International Journal of Agriculture and Biosciences

The term stress is used with various meanings, the physiological definition and appropriate term as responses in different situations. The flexibility of normal metabolism allows the response initiation to the environmental changes, which fluctuate regularly and are predictable over daily and seasonal cycles. The worldwide importance of soybean and the main limitations to crop yields because of its potential for large-scale production, soybean (Glycine max (L.) has excelled in the world agricultural economy as a major oilseed crop. The field experiment was laid out split plot with randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments included water stress (control, Water stress at flowering and grain filling) and Soybean Cultivars (PE, HT, V292, Sahar, M7, DPX, M9, Williams). Analysis of variance showed that the effect of cultivar on all characteristic was significant. Analysis of variance showed that the effect of water stress on biological yield and grain yield was significant.

Keywords: Plant height, Pod length, Number of pod per plant

In order to evaluate the effects of micronutrient application on yield properties of maize in response to drought stress at flowering stage an experiment was conducted at research farm of Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University during the cropping season of 2014. The experiment was laid out in factorial arrangement based on completely randomized block design with three replications. The two irrigation regimes were used (40% and 70% of water evacuation based on field capacity, respectively as normal irrigation and stress treatment), and also spray application of micronutrient (water as control Fe, Mo and Fe + Mo) were considered as the second factors. Drought stress and micronutrient sprays were significantly affected grain yield and some yield components of maize. Throughout the different spray of microelements the maximum positive effects on plant heights was belong to Fe + Mo spray treatment (with 193 cm). Drought stress was extremely induced reduction in grain numbers per row (26.5%) as compared to normal irrigation. Water limitation was lead the high decrease in grain number per each ear (28% reduction) compares to normal irrigation. Also between micronutrient spray the maximum grain number per year was related to Fe + Mo foliar application and the lowest was obtain from control treatment (water spray). Highly reduction in grain yield through the stress condition (more than 30% compared with normal irrigation) was observed. Among micronutrient sprays the highest positive effects on final grain yield (with 12211.5 kg h-1) was related to Fe + Mo treatment which was significantly higher than control (water spray) (more than 42%). It could be concluded that vegetative growth properties (plant height and biological yield) and also reproductive parameters were strongly affected by water stress. Nevertheless, between all studied parameters the highest reduction was appeared in final grain yield. Totally plant height as vegetative growth parameter and number of grain per row as reproductive properties due to their response to water shortage and micronutrient sprays could play a key roles for estimation of maize yield losses at the similar condition.

Keywords: Grain yield, maize, Micronutrient, Water shortage

Water is one of the most important factors that are necessary for proper growth, balanced development and higher yield of all crops. Water deficiency affects plant growth and grain yield. Limited irrigation means that the soil water deficit is controlled at certain stages of crop growth, a practice that has become more important in recent years in areas where water resources are limited. Water use efficiency (WUE) is defined here as the ratio between grain yield and total evapotranspiration during the growing season. For other definitions, see the review of WUE. The greenhouse experiment was laid out factorial with randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments included two factors: factor a: water stress in three level: 2 day, 4 day and 6 day and factor b consisted of nitrogen in four levels: 0, 50, 100 and 150 kg/ha. Analysis of variance showed that the effect of Irrigation and nitrogen on all characteristics was significant.

Keywords: Plant height, Stem diameter, number of branch

Drought is a widespread climatic event which frequently limits growth of mungbean. Mungbean response to water stress resulting in lower yields. Crop yield of mungbean is more dependent on an adequate supply of water than on any other single environmental factor. In winter cultivation when temperature is low, relative humidity is low and evapotranspiration is greater, then 3-4 times irrigation may need to obtain higher yields of mung bean to overcome drought effect. Treatments included water stress (A1: control, A2: water stress in during vegetative growth, A3: water stress in during reproductive growth) and Phosphate fertile 2 (B1:0, B2:50, B3:100, B4: 150). Analysis of variance showed that the effect of water stress and Phosphate fertile 2 on all characteristics was significant.

Keywords: Pod length, 1000 grain weight, number of seed, Number of pod

Acetyl-CoA carboxylase (EC 6.4.1.2) plays an important role in biosynthesis of malonyl-CoA in plastids. Plastidic ACCase is devided into four subunits including β-carboxyl transferase encoded by accD gene in plastidial genome. As the importance of this gene, we have isolated and cloned the accD gene from chloroplast genome of Capsicum annuum. According to the multiple alignment result, the cloned fragment ~2770bp-long comprises of accD promoter, mRNA coding region with 1655bp-long, which is encoded a deduced 551aa polypeptide. Furthermore, the sequence data of pepper’s accD gene region shows a maximum homology of 93% with Tobacco, Tomato and Potato, followed by an average homology with Phoenix and Glycine with efficient performance of 81%, and 49%, respectively. The -35-like (TTGACA), -10-like (TATCAA) regions of accD promoter for assembling plastid-encoded RNA polymerase (PEP) were identified using bioinformatics analysis. Sequence characterization of this promoter revealed that this region contained several important motifs such as AT-rich, CAAT box, G-box, and ATTAAT.

Keywords: ACCase, accD gene, Bell pepper, Bioinformatics analysis, Cloning, Chloroplast

Throughout the humid tropics of Asia, small holder dairy (SHD) farmers have developed their production systems largely based on the “traditional way of doing things”. Tradition is a generic word used in this case to mean basing farm management decisions and practices on how their father, or friends or even next door neighbours do things. The low levels of milk production and herd fertility, the high incidences of calf mortalities and poor animal health (such as lameness and mastitis) and the inferior quality of much of the milk sourced from these farms are clear indications that many of these traditional farm management practices are in urgent need of re-evaluation.
Many of problems arise because of poor cow comfort and feeding management. Farmers do not give enough attention to cow comfort. Excluding feed quality factors, depressed appetite is largely the result of poor farm management practices. In addition, the majority of SHD farms have too many underfed stock. Maintaining fewer cows and using feed resources to better feed the remaining should be one of the major objectives of small holder dairy farming.
This review discusses many of these routine farm decisions and practices in the light of how they could and should be modified to improve their outcomes. These are categorised into two topics, firstly, improving the time management on the farm and secondly, investing in improved farm management. Many changes in management practices have negligible costs apart from spending more time on any one task. All too often farmers are just reluctant to spend money on improving farm facilities, equipment and consumable items. This review has prioritised these improved practices. It is now up to the many dairy stakeholders in Asia’s humid tropics to disseminate them throughout their dairy industries.

Keywords: Humid tropics, small holder dairy farming, improved management practices

The occurrence and severity of three foliage pests were investigated on Jatropha curcas in Samaru – Zaria, Northwestern Nigeria. Visual observation, identification and counting of foliage pest organism were made on ten Jatropha plants each along the two diagonals in a Jatropha plantation. Three major pest organisms, Mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae) Williams, mite, Tetranynchus sp (Acharina: Tetranynchidae) and blister leaf miner, Stomphastis thraustica (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) were identified on Jatropha foliage. Ninety five percent of Jatropha plants sampled were infested with either one or two of the pest organisms while 5% were not infested. Only 5.26% of the attacked plants showed single infestation while the remaining 89.74% showed multiple infestations. The highest number of Jatropha leaves infested per plant was caused by S. thraustica followed by P. marginatus and the least was recorded in Tetranynchus sp. It was concluded that the three pest organisms identified on Jatropha in the study area could be a great threat to Jatropha production if they are left unchecked.

Keywords: Jatropha curcas, pest organism, infestation, production constraints

Studies on mineralization rate constants, half lives of organic wastes and its effect on productivity of a Typic Haplustult was carried out for three cropping seasons. The field was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design on a 0.021 ha of land with four treatments which consisted of control (no application of organic wastes), burnt rice mill waste (BRMW), unburnt rice mill waste (URMW) and sawdust (SD) each applied at 20 t ha 1 equivalent to 8 kg /plot and replicated five times to give a total of twenty experimental plots. The treatments were applied for two consecutive seasons while there was no application on third season. A Swan – 1-SR-hybrid of maize (Zea mays L.) was used as a test crop. The results of the study showed that mean mineralization rate constants of 0.0498, 0.0487, 0.0471 and 0.0226 K/ day for BRMW, URMW, SD and C occurred at 15, 14, 15 and 32 days of treatment application. The bulk densities of organic wastes amended plots were significantly (P<0.05) lower than those of control, respectively. The total porosity, aggregate stability and gravimetric moisture content (GMC) of organic wastes amended plots were significantly (P<0.05) higher than those of the control. Total porosity and GMC were 4, 3, 3% and 9, 7, 14% higher in BRMW amendment than SD amended ones for three cropping seasons. Similarly, significantly (P<0.05) higher available P, total N, OC, pH, exchangeable Ca and Mg were obtained under organic wastes amendment relative to control, respectively for three cropping seasons. Available P, total N, OC and pH were 11 - 8%, 12 - 8%, 7 - 50% and 7 - 6% higher in 2012 and 2014 cropping seasons in BRMW amended plots when compared with SD amended ones. The grain yield of maize was significantly (P<0.05) higher under organic wastes amendment than control. The grain yields of maize obtained under BRMW amended plots were 3, 2 and 2% higher than those from SD amendment for 2012, 2013 and 2014 cropping seasons. Thus mineralization rate constants and half lives of the amendments enhanced productivity of the soil. It is recommended that organic wastes amendment, particularly BRMW should be explored for soil productivity sustainability.

Keywords: Effect, half-lives, Mineralization Rate Constants, Organic wastes, Productivity, Typic Haplustult

The present study was designed to compare the net revenues of wheat and sunflower in District Dera Ghazi Khan of Punjab, Pakistan. A total sample size of 180 farmers, 90 farmers of each crop was selected for the study from three villages by proportional sampling allocation technique. A comprehensive questionnaire was designed to collect data from these farmers. The costs and revenues were estimated by simple budgeting technique. The cost of production of wheat was found to be Rs. 100022.65ha-1 including land rent (32.53%), labour cost (17.69%), fertilizer cost (16.65%), irrigation cost (10.45%), threshing cost (5.13%), marketing cost (4.38%), land preparation cost (4.22%), seed cost (6.14%) and chemical cost (2.81%). Similarly the cost of production of sunflower was found to be Rs. 84099.33 ha-1 including land rent (39.93%), labour cost (17.98%), fertilizer cost (9.56%), irrigation cost (7.64%), seed cost (7.18%), threshing cost (6.23%), marketing cost (5.40%), land preparation cost (4.35%), and chemical cost (1.73%). The average gross revenue of sunflower (Rs. 158479.53ha-1) was higher as compared to that of wheat (Rs. 113414.60ha-1) which resulted in higher amounts of net revenue for sunflower (Rs. 74380.20ha-1) than that of wheat (Rs. 13391.95ha-1) which is about 5.55 folds higher than wheat. It was realized from the study that sunflower is more profitable than wheat in the study area as having more net revenue, cost benefit ratio and revenue per rupee of input cost.

Keywords: Wheat, sunflower, comparison, net revenue

The study was carried out to evaluate the haematological constituents and biochemical parameters of broiler chickens fed two commercial poultry feeds, Masters Feeds (Treatment A) and ECWA Feeds (Treatment B), in the semi-arid environment of Borno state, northern Nigeria. Ninety six broiler chickens were used in the study for a period of nine weeks in a two by three completely randomized block design (CRBD). Broiler starter and finisher of the respective diets were fed to the chickens from 0-4 weeks and 5-9 weeks of age respectively. Feed and water were provided ad libitum throughout the experimental period. Results obtained from the study showed that parked cell volume (PCV) values for TA and TB were (34.1%) and (27.1%) while haemoglobin (Hb), red blood cell (RBC) and white blood cell (WBC) values were (11.5 g/100 ml) and (7.4 g/100 ml); 6.5 x 106 mm3 and 3.9 x 106 mm3 and 10.3 x 103/mm3, 5.6 x 103/mm3 (P>0.05) respectively. The mean corpuscle haemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) values in TA and TB were (17.2 Pg) and (18.7 Pg); (51.2 ul) and (30.35 ul); (39.3 g/dl) and (26.6 g/dl) respectively. However protein values for the two treatments were 30.9 mg/100 ml and 32.2 mg/100 ml while the blood albumin values were 19.75 g/dl and 18.75 g/dl respectively. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in blood calcium values, TA 2.40 % and TB 2.38 % respectively. In general broiler chicks that consumed master feed (treatment A) recorded significantly (P>0.05) higher haematological constituents and biochemical parameters. Therefore Masters feed was recommended for the semi-arid zones of Nigeria. A follow up experiment to this study should evaluate the production parameters such as feed intake and body weight gain of the birds.

Keywords: Broiler, Feeds, Semi-arid, Evaluation, Haematology, Constituents