Agriculture

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.

Grape is one of the most delicious, refreshing and nourishing fruits. One of the most important cultivars of grape, cv. Perlette is being grown extensively in northern India owing to its attractive colour, heavy bearing and good fruit quality. However, more thrust is to be laid on further improvement of the fruit quality. In this report we demonstrate the effect of girdling, thinning and application of GA3 on fruit quality and shelf life of grape. Girdling + 40 ppm of GA3 proved most effective in increasing the quality in terms of total soluble solids (TSS) (17.47 %), total sugar (8.94 %) reducing sugar (10.35 %), TSS/acid ratio (27.24 %) and resulted in decrease in acidity (24.59 %). During storage at room temperature minimum physiological loss in weight (9.42 %) was observed after three days of storage. The present study therefore suggests that girdling and growth regulator application is a desirable practice to enhance berry ripening and fruit quality in grape cv. Perlette.

This study was carried out to assess the performance, haematological, biochemical indices and bacteria load of broiler chickens fed diets supplemented with copper sulphate (CuSO4) at 0%, 100ppm, 200ppm and 300ppm inclusion levels. A total of one hundred and twenty (120) broiler chicks were careful selected and assigned to four (4) dietary treatments. The experiment was performed in three (3) replicates with ten (10) chickens per replicate making a total of thirty (30) chicks per diet. The birds were randomly selected using the Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The birds were fed ad libitum and given clean and cool water. At the end of the feeding trial, at four (4) weeks, birds fed diet 1 had the highest total fed intake (g/bird) of (34.64) and at 8 weeks, diet 2 containing 100ppm of copper sulphate has the highest feed intake (g/bird) of (180.67). The highest total weight gain (g/birds/day) in birds fed diet 2 containing 100ppm CuSO4 (1632.96) at eight (8) weeks of age. The highest feed conversion ratio was observed in the birds fed diet 3. The results obtained showed that all the haematological indices measured were not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by the treatments as the birds fed the supplemented diets were not different from birds fed the control diet which fall within the normal range. The serum biochemical values showed that cholesterol, albumin, total protein, bilirubin, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), Alkaline phosphate (ALP), creatinine and globulin were not significantly affected by the dietary treatment. The blood cholesterol level of the birds ranged between 25.09g/l in the 100ppm CuSO4 inclusion to 40.12g/l in the control diet. A decrease at 100ppm CuSO4 inclusion level was observed followed by an initial increase in blood cholesterol was recorded in 200ppm and 300ppm CuSO4 inclusion level. The fact that values obtained for both alkaline phosphatase and globulin concentration did not differ significantly among treatment means showed that the utilization of CuSO4 in the diets of broiler birds will have no detrimental effects on their physiological functions. The bacterial load of liver, spleen and duodenum in birds fed diets 1, 2 and 3 decreased as the levels of inclusion of CuSO4 increases but got higher in those fed diet 4. Keywords: Copper Sulphate, Performance, Haematological indices, Biochemical properties and Bacterial loads

Soils inherently low in nutrients may respond dramatically to conservation management, yet evaluation of soil nutrients on absolute basis may not detect change. This study was primarily aimed at investigating the depth distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), soil carbon: nitrogen ratio (C:N), soil dry bulk density (BD), total porosity (TP), saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) and their stratification ratios as affected by conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) under cocoyam in a Typic paleudult in two agroenvironments in southeastern Nigeria. The experiment was conducted at the Teaching and Research farm of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resource Management, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Agbani Enugu (06?52' N, 07?15' E) and The Research and Experimental farm of Enugu State College of Agriculture and Agro-Entrepreneurship, Iwollo (06026'N; 07016'E), respectively during 2013 and 2014 planting season. The design of the experiment was Randomized Complete Block (RCBD) with five replications and four treatments which comprised of conventional tillage with 150 and 300 Kg/ha of NPK15:15:15 and No-Tillage with 150 and 300 Kg/ha of NPK15:15:15. Soil analysis was carried out at both pre- and post planting at two soil depths (0-20cm and 20-40cm) in both locations. The data collected was analyzed using Analysis of variance test (ANOVA). Result showed that Conventionally-tilled plots that received 300 Kg/ha NPK had 0.121percent N. This plot had between 7% - 30% lower N content when compared to No-till plots amended with both 300 and 150 Kg/ha for 2013 and 2014 planting season. The results showed that No-till plots had significantly higher (18-43%) post-harvest percent soil nitrogen, organic carbon and carbon: nitrogen content when compared to conventionally-tilled plots at both 0-20 and 20-40 cm soil depths. The stratification ratio of N (1.09-2.14 and 1.02-2.29 for CT and NT respectively), OC (CT, 1.10-3.07; NT, 1.01-2.42) and C:N ( CT, 0.79-3.02; NT, 0.74-1.99) whereas stratification ratio of bulk density (CT,0.72-0.98; NT, 0.74-0.99), total porosity (CT, 0.98-1.20; NT, 0.90-1.22) and hydraulic conductivity (Ksat)(CT,1.07-1.29; NT, 1.03-1.49) for both sites and years did not follow any particular trend. This implies that soils vary in inherent properties and that absolute values of soil properties at the surface can vary. However, a reference is needed to separate inherent from management-induced changes. Generally taller plants (P>0.05) were found in Conventionally-till plots when compared with No-till plots. At harvest (210 DAP), the highest corm yield was obtained in Conventionally-tilled with 300kg/ha N plots which gave 8.58 and 7.83t/ha in Iwollo site for 2013 and 2014 planting season respectively followed by no-till treated 300kg/ha of NPK which also had 6.58 and 6.00t/ha. Conventionally-tilled plots amended with 300kg/ha N had 35% and 36% higher yield when compared with No-till plots amended with 150kg/ha of NPK plots for 2013 and 2014 planting season. The high yield advantage of Conventionally-tilled with 300kg/ha N over the other treatments may be due to differences in tillage practices and N fertilization rates. Tillage and fertilization helped increase the rate of crop emergence, improved soil moisture status, soil air (aeration), and improved general edaphic conditions of plants resulting in better yields. The relatively high stratification ratio of soil organic C, and some other soil properties, implies that conservation tillage and fertilizer application can compensate to some degree for the removal of above-ground plant residues

The simple random sampling technique was employed in selecting 62 farmers drawn from the sampling frame obtained from the list of Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) contact farmers in the four Local Governments Areas (LGAs) of Egbedore, Olorunda, Ede South and Ife Central, which made up the study area. The main instrument for collecting the primary data was structured questionnaire. It is evident from the result is that an average total cost of N371486.35 was incurred per annum by fish farmers while gross revenue of N791242.52 was realized with a gross margin of N 574314 and a profit of N 419756.17. The rate of return on investment of 0.58 implies that for every one naira invested in Fish production by farmers, a return of N1.5 and a profit of 58k were obtained. The multiple regression result revealed that fish output was significantly determined by pond size, labour used, cost of feeds, cost of lime and cost of fingerlings. The coefficient of determination indicates that 52.2% of the variation in the value of fish output was explained by pond size, quantity of labour used, cost of feed, cost of lime and cost of fingerlings. The study concluded that fish production in the study area is economically rewarding and profitable.

Trichoderma has been widely used to control R. Solani. However, there is need to evaluate the different mechanisms used to administer the biological control agent into the plant environment. A greenhouse experiment to compare the efficacy of three T. Harzianum application methods; seed bio-priming, seed coating and soil treatment to control R. solani in peas was conducted. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of T. harzianum application methods for controlling root rot and damping off caused by R. solani in peas. There were significant differences (p<0.001) between different T. harzianum application methods in reducing pre and post emergence damping off. Seed biopriming recorded the lowest pre emergence damping off incidence of 2.64 % compared to 7.16 % recorded on untreated control. Seed coating had pre emergence damping off percentages and root rot severity scores of (4.22%; 1.87) respectively. Soil treatment recorded the highest population increase of T. harzianum (2.855 x 104 CFU) 6 weeks after sowing.