Abstract: Two cultivars ('Rutuliai', 'Saint Perrie') and five
hybrids ('Tolstoi', 'Brooklyn', 'Tocayo', 'Benito', 'Tourist') of edible
tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) were investigated at the
LRCAF Institute of Horticulture. The following fruit quality
parameters were evaluated: the amount of lycopene, β-carotene,
ascorbic acid, total and inverted sugar, sucrose, dry matter soluble
solids in fresh tomato matter, also were determined fruit skin and
flesh firmness, color indexes (CIE L*a*b*) and calculated hue angle
(h°) with chroma (C).
Abstract: Humic acids (HAs) have been shown to activate some
ion uptakes along with stimulating the lateral roots at effective
concentration of micronutrients. However, the effects of HA on ion
adsorption by plant roots are not easily explainable due to the
varieties of HAs that differ from origins. Therefore, this study was
aimed to investigate the effect of various concentrations of HA
obtained from the compost derived from mix manures and some
agricultural wastes on the growth of eggplant seedlings (Solanum
melongena L. cv. Chao Praya) in tissue cultures at low nutrient level.
Egg plant seeds were surfaced sterilized and germinated in ½
Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) without HA added or in ¼ MS
supplemented with 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 ppm of HAs. Then, they
were cultured for 4 weeks under the controlled environment. The
results showed that seedlings grown on ¼MS supplemented with
HAs at the concentration of 25 and 50 ppm had the average plant
heights (2.49 and 2.28 cm, respectively) higher than the other
treatments. Both treatments also significantly showed the maximum
average fresh and dry weights (p
Abstract: Bacterial cellulose, a biopolysaccharide, is produced by the bacterium, Gluconacetobacter xylinus. Static batch fermentation for bacterial cellulose production was studied in sucrose and date syrup solutions (Bx. 10%) at 28 °C using G. xylinus (PTCC, 1734). Results showed that the maximum yields of bacterial cellulose (BC) were 4.35 and 1.69 g/l00 ml for date syrup and sucrose medium after 336 hours fermentation period, respectively. Comparison of FTIR spectrum of cellulose with BC indicated appropriate coincidence which proved that the component produced by G. xylinus was cellulose. Determination of the area under X-ray diffractometry patterns demonstrated that the crystallinity amount of cellulose (83.61%) was more than that for the BC (60.73%). The scanning electron microscopy imaging of BC and cellulose were carried out in two magnifications of 1 and 6K. Results showed that the diameter ratio of BC to cellulose was approximately 1/30 which indicated more delicacy of BC fibers relative to cellulose.
Abstract: Dill contains range of phytochemicals, such as vitamin C and polyphenols, which significantly contribute to their total antioxidant activity. The aim of the current research was to determine the best blanching method for processing of dill prior to microwave vacuum drying based on the content of phenolic compounds, vitamin C and free radical scavenging activity. Two blanching mediums were used – water and steam, and for part of the samples microwave pretreatment was additionally used. Evaluation of vitamin C, phenolic contents and scavenging of DPPH˙ radical in dried dill was performed. Blanching had an effect on all tested parameters and the blanching conditions are very important. After evaluation of the results, as the best method for dill pretreatment was established blanching at 90 °C for 30 seconds.
Abstract: Rainbow trout homogametic males, (XX or YY sex genotype), can be obtained, respectively, through masculinisation of genetic females or induced androgenesis. Aim of this study was to compare reproductive potential of neo-males (XX) and super-males (YY) with heterogametic males (XY). We measured spermatozoa motility parameters, sperm concentration, osmolality and characterized protein profiles in samples of stripped and testicular sperm obtained from XY and YY males, and testicular sperm of XX males. The motile spermatozoa, as measured by both subjective method and CASA, showed no differences between testicular sperm of XX males and stripped sperm of XY and YY males whereas testicular sperm of XY and YY males had significantly lower sperm motility. Result of protein densitometry showed similarities in protein profile between seminal plasma of XY and YY males and testicular fluids of XX males. Testis of XX males showed specific histological structures of cysts consists hypertrophied Sertoli cells.
Abstract: Phytotoxicity of Daphne gnidium L. was evaluated
through the effect of incorporating leaves, stems and roots biomass
into soil (at 12.5, 25, 50g/Kg) and irrigation by their aqueous extracts
(50g/L), on the growth of two crops (Lactuca sativa L. and Raphanus
sativus L.) and two weeds (Peaganum harmala L. and Scolymus
maculatus L.). Results revealed a perceptible phytotoxic effect which
increased with dose and concentration. At the highest dose, roots and
leaves residues was the most toxic and caused total inhibition
respectively, for lettuce and thistle seedling growth. Irrigation with
aqueous extracts of D. gnidium different organs decreased also
seedlings length of all test species. Stems extract was more inhibitor
on thistle than peganum seedling growth; it induced a significant
reduction of 80% and 67%, for, respectively, roots and shoots.
Results of the present study suggest that different organs of D.
gnidium could be exploited in the management of agro-ecosystems.
Abstract: The present study addresses problems and solutions
related to new functional food production. Wheat (Triticum aestivum
L) bran obtained from industrial mill company “Dobeles
dzirnavieks”, was used to investigate them as raw material like
nutrients for Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12. Enzymatic hydrolysis of
wheat bran starch was carried out by α-amylase from Bacillus
amyloliquefaciens (Sigma Aldrich). The Viscozyme L purchased
from (Sigma Aldrich) were used for reducing released sugar.
Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 purchased from (Probio-Tec® CHR
Hansen) was cultivated in enzymatically hydrolysed wheat bran
mash. All procedures ensured the number of active Bifidobacterium
lactis Bb-12 in the final product reached 105 CFUg-1. After enzymatic
and bacterial fermentations sample were freeze dried for analysis of
chemical compounds. All experiments were performed at Faculty of
Food Technology of Latvia University of Agriculture in January-
March 2013. The obtained results show that both types of wheat bran
(enzymatically treated and non-treated) influenced the fermentative
activity and number of Bifidibacterium lactis Bb-12 viable in wheat
bran mash. Amount of acidity strongly increase during the wheat
bran mash fermentation. The main objective of this work was to
create low-energy functional enzymatically and bacterially treated
food from wheat bran using enzymatic hydrolysis of carbohydrates
and following cultivation of Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a robust disease detection
method, called adaptive orientation code matching (Adaptive OCM),
which is developed from a robust image registration algorithm:
orientation code matching (OCM), to achieve continuous and
site-specific detection of changes in plant disease. We use two-stage
framework for realizing our research purpose; in the first stage,
adaptive OCM was employed which could not only realize the
continuous and site-specific observation of disease development, but
also shows its excellent robustness for non-rigid plant object searching
in scene illumination, translation, small rotation and occlusion changes
and then in the second stage, a machine learning method of support
vector machine (SVM) based on a feature of two dimensional (2D)
xy-color histogram is further utilized for pixel-wise disease
classification and quantification. The indoor experiment results
demonstrate the feasibility and potential of our proposed algorithm,
which could be implemented in real field situation for better
observation of plant disease development.
Abstract: The study of the fouling deposition of pink guava
juice (PGJ) is relatively new research compared to milk fouling
deposit. In this work, a new experimental set-up was developed to
imitate the fouling formation in heat exchanger, namely a continuous
flow experimental set-up heat exchanger. The new experimental setup
was operated under industrial pasteurization temperature of PGJ,
which was at 93°C. While the flow rate and pasteurization period
were based on the experimental capacity, which were 0.5 and 1
liter/min for the flow rate and the pasteurization period was set for 1
hour. Characterization of the fouling deposit was determined by
using various methods. Microstructure of the deposits was carried
out using ESEM. Proximate analyses were performed to determine
the composition of moisture, fat, protein, fiber, ash and carbohydrate
content. A study on the hardness and stickiness of the fouling deposit
was done using a texture analyzer. The presence of seedstone in pink
guava juice was also analyzed using a particle analyzer. The findings
shown that seedstone from pink guava juice ranging from 168 to
200μm and carbohydrate was found to be a major composition
(47.7% of fouling deposit consists of carbohydrate). Comparison
between the hardness and stickiness of the deposits at two different
flow rates showed that fouling deposits were harder and denser at
higher flow rate. Findings from this work provide basis knowledge
for further study on fouling and cleaning of PGJ.
Abstract: Simultaneous effects of temperature, immersion time, salt concentration, sucrose concentration, pressure and convective dryer temperature on the combined osmotic dehydration - convective drying of edible button mushrooms were investigated. Experiments were designed according to Central Composite Design with six factors each at five different levels. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum processing conditions that yield maximum water loss and rehydration ratio and minimum solid gain and shrinkage in osmotic-convective drying of edible button mushrooms. Applying surfaces profiler and contour plots optimum operation conditions were found to be temperature of 39 °C, immersion time of 164 min, salt concentration of 14%, sucrose concentration of 53%, pressure of 600 mbar and drying temperature of 40 °C. At these optimum conditions, water loss, solid gain, rehydration ratio and shrinkage were found to be 63.38 (g/100 g initial sample), 3.17 (g/100 g initial sample), 2.26 and 7.15%, respectively.
Abstract: All over the world, including the Middle and East
European countries, sustainable tillage and sowing technologies are
applied increasingly broadly with a view to optimising soil resources,
mitigating soil degradation processes, saving energy resources,
preserving biological diversity, etc. As a result, altered conditions of
tillage and sowing technological processes are faced inevitably. The
purpose of this study is to determine the seedbed topsoil hardness
when using a combined sowing coulter in different sustainable tillage
technologies. The research involved a combined coulter consisting
of two dissected blade discs and a shoe coulter. In order to determine
soil hardness at the seedbed area, a multipenetrometer was used. It
was found by experimental studies that in loosened soil, a combined
sowing coulter equally suppresses the furrow bottom, walls and soil
near the furrow; therefore, here, soil hardness was similar at all
researched depths and no significant differences were established. In
loosened and compacted (double-rolled) soil, the impact of a
combined coulter on the hardness of seedbed soil surface was more
considerable at a depth of 2 mm. Soil hardness at the furrow bottom
and walls to a distance of up to 26 mm was 1.1 MPa. At a depth of 10
mm, the greatest hardness was established at the furrow bottom. In
loosened and heavily compacted (rolled for 6 times) soil, at a depth
of 2 and 10 mm a combined coulter most of all compacted the furrow
bottom, which has a hardness of 1.8 MPa. At a depth of 20 mm, soil
hardness within the whole investigated area varied insignificantly and
fluctuated by around 2.0 MPa. The hardness of furrow walls and soil
near the furrow was by approximately 1.0 MPa lower than that at the
furrow bottom
Abstract: The quality and shelf life of foods of containing lipids (fats and oils) significantly reduces due to rancidity.Applications of natural antioxidants are one of the most effective manners to prevent the oxidation of oils and lipids. The antioxidant properties of juice extracted from barberry fruit (Berberris vulgaris.L) using maceration and SWE (10 bars and 120 - 180°C) methods were investigated and compared with conventional method. The amount of phenolic compound and reduction power of all samples were determined and the data were statistically analyzed using multifactor design. The results showed that the total amount of phenolic compound increased with increasing of pressure and temprature from 1861.9 to 2439.1 (mg Gallic acid /100gr Dry matter). The ability of reduction power of SWE obtained antioxidant extract compared with BHA (synthetic antioxidant) and ascorbic acid (natural antioxidant). There were significant differences among reduction power of extracts and there were remarkable difference with BHA and Ascorbic acid (P
Abstract: Potato is one of the main components of warm meals in Latvia. Consumption of fried potatoes in Latvia is the highest comparing to Nordic and other Baltic countries. Therefore acrylamide (AA) intake coming from fried potatoes in population might be high as well. The aim of the research was to determine AA content in traditionally cooked potatoes bred and cultivated in Latvia. Five common Latvian potato varieties were selected: Lenora, Brasla, Imanta, Zile and Madara. A two-year research was conducted during two periods: just after harvesting and after six months of storage. The following cooking methods were used: shallow frying (150 ± 5 °C); deep-fat frying (180 ± 5 °C) and roasting (210 ± 5 °C). Time and temperature was recorded during frying. AA was extracted from potatoes by solid phase extraction and AA content was determined by LC-MS/MS. AA content significantly differs (p
Abstract: With the intention of screening for heavy metal
tolerance, a number of bacteria were isolated and characterized from
a pristine soil. Two Gram positive isolates were identified as
Paenibacillus sp. and Bacillus thuringeinsis. Tolerance of Cd2+, Cu2+
and Zn2+ by these bacteria was studied and found that both bacteria
were highly sensitive to Cu2+ compared to other two metals. Both
bacteria showed the same pattern of metal tolerance in the order Zn+
> Cd2+ > Cu2+. When the metal tolerance in both bacteria was
compared, Paenibacillus sp. showed the highest sensitivity to Cu2+
where as B. thuringiensis showed highest sensitivity to Cd2+ and Zn2+
.These findings revealed the potential of Paenibacillus sp. in
developing a biosensor to detect Cu2+ in environmental samples.
Abstract: Photoselective plastic films with thermic properties
are now available so that greenhouses clad with such plastics exhibit
a higher degree of “Greenhouse Effect” with a consequent increase in
night time temperature. In this study, we investigate the potential
benefits of a range of thermic plastic films used as greenhouse cover
materials on the vegetative and reproductive growth and development
of Iceberg lettuce (Lactuca sativa L). Transplants were grown under
thermic films and destructively harvested 4, 5, and 6 weeks after
transplanting. Thermic films can increase night temperatures up to 2
⁰C reducing the wide fluctuation in greenhouse temperature during
winter compared to the standard commercial film and consequently
increased the yield (leaf number, fresh weight, and dry weight) of
lettuce plants. Lettuce plants grown under Clear film respond to cold
stress by the accumulation of secondary products (phenolics, and
flavonoids).
Abstract: Sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) contain various
phenolic compounds which contribute to total antioxidant activity.
Total polyphenols, tannins, flavonoids and anthocyanins, and
antioxidant capacity in a fruits of a number of selected sweet cherry
genotypes were investigated. Total polyphenols content ranged from
4.12 to 8.34 mg gallic acid equivantents/g dry fruit weight and total
tannins content ranged from 0.19 to 1.95 mg gallic acid equivalent/g
dry fruit weight. Total flavonoids were within the range 0.42-1.56 mg
of rutin equivalents/g dry fruit weight and total anthocyanins content
were between 0.35 and 0.69 mg cyanidin 3-glucoside equivalent/ g
dry fruit weight. Although sweet cherry fruits are a significant source
of different phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity of sweet
cherries is not related only with the total polyphenolics, flavonoids or
anthocyanins.
Abstract: Fruits and vegetables are the essentials of a healthy
diet, mainly because of their antioxidant properties contributing to
disease blockage especially for some certain types of cancer. Being a
favourite fruit, citrus are produced for economic and commercial
purposes worldwide. Particularly, lemon fruit (Citrus limon L.), has
an important place in export products of Turkey. Lemon has a great
importance on human nutrition with regard to being a source of
nutrients, flavonoids, vitamin C and minerals. It is used for food
flavouring and pickling and also processed for lemonade. By
processing citrus into fruit juices, consumption may increase and also
become easier. Like many fruits and vegetables lemons are cheap and
abundant during harvesting period, while they are quite expensive in
other seasons. Lemon juice and concentrate production allows
consumers to get benefits from lemon fruit in any time of the year.
Lemonade is getting in to the focus of consumers’ attention
preferring non-carbonated drinks. The demand of healthy, convenient
functional foods affects consumer trends through innovative
products. For this reason, lemonade could be enriched with different
natural herb extracts such as ginger (Zingiber officinale), linden (Tilia
cordata), and mint (Mentha piperita).
Abstract: In order to increase in chickpea quality and
agroecosystem sustainability, field experiments were carried out in
2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of
different organic, chemical and biological fertilizers were
investigated on grain yield and quality of chickpea. Experimental
units were arranged in split-split plots based on randomized complete
blocks with three replications. The highest amounts of yield and yield
components were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Significant
increasing of N, P, K, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains
emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one
of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and
photosynthesis ability of the crop. The combined application of
compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) had the
best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents,
low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.
Abstract: The objectives were to identify cyanide-degrading
bacteria and study cyanide removal efficiency. Agrobacterium
tumefaciens SUTS 1 was isolated. This is a new strain of
microorganisms for cyanide degradation. The maximum growth rate
of SUTS 1 obtained 4.7 × 108 CFU/ml within 4 days. The cyanide
removal efficiency was studied at 25, 50, and 150 mg/L cyanide. The
residual cyanide, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, pH, and cell counts were
analyzed. At 25 and 50 mg/L cyanide, SUTS 1 obtained similar
removal efficiency approximately 87.50%. At 150 mg/L cyanide,
SUTS 1 enhanced the cyanide removal efficiency up to 97.90%. Cell
counts of SUTS 1 increased when the cyanide concentration was set
at lower. The ammonia increased when the removal efficiency
increased. The nitrate increased when the ammonia decreased but the
nitrite did not detect in all experiments. pH values also increased
when the cyanide concentrations were set at higher.
Abstract: Detecting protein-protein interactions is a central problem in computational biology and aberrant such interactions may have implicated in a number of neurological disorders. As a result, the prediction of protein-protein interactions has recently received considerable attention from biologist around the globe. Computational tools that are capable of effectively identifying protein-protein interactions are much needed. In this paper, we propose a method to detect protein-protein interaction based on substring similarity measure. Two protein sequences may interact by the mean of the similarities of the substrings they contain. When applied on the currently available protein-protein interaction data for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the proposed method delivered reasonable improvement over the existing ones.