A two-year study (harvest years 2019 and 2020) was conducted to investigate the effect of a commercially available biofertilizer, in combination with variable nitrogen (N) rate, on bread baking quality and agronomic traits in hard winter wheat grown in conventional (CONV) and organic (ORG) farming systems in Kentucky, USA. The hard red winter wheat cultivar ‘Vision 45’ was used with three N rates (44, 89.6 and 134.5 kg/ha as Low, Med and High, respectively) and three biofertilizer spray regimes (no spray, one spray and two sprays). All traits measured were significantly affected by the agricultural production system (CONV or ORG) and N rate, although trends in their interactions were inconsistent between years. In Y2, yield was greatest in treatments with high N rates and in the ORG system. Biofertilizer treatments had a negative to neutral effect on grain yield. Baking quality traits such as protein content, lactic acid solvent retention capacity and sedimentation value (SV) were consistently greater in the CONV system and increased with the higher N application rates. Similarly, biofertilizer application had no effect on predictive baking quality traits, except for SV in year 1 of the study, where it increased with two sprays. Loaf volume was consistently greater from wheat grown in CONV treatments. From these results, we conclude that further research is warranted to evaluate the potential for biofertilizers to enhance N uptake and affect bread baking quality or other end-use traits. Additional research may be especially useful in organic production systems where biologically based N fertilizers are utilized, and treatments were not negatively affected by biofertilizer applications. Such strategies may be needed to increase protein quantity and gluten quality to optimize winter wheat production for bread baking qualities in the southeastern USA.
Biologically active natural compounds are molecules produced by plants or plant-related microbes, such as endophytes. Many of these metabolites have a wide range of antimicrobial activities and other pharmaceutical properties. This study aimed to evaluate (in vitro) the antifungal activities of the secondary metabolites obtained from Paecilomyces sp. against the pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani. The endophytic fungus Paecilomyces was isolated from Moringa oleifera leaves and cultured on potato dextrose broth for the production of the fungal metabolites. The activity of Paecilomyces filtrate against the radial growth of Rhizoctonia solani was tested by mixing the filtrate with potato dextrose agar medium at concentrations of 15%,
... Show MoreThe temperature control process of electric heating furnace (EHF) systems is a quite difficult and changeable task owing to non-linearity, time delay, time-varying parameters, and the harsh environment of the furnace. In this paper, a robust temperature control scheme for an EHF system is developed using an adaptive active disturbance rejection control (AADRC) technique with a continuous sliding-mode based component. First, a comprehensive dynamic model is established by using convection laws, in which the EHF systems can be characterized as an uncertain second order system. Second, an adaptive extended state observer (AESO) is utilized to estimate the states of the EHF system and total disturbances, in which the observer gains are updated
... Show MoreThe aim of this work is to detect the best operating conditions that effect on the removal of Cu2+, Zn2+, and Ni2+ ions from aqueous solution using date pits in the batch adsorption experiments. The results have shown that the Al-zahdi Iraqi date pits demonstrated more efficient at certain values of operating conditions of adsorbent doses of 0.12 g/ml of aqueous solution, adsorption time 72 h, pH solution 5.5 ±0.2, shaking speed 300 rpm, and smallest adsorbent particle size needed for removal of metals. At the same time the particle size of date pits has a little effect on the adsorption at low initial concentration of heavy metals. The adsorption of metals increases with increas
... Show MoreIn this study used three methods such as Williamson-hall, size-strain Plot, and Halder-Wagner to analysis x-ray diffraction lines to determine the crystallite size and the lattice strain of the nickel oxide nanoparticles and then compare the results of these methods with two other methods. The results were calculated for each of these methods to the crystallite size are (0.42554) nm, (1.04462) nm, and (3.60880) nm, and lattice strain are (0.56603), (1.11978), and (0.64606) respectively were compared with the result of Scherrer method (0.29598) nm,(0.34245),and the Modified Scherrer (0.97497). The difference in calculated results Observed for each of these methods in this study.
The conservation for biodiversity in Iraqi freshwater environments is important to protecting native species from the environmental impacts of alien species. Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) (Siluriformes, Clariidae) has been recognized as an alien species in Iraqi water bodies. This study aims to use molecular DNA to identify this catfish and trace its origins using. The DNA sequences of C. gariepinus were done using the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene, and a specific primer set. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification was used to align the COI gene as a barcoding marker. After analysis, the sequences were compared with sequences in the National Center for Biology Information (NCBI) database
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