Agriculture

This study was conducted to evaluation of allopathic effects of Hoary Cress tissues aqueous extract on growth of barley seedlings in split plot experiment in CRD design with 3 replications. Main plot included root, stem, leaf and flower extract and sub plot included extract concentration (0, 2, 4 and 8%) of Hoary Cress. After one week, some properties evaluated such as radicle and plumule length, radicle and plumule fresh weight, radicle and plumule dry weight.Data analysis was done using SAS software and mean comparison was done by Duncan test at the 5% level. Studied traits reduced by the increase of extract concentration, flower extract specially. So, application of 8% aqueous extract had highest significant effects on growth traits of barley seedling.

The increase of Oxygen Deficit in rivers used for irrigating agricultural land, aquaculture and domestic purposes is of great concern to Nigerian watershed. To determine this effect along the Nworie river,suntex model TS-2 and Hanna HIDR 83200 for physiochemical and biological water quality analysis was conducted at three random locations namely: Amakohia bridge road where biodegradable and non biodegradable wastes are discharged; Assumpta, Holy Ghost college road where municipal waste and sewage are discharged into the river; and Umezurike Hospital road where household and medical wastes are discharged. Development of the Watershed Resources Management (WRM) for the river resulted in application of Galerkin’s Weighted residual (GWR) finite element model from the lab experimented results to determine the oxygen deficits at discharged nodes (points). The oxygen deficit results at the five discretized nodes were: 2.528, 2.498, 2.395, and 2.325 and 2.252mg/l respectively. The result in this research could be applied to watershed resources management for irrigation and public health engineers in predicting the effects of water pollution on downstream users,with minimally associated errors.

Significant amounts of research and development work on Photovoltaic solar cells generate electricity by receiving sun light or solar irradiance. But solar cell received heat from solar irradiance as well and this will reduced the efficiency of the solar cell so the solution for this was by adding a cooling system (air or water) to the photovoltaic panel. Photovoltaic/thermal technology has been done. Many innovative systems and products have been introduced while evaluated product’s quality by academics and professionals. Some theoretical models also offered that experimental data have been validated their appropriateness. Important parameters in designing have known. Purpose of this paper is give review of trend to development photovoltaic/ thermal technology.

This study was performed to evaluation of yield components of 20 wheat genotypes under water deficit. Experiment was conducted with a split plot design. The main factor included normal and deficit irrigation (drought: 40% of field capacity) and sub-plots included 10 wheat genotypes Chamran, Marvdasht (Iran’s cultivars), N14 and N49 (Iran Landrace related to the eastern regions of Central and South Western), C15 and 168 (Babax), 169 (Seri), C4, C6 and C14 (lines of Babax /seri) also booting stage was applied for drought stress. Some of traits were investigated that included: Biological yield, Seed yield, Harvest index, seed number, 1000seed weight. According to analysis of variance, it was founded that all studied traits affected by drought stress, also there were significant differences between cultivars in responses to stress. Means comparisons showed that highest seed yield was obtained by 169, 168, C6, C15, Chamran, Marvdasht and C16 at normal condition and in drought condition Marvdasht cultivars had lowest seed yield. Highest and lowest yield reductions were obtained by 169 and N49, respectively. In relation to biological yield and at normal condition, 169 and 168 showed highest means and at stress condition highest value observed by 168. The highest harvest index under normal irrigation belonged to C14, C6, Marvdasht, 169, 168 and C15. N49 harvest index was higher in drought conditions in compare to normal condition. Under drought deficit, most grain number was obtained by Chamran, 168, N14, C6 and C15 genotypes. Also, the highest 1000 seed weight were observed by C4, C14 and C6 under normal irrigation, however all genotypes showed significant reduction and N49, 169, C14, C4 and Marvdasht had the highest 1000seed weight under drought stress.

Forward contracting can help reduce the problem of inputs supply risk which is inherent in Nigeria’s agriculture. This research work concentrated on the prospect of the strategy among crop farmers and agricultural input marketers. ‘The results of the study revealed that majority of the respondents’ supported forward contracting of inputs and were willing to engage in the strategy. However, low capital base of enterprise, possible default by farmers and late payments are possible reasons why Agricultural input marketers may not be willing to go into a forward contract with crop farmers. The age of farmer, number of crop enterprises, years of experience, capital base of farmer and extension visits were significant factors influencing farmers’ willingness to engage in forward contracting of inputs. There is need to create more awareness about ‘forward contracts’ among agricultural input marketers and farmers in the country. Agricultural credit should be made affordable, available and accessible to input marketers by Micro Finance Banks and the Nigeria Agricultural Bank to improve their capital base. State and Local Government Authorities in collaboration with farmers’ cooperative societies should stand as guarantors for Farmers who are willing to engage in forward contracting.

Sciences and technologies in the era of globalisation have gone extra mile in making non patented data and information accessible and most often free of charge to fellow scientists, technologists and the entire public. For civilised worlds they are vital for national and economic planning. In the era of internet, developed as world wide web; information and communication technologies have assisted researchers, scientists, publishers and consumers share on global commodity of the brain, mind and soul. It is on this note that this paper delves into detailed field and laboratory data generated on soil respiration-temperature-moisture relationships as an addition to global data bank. They are very crucial for comparative studies and for developing networking geared towards abating greenhouse gases emissions holocaust. The world is sitting on a keg of gunpowder that is neglected in pursuit of non-nuclear proliferation, nuclear accident and nuclear war. Already, there are global warming and climatic change wars raging all over the planet. Let us develop and share data and information that can warn the government and citizenry on scientific and technological dangers of the world that are similar to nuclear holocaust. It is a problem of developed and undeveloped worlds as nature knows no boundary akin to territory boundary protections.

An electronic device based on capacitive sensor was developed to predict the volume of banana fruit. This system, which is used for volume measurement has four components: a rectangular parallel plate capacitor, electronic circuitry, microcontroller, and display unit. After calibrating the electronic system, the results were verified with calibrated curve by means of linear regression and paired t-test. The coefficient of determination (R2) for 1, 10, 100, and 450 kHz frequencies were obtained as 0.934, 0.88, 0.932, and 0.935, respectively. The acquired P-values for 1, 10, 100, and 450 kHz frequencies were 0.541, 0.448, 0.132, and 0.064. The results indicated that banana fruits size has no effect on the accuracy of the computed volume. The results for banana fruits showed that the predicted volume and actual volume are highly correlated and this method is ideal for determining the volume of fruits and it can be developed for other fruits, too.

Waste is an unavoidable by product of human activities. All the human activities ie., domestic, commercial, industrial, healthcare, organizations, generates solid wastes that are normally discarded as useless or unwanted. The wastes generated from these activities of more advanced society produce more complex and heterogeneous wastes because of living standards and changing food habits. With rising urbanization, change in life style and improving living standards in cities; have led to increase in per capita waste generation and complexity of generated waste in the recent years. The problem in cities lies not only in the quantity but also in the quality and composition of the wastes, which have changed from being dense and almost entirely organic to voluminous and increasing non-biodegradable with higher percentage of toxic substance. The exponential growths of human population & resource consumption have left outstripped the ability of the natural environment to assimilate it and municipal authorities to manage it. Increasing migration, high-density population will make waste management a difficult issue to handle in the near future.

The bedrock of agricultural development in developing countries of sub-saharan Africa is rural development, without which all efforts at agricultural development will be futile. Agricultural development can only be attained if necessary rural infrastructural facilities are adequately provided in rural areas. This study assessed the availability of rural infrastructural facilities and its effect on agricultural productivity of rural dwellers in Abeokuta North local government area of Ogun state. Interview schedule was used to elicit information from 120 rural dwellers from six rural communities. Information obtained was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics. Availability of seven rural infrastructural facilities was assessed. The results showed that roads were available to all the respondents while electricity (70.83%) and schools (83.33%) were available to majority of the respondents. Majority of the rural dwellers reported the proper functioning of roads (66.67%) and schools (82%) while partial functioning was recorded for electricity (60%), portable water (50%) and storage facilities (66.67%). The study concludes that sustainable rural development is a function of the availability and accessibility of rural infrastructural facilities to rural dwellers who are mainly small scale farmers. It was recommended that government should make provision for infrastructural facilities in rural areas of the local government.

Over the decade, the problems of national food nutrition and fibre crises have been on the increase and the ghost chasing the economy is no longer a figment of the imagination. The time has come for a definitive attack. This paper examined the economics of promoting increased food production through efficient inputs services and farm-rural infrastructures. The basic agricultural inputs for modernized commercial production are land, Labour, modern farm capital, water, climate, power and entrepreneurship, while basic infrastructures that promote agricultural production include rural, physical, social, institutional and farm facilities. These inputs and infrastructures interact, thus have competitive, complimentary supportive, joint effect and consequently; the economics of inputs-infrastructures promotion raises quantitative, management, organizational, institutional and costs return implications that merit substantial research efforts in the context of the atomistic population of small holder farmers in Nigeria. Although government may facilitates, stimulates and promotes growth of Agriculture food production programme, success must ultimately depend on the multitude of farm household. To secure food security for the teaming population, various motivated programmes (farm settlement) and the co-operationalized systems must be updated. Hence Inputs-land, Labour, capital, power and entrepreneurship must be earnest in a way to favour production and basic rural-farm infrastructures. Keywords: Food production, Input services, Rural infrastructures