with a proportion of 31% followed by French-type plantains with 27%. A small proportion of cooking plantains (7%) were recorded in this region. All these banana and plantain cultivars of the region have been described on the basis of previous knowledge, which allows to enrich the biodiversity knowledge of this crop in the Province of Maniema. Criteria for choosing planting material include flavor, taste, the amount of juice first and demand / price on the market for essential items (such as salt, soap, ...) and for sustainable production because they work for self-consumption. The main uses of banana in the region are food and the manufacture of indigenous alcohol.

35 female weanling rabbit of an average weight of 510g were used in a feeding trial that lasted 12 weeks to evaluate the effect of inclusion of different levels of REE (0, 100, 200, 300 and 400ppm) on the performance, blood and serum parameters of the animals. The animals were randomly allotted to five treatments of 7 replicates (1 animal per replicate) per treatment. The initial weight, final weight and fed intake were monitored, recorded and analysed. Blood samples was collected and used for the haematological analysis. There was significant (p>0.05) difference in the final weight, daily weight gain, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. However, the daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio increases as the inclusion level of dietary REE increase likewise the. Haemoglobin (Hb), Packed cell volume (PCV), Red blood cell (RBC), White blood cell (WBC), neutrophils, eosinophils and lympocytes were not significantly (p>0.05) influenced among the dietary treatment. The total protein, albumin, globulin, cholesterol and urea were also not significantly (p>0.05) different, though all higher numerically in supplemented diets compared to the control.

A field experiment was carried out in the mashkhab rice research station of the Agricultural Foundation of Researches at the Ministry of Agriculture, during the growing season of summer 2015. Two rice cultivars included amber 33 and Jasmine, which represented main plots, and three levels of transplanting methods included mechanical transplanting by riding transplanter, mechanical transplanting by walking transplanter and manual transplanting, which represent sub plots were used in the experiment. Fuel consumption, actual field capacity, ratio of hill missing, Percentage of hill damage and grains yield were measured in this study. Split plot design under randomized complete block design with four replications was used in this study. Least significant differences (LSD) at 5% level was used to compare the mean of treatments. The results were showed: The superiority of walking transplanter consumes less amount of fuel amounted 8.56 liters / hect. compared with riding transplanter which consume 11.20 liters / hect.. The riding transplanter Achieved field capacity amounted 0.2380 hect / h which significant superior than manual transplanting and walking transplanter, which achieved a capacity stood 0.0038 and 0.1370 hectares / h respectively. Hand transplanting recorded less ratio of hill missing stood 5.93% comparing with riding transplanter which recorded ratio of hill missing and walking transplanter which recorded a rate of 8.14%. 5.42% percentage of hill damage for riding transplanter comparing with 7.77% for manual transplanting. There was not significant differences appear in the grains product for used transplanting. It appears from the research results that the mechanical transplanting achieves more field capacity compared with manual transplanting. Demonstrating the success of using rice mechanic transplanting in Iraq.

Ecological problems created by chemical insect control methods and their relevance to human health are receiving serious attention everywhere. Various pathogens, including viruses, protozoa, fungi and nematodes can be used to regulate pest population. Biological control of pests and vectors has been studied to a limited extent for many years with several notable successes, of which microbiological control is one aspect. The development of insecticide resistance in pest and vector population, the damage caused to non-target organisms and the realization of other environmental hazards of chemical insecticides have led to an increasing interest in biological, including microbiological control methods. Biopesticides are very effective in the agricultural pest control without causing serious harm to ecological chain or worsening environmental pollution. There is a requirement to develop alternatives to chemical pesticides for crop protection, due to the evolution of pesticide resistance in some pest species and concerns about the safety of chemical residues. One solution is the use of biopesticides (pest control agents based on living organisms) as an alternative in food production. The aim of this paper was to improve understanding of the environmental and regulatory sustainability of biopesticides as alternatives to chemical pesticides for crop protection. This paper reports on categories of biopesticides, biological control of aflatoxin, production of biopesticides using engineering techniques and its development.

Prime Minister Aziz has approved the export of an additional 500,000 tons of wheat this year in the hope of making inroads into the lucrative Indian market. The export will be undertaken by the private sector by sea and by railways. A bumper harvest of 23 million tons is expected this 2006-07 crop year. Last year, the country also had a bumper crop of 21.7 million tons of wheat. The surplus harvest of wheat, however, does not guarantee food security in the country. The traders mafia (that includes ministers, influential parliamentarians and the private traders plus few industrialists) in our country is very strong and the common consumer suffers the net impact of such malpractices. Government takes decisions in the name of consumers but in actual effect, these are the traders who benefit from exports/ imports and not the consumers. The profiteering tendency of the global food producers and distributors even at the cost of people’s survival is bound to create social and political upheavals. This is a harsh reality which the business people and policy makers have chosen to ignore so far. Food insecurity amidst plenty is the name of the game in food politics. Despite the fact that global economy is a food surplus economy, 852 million people (17 % of the world population) go hungry every day in the world because they do not have access to food. The chronic hunger kills more people every day than disasters, disease or war. But, all this is when there is enough food to feed the entire population of the world twice. Women in rural areas go hungry the most despite doing the bulk of the work to grow food and feed their families. Women produce up to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries, but they own only one per cent of the land. The continuation of hunger is directly related to a lack of access or entitlement to food, and to the natural resources essential to the provision of food. Food sovereignty is the right of people to define their own food and agriculture, and to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade.

Steady decrease in crude petroleum oil reserve from earth and increasing demand of petroleum oil as source of generating energy for automobile and other sectors of industry, has led to adopt an alternative strategies for the production of bio-fuel from plants genetic resources to avert the risk of impaired supply of fuels, in future, from resource countries. Jatropha curcas is known as bio-fuel production crop. The oil present in its seeds used for extraction of bio-fuel. Genetic diversity analysis was performed during 2015-16 on 10 years old plants of 20 Jatropha curcas genotypes that were collected from different regions of India. The seeds were planted in randomized block design with three replications during 2005. Observations were recorded on 14 morphological characters. Field data were used for computation of ANOVA, estimation of genetic parameters and Mahalanobis D2 statistics. Significant differences were registered for all traits. Days to flowering, number of fruit clusters per plant and 100 seed weight showed additive genetic effect. Twenty genotypes were grouped into 3 clusters comprised of three, sixteen and one genotypes respectively and suggested that geographical diversity not related to the genetic diversity. Seed yield per plant, fruits per cluster, post floral period and secondary branches per plant contributed maximum towards genetic divergence. Three lines were found promising for the development of superior genotype.

An experiment was conducted with One hundred and five (105) point-of-lay Isa brown breed at 18 weeks and twenty-one (21) cocks at 25 weeks to assess the haematology and serum biochemistry of laying birds fed with graded levels of Fumonisin with or without vitamin C. The birds (layers) were assigned to Seven (7) dietary treatments of 15 birds each at three (3) birds per replicate. The treatments were classified according to inclusion level of Fumonisin B1 and Vitamin C. Treatment A served as the control, B (10 mg/kg of FB1), C (20 mg/kg of FB1), D (30 mg/kg of FB1), E (10 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), F (20 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), and G (30mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C). Significant differences were observed in PCV, Hb, WBC and Eos for levels of FB1 inclusion. Glucose and AST, showed significant differences (P<0.05) in levels of inclusion of FB1 in the diets. Meanwhile, the result shows that Vitamin C can effectively ameliorated the toxic effect of the FB1.