Current Issue : April - June Volume : 2021 Issue Number : 2 Articles : 5 Articles
Phosphorus (P) and Nitrogen (N) deficiencies are recognized as the major constraint of agricultural productivity in developing countries including Zambia. While N deficits can be restored at least in part through the application of crop residues and manure, the restoration of soil P can only be achieved by use of phosphate fertilizers which are unaffordable by the small scale farmers. The aim of the study was to assess the availability of P for crop use from rock phosphate (RP), partially acidulated by acid produced by sulfur oxidizing bacteria. The RP was obtained from Keren Mining Limited at Sinda district, Zambia; the Pyrite rock (iron sulfur) and bacteria culture were obtained Nampundwe mine dump. The pyrite and PR were ground and mixed with the bacterial culture to produce the Partially Acidulated Rock Phosphate (PARP). A pot experiment was set up in a CRB design in a greenhouse on four soil types with four treatments of: soil alone (control), soil with GRP, soil with PARP and soil with super single phosphate (SSP) replicated four times. The results showed that the plant height, biomass yield and P uptake across the different P sources showed significant differences (p < 0.01); particularly, the PARP and SSP were significantly higher than the both control and the GRP. A comparison of PARP and SSP within each soil based on both biomass yield and P uptake showed no significant difference between them. Despite the fact that the RAE values based on biomass yield were in most cases higher than those base on the P uptake, the trend was the same. On average the PARP was >90% effective within and across the four soils indicating that the PARP is reactive and suitable for direct application for crop production....
Alternaria brown spot is considered the main disease of tangerines in the State of Paraiba. The objective of work was to evaluate vegetal tinctures from bitter melon (Momordica charantia ) and guava (Psidium guajava ) leaves, as an alternative control for Alternaria brown spot in tangerine. The effects of vegetal tinctures were tested in leaves and fruits (detached) of tangerine “Dancy” inoculated with tangerine pathotype of Alternaria alternata . The effect of tinctures on mycelium growth and spore germination of the pathogen was tested. Tinctures at 20% concentration promoted reduction of disease severity. A reduction of 80% in the diameter of leaf lesions was observed for bitter melon tinctures and 75.3% for guava tinctures. In fruits, the reduction was 48.4% (bitter melon tinctures) and 43.3% (guava tinctures). Guava tinctures, starting at a concentration of 5%, inhibited 100% of mycelium growth of tangerine pathotype of A. alternata , while the use of bitter melon tinctures inhibited 100% of mycelium growth starting at a concentration of 10%. The greater sensitivity to tinctures observed when these were added to the culture medium when compared to inoculation in leaves and fruits may be explained due to the higher exposition of the pathogen to the active principle when the vegetal tinctures were added to the culture medium, than when tinctures were sprayed over the vegetal surface in fruits and leaves. The number of germinated spores decreases 76.7% and 82% when using tinctures from guava and bitter melon (20%). Tinctures from bitter melon and guava are potential tools for alternative management of the Alternaria brown spot in tangerine “Dancy”....
As nearly half of the people in the world live on rice, so the rice leaf disease detection is very important for our agricultural sector. Many researchers worked on this problem and they achieved different results according to their applied techniques. In this paper, we applied AlexNet technique to detect the three prevalence rice leaf diseases termed as bacterial blight, brown spot as well as leaf smut and got a remarkable outcome rather than the previous works. AlexNet is a special type of classification technique of deep learning. This paper shows more than 99% accuracy due to adjusting an efficient technique and image augmentation....
Many factors including depletion of the forest, environmental awareness, and generation of large quantities of agro-forest residues have increased the need to partially or wholly replace wood with agro-forest residue for particleboard production. This study assessed the decay resistance of particleboards produced from four agro-forest residues using cassava starch and urea formaldehyde as adhesives. Musa paradisiaca pseudostem, Theobroma cacao stem and pod, and sawdust of Ceiba pentandra were used for the study. Properties determined were: Weight loss, decay resistance rating and decay susceptibility index. These properties were evaluated after 12 weeks of exposure to Coriolopsis polyzona in accordance with ASTM D 2017-05. The results indicate that the weight loss for Musa paradisiaca pseudostem particleboard was least for both urea formaldehyde and cassava starch adhesives. Even though almost all the particleboards produced were classified as resistant or highly resistant to fungi attack, those produced with urea formaldehyde had better decay resistance properties than that of cassava starch. Furthermore, particleboards coated with synthetic polyvinyl lacquer had better resistance to fungi attack than the uncoated ones. At 5% level of significance, the agro-forest residue, adhesive and surface finish as well as their interactions had significant effects on decay resistance of the particleboards produced. It is recommended that further studies which aim at determining the effect of combination of the agro-forest residues and that of urea formaldehyde and cassava starch be conducted to determine their effects on decay properties of particleboards....
In this article, it is given about lengthening of praxis period, stem and leaf growth, leaf surface, number of stems and weight than the control variant soybean varieties, and the yield and grain quality of soybean varieties are significantly higher when the three types of sulfur and manganese on background of mineral fertilizers are applied in suspension in the condition of meadow-swamp soil. In the soybean varieties, mineral fertilizers were used in the variant with an additional yield of around 5 - 12 c/ha compared to the control. According to the norms of the manganese element, around 7 - 20 c/ha; when using sulfur, the yield in soybean varieties is around 8.0 - 18.0 c/ha. On the background of mineral fertilizers, grain quality has changed due to micronutrients. Protein content in the “Orzu” variety increased by 3.1% - 8.4% when manganese and sulfur elements were used; in the “Nafis” variety, the protein content was found to increase by 6.1% - 8.5%....
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