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Pear is one of the most important pome fruits in the world fruit market with a high nutritional value. This study was performed to determine the phenolic compounds and some chemical properties of the flesh and peel of 12 Asian and European pears. Chlorogenic acid and rutin were found the important phenolic compounds in the peel which were measured using HPLC. Fruit titratable acidity (TA), total soluble solids (TSS), firmness, color, nutrient elements, and total phenol contents were measured across the various cultivars. Potassium was the most abundant nutrient, followed by nitrogen and calcium, respectively. As the total phenol increased, so did the amount of rutin. Principal components analysis (PCA) of all data showed that European and Asian pear cultivars were categorized and placed into two distinct groups. In general, the different European and Asian pear studied cultivars were different in terms of most of the studied biochemical traits, and significant relationships were observed between some traits.
 

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The relocation of nutrients and water fluxes to the forest floor varies spatially due to partition of rainfall into throughfall and stemflow by tree canopies. In this study, nutrient concentrations of rainfall and stemflow were measured for seven rainfall events in Chaboksar area in the Hyrcanian ecozone of Iran composed of Juglans regia Linn and Cup. Sempervirens L. Var. Fastigiata where such information was absent. In the course of the study, a total of 24 samples were collected, and stemflow samples of these species were analysed in relation to rainfall. The results of this study suggest that the nutrient concentrations in stemflow are mainly influenced by vegetation species. The concentrations of CaCO3, nitrate, calcium, magnesium, sodium, zinc, and chloride, were all higher in the stemflow of cypress tree than that of the walnut tree. The concentration of iron in both stemflow samples was zero. The pH level in the stemflow of Juglans regia Linn and Cup. Sempervirens L. Var. Fastigiata was slightly lower than rainfall pH level. However, in terms of heavy metals, the concentration of lead in cypress stemflow was found to be higher than that in walnut stemflow. Furthermore, a very small amount of copper was detected in the stemflow of cypress tree. Electrical conductivity of cypress stemflow was also higher than that of walnut stemflow.

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Re-vegetation of bare soil is believed to increase, or at least maintain the organic matter levels of soil. The aim of this study was to investigate the soil characteristics changes, nutrient pool sizes and their availability under mid canopy, and canopy gap positions of saltbush in an area re-vegetated with Atriplex lentiformis. Some of the physical and chemical soil characteristics (the particle size distribution, soil bulk density, EC, pH, Na, K, organic C, N, P, C/N ratio and C/P ratio) were measured in two different soil depths at both planted shrublands and control area. The results from samples analysis showed that the soil of the control area is significantly different from the Atriplex shrublands area. Maximum of K and Na proportion were measured in 0 to 20 cm under mid canopy in the planted sites. K and Na in different soil layer showed a significant difference between ungrazed area, grazing area and control area (P

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This study was conducted to choose the best species for plantation on a poor drainage soil in southern coast of Caspian Sea, Iran. Nutrient concentrations in live and senescent leaves and soil properties were compared among Alnus subcordata C.A.Mey (N-fixing tree), Populus deltoides­ Marsh. (Non N-fixing tree)and Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich. (Coniferous tree) plantations. In each of these plantations and an adjacent natural forest, six 20×20m plots have been selected according to a 100m × 100m randomly systematic grid. Leaf samples of green trees were collected from the bottom one-third of the tree crown by clipping two small twigs located on opposite sides of the crown (six representative trees were sampled in each plot). Senescence leaves have been collected inside wooden trap-based in each stand. Results revealed different effects of species on soil nutrients. Alnus subcordata increased soil N (%) whereas Populus deltoides­ and Taxodium distichum reduced it.The results of nutrition, litter quality, retranslocation and soil properties indicated that Alnus improve soil quality in comparison with the two others.

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In the last decades, increasing petroleum prices, diminishing oil resources, incessant fluctuations in the oil prices and concerns about global shortage of energy resources have boosted research on production and commercialization of biofuels, e.g., ethanol and butanol, obtained from renewable resources. Besides its application as a fuel, butanol has found numerous industrial applications for the production of plasticizers, lacquers, coatings, detergents, and brake fluids. Biobutanol, together with acetone and ethanol, can be produced in industrial scale by a process called Acetone Butanol Ethanol (ABE) fermentation in anaerobic condition using Clostridium acetobutylicum bacterium. The nature of the carbohydrate and nutrients in the fermentation can affect the ratio of solvents obtained in the ABE fermentation process. In this research, influence of various nutrients and glucose concentrations on the production of butanol by this bacterium was investigated. Results showed that presence of biotin, thiamine, para-amino-benzoic acid, and yeast extract as well as several ions including Mg, Fe, Mn, phosphate, and ammonium acetate in the culture medium is essential for the production of butanol by C. acetobutylicum. Lacks of these compounds in the medium significantly reduced the production of solvents, in spite of the growth of the bacterium .also optimum concentration of glucose was 40g/l for maximum production solvent .In this concentration, maximum solvent concentration was achieved 10.5 g/l and maximum butanol concentration was achieved 6.7g/l with yield of 26.25%.

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In this study, the effect of carbon and nitrogen sources, on production of yeast biomass was determined as well as the efficacy of various formulations of Candida membranifaciens to decrease blue mold on apple. The media containing sugar cane molasses as carbon sources caused more yeast growth than the media supplemented with permeate powder. Yeast extract as nitrogen source produced higher biomass than urea and Corn steep liquor (CSL). The best growth was obtained in medium that composed of sugar cane molasses, yeast extract and CSL. Viability of C. membranifaciens differed in various carriers significantly (p < 0.01). The number of viable cells in Kaolin and Talc-based formulations was gradually reduced whereas the viability in wheat bran based formulations increased in 4 months and then gradually declined. In general, the formulations stored at 4 °C had longer shelf life than those stored at 24 °C. The antagonistic efficacy of prepared formulations of C. membranifaciens was evaluated against Penicillium expansum on apple at storage conditions. There were no significant differences among Talc-based, Kaolin-based and Wheat bran-based formulations of C. membranifaciens in reduction of blue mold.

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To study the effect of cell-wall degrading enzymes on the nutrient efficiency of young chickens fed different grains, an in vitro experiment was conducted to determine the range of viscosities of seven local wheat varieties. From these, the highest (Flaat) and the lowest (Ghods) were selected for an in vivo study. 288 day-old Arian chickens were kept in cages and fed one of four grains (Flaat, Ghods, Triticale, and Corn) with or without a die-tary NSP degrading enzyme in a 4×2 factorial arrangement with six replicates per treat-ment. An indigestible marker (chromic oxide) was used for digestibility measurements. Feed and water were provided ad libitum. Excreta samples were collected from 18-21 days of the experiment. Apparent metabolizable energy corrected for nitrogen (AMEn) was improved (P<0.05) in all diets by enzyme supplementation except the corn diet. The ap-parent lipid digestibility (ALD) and apparent crude carbohydrate digestibility (ACCD) of all treatments were significantly improved by adding an enzyme (P<0.01). This improve-ment was highest in the Flaat variety (highest viscosity) of wheat. The results of this ex-periment clearly indicate the positive effects of supplemental NSP degrading enzymes on nutrient digestibilities and on AMEn especially for the grains with the highest viscosity (wheat cultivar Flaat and triticale).

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The effects of some micronutrients (iron, zinc and silicon) and macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) were evaluated on the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita and plant growth parameters of cucumber (Cucumis sativus cv. Negin) in two independent trials. Each of iron, zinc and silicon micronutrients was used at 5 mg/kg of soil, as iron sequestrene (Fe-EDDHA), zinc sulfate (ZnSO₄) and sodium siliconate (Na₂O₃Si), respectively. Furthermore, nitrogen at 60, 120 and 180 mg/kg, phosphorus at 25, 50 and 75 mg/kg and potassium at 12.5, 25 and 37.5 mg/kg of soil were used as urea, triple superphosphate and potassium sulfate, respectively. At four-leaf stage seedlings, 8000 nematode eggs and juveniles (2 egg and juveniles/gr soil) were added around the roots. After 60-days, data analysis indicated silicon + iron, significantly reduced the number of galls/g of root by 55 and 42% compared to control, in the two experiments, respectively, but none of these treatments resulted in significant positive effects on the growth or yield of the studied cucumber cultivar. When macronutrients were evaluated, results showed that N₁₂₀P₂₅K₂₅ (120 mg/kg of Nitrogen, 25 mg/kg of phosphorus and 25 mg/kg of potassium) and N₁₂₀P₅₀K₂₅ (120 mg/kg of nitrogen, 50 mg/kg of phosphorus and 25 mg/kg of potassium) significantly reduced the number of galls by 96 and 81% (experiment 3) and 79 and 70% (experiment 4) when compared with control, respectively. These both treatments also improved cucumber growth parameters such as shoot dry and fresh weights, root fresh weight and fruit yield.

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In the absence of dwarfing rootstocks for apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.), techniques that reduce vegetative growth while enhancing fruit quality and yield are important in the orchard management system. Four year old mature apricot trees cultivars Nasiri, 35Shahroodi, Jahangiri, Shahroodi and Noori on apricot seedling rootstocks, planted at a density of 1250 trees ha-1 and grown at Tarbiat Modarres University (TMU) orchard were used. The effect of soil applied paclobutrazol (0.5 and 2 g tree-1 a.i.) on apricot trees was studied over three years period during 1998-2000 seasons. Treatment effects on vegetative and reproductive growth characteristics and the leaf nutrient status of the apricot trees were determined. Results indicated that paclobutrazol (PBZ) significantly reduced vege-tative growth during the experiment. The total pruning dry weight, shoot growth and trunk cross sectional area (TCSA) of treated trees were lower than those of the controls. Although, results showed that fruit load, crop density and total soluble solids (TSS) of fruits were not affected by applied treatments compared with the control. In addition, PBZ decreased nitrogen (N) concentration, but, phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and cal-cium (Ca) concentrations were not affected by the treatments. Chemical name of PBZ is: (2RS, 3RS)-1- (4-chlorophenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-2-(1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)pentan-3-ol.

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Most areas of the world where rainfall is limiting are characterized by low agricultural output and, ironically, high population growth rates that generate increased food de-mand. Arid and semi-arid regions permit a range of vegetative biomass production, from rainfed crops to native pasture, and sparse steppe shrubs to true desert. Given the harsh climatic conditions in areas such as West Asia-North Africa, where less than 10% of the land area is amenable to rainfed cropping, soil resources are fragile and cropping condi-tions precarious. Yet with appropriate manipulation of soil fertility and crop management within a systems context, including breeding of improved cultivars, conservation tillage, and rotations, substantial production increases can occur at the farmer's level. While irri-gation has increased considerably in the past few decades, having a major impact on crop yields, surface and ground water sources remain limited. Applied research specific to the region has shown that crop output can be considerably enhanced with adequate nutrition, most of which has to be added as commercial fertilizer. The substantial yield increases that have taken place in several countries of the region have been attributed to three fac-tors: water, fertilizers, and improved varieties. Technologies that potentially produce such high yield increases include identification of nutrient stresses and taking corrective action, and, where appropriate, adapting the plant to the soil conditions. If managed properly, innovative cropping systems to overcome these constraints can improve rather than de-grade soil conditions. Regardless of the advances in biotechnology, crop adaptation, and integrated cropping systems, chemical fertilizers will, in future, play an even greater role in the nutrition of both rainfed and irrigated crops in Mediterranean agriculture. Crop nutrition research will have to keep pace with agronomic developments. The future chal-lenge in soil fertility-crop nutrition lies as much in overcoming obstacles to technology transfer as in the generation of new knowledge. This selective review is based mainly on the author’s research experiences in the field of soil fertility and crop nutrition in the WANA region for the past 32 years. It seeks to highlight research developments within the context of the region's crop production constraints, culminating in a perspective on future research challenges within the framework of cooperation between international in-stitutions and the region’s national research and development programs.

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Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of phytase supplementation on layer hens and broiler chickens performance and compare the use of phytase nutrient equivalency values in feed formulation with those fed conventional diet. In the first ex-periment, 640 commercial broiler chicks were used from 11 to 49 days of age. The ex-perimental units were allocated at random to 4 dietary treatments two sexes with 4 rep-licates per treatment. The first dietary treatment was formulated with no addition of phy-tase (C), the second diet contained 500 FTU kg-1 phytase over the top (C+P), and the third diet contained 500 FTU kg-1 phytase which was calculated as half of the nutrient equiva-lency values for phyatse (50E). The fourth dietary treatment contained 500 FTU kg-1 phyatse which was calculated as the total nutrient equivalency values for phytase (100E). In the second experiment 288 Hy-line W-36 hens were used from 60 to 72 weeks of age. The treatments consisted of a control diet (C) with no addition of phytase, a control diet supplemented with 300 FTU kg-1 phytase over the top (C+P), and a third diet containing 300 FTU kg-1 phytase which was calculated as the total nutrient equivalency values for phyatse (100E). No significant difference was observed among the four dietary treatments for broiler final body weight, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and carcass characteristics (P> 0.05). The toe ash, and toe ash Ca and P percentage of broiler chickens increased with the addition of phytase (P< 0.05). Hen day egg production for the C, C+P and 100E group were 75.25, 77.25 and 66.0%, respectively; as egg production declined, FCR increased significantly (P< 0.05). There were no significant differences in egg specific gravity, egg shell thickness, shell breaking strength and egg and toe mineralization among the dietary treatments. The results of the present study indicated that using phytase nutrient equiva-lency in feed formulation has a beneficial effect on broiler performance, but did not have any beneficial effect on the performance of old layer hens. In conclusion, using the same AME and protein equivalency values of phytase for broiler and old layers is not a valid approach.

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There are more than 37,000 hectares of land cultivated with date palm in Hormozgan Province producing around 145,000 tons of date annually. Therefore, increasing date yield and quality can ender positive effects, especially on farmers, income in the region. One of the most important agricultural practices is mineral nutrition nd soil fertility management that can improve yield and fruit quality of date palm. This research was conducted for a duration of three years to study the effect of essential nutrients application on Date Bunch Wilt and ry disordr (DBWD) which has caused large production reductions in recent years. Two palm groves of “Mordasang” cultivar were chosen as experimental sites. One was afflicted with DBWD and he other one healthy. Fertilizer treatments were applied on the basis of soil and leaf nalysis as follows: 1- Control (with no use of fertilizers) 2- Addition of balanced amounts of macro-nutrients and 3-Addition of balanced amounts of macro as well as micro-utrients. Theexperiment was arranged with a complete randomized block design of five replications. Maintenance operations consisted of pollination, weeding, disease and pest control. Such plant esponses as fruit yield, bunch number and percentage of bunches fflicted by DBWD were determined and compared among treatments. There was no significant difference observed between bunch numbers per tree in the fertilizer treatments. Application of ssential nutrient elements (treatments 2 and 3) resulted in a onsiderable increase in date yield and a decrease in dried bunches percentage.

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Total energy, protein content and digestibility, antinutritional factors, and total and extractable minerals of normal sorghum (Type II) and four newly developed lines of sorghum (Eri-1, SHK-ABA-4, SHK-ABA-6 and SHK-ABA-10.) were studied before and after fermentation. Phytic acid and Tanin contents of raw flour of the normal sorghum were, respectively, 41.73 mg 100 g-1 and 170.54 mg 100 g-1, while the same values for the four lines ranged from 16.07 to 38.64 mg 100 g-1 and from 31.90 to 184.25 mg 100 g-1, respectively. Polyphenols content of raw flour of the normal sorghum was 604.56 mg 100 g-1, exceeding the values found for the four lines in the range of 476.46 to 544.44 mg 100 g- 1. According to our results, fermentation of normal sorghum flour and that of the new lines significantly (P
0.05) decreased the antinutritional factors i.e. phytate, tannins, and polyphenols. The total energy of raw flour of the normal sorghum was 369.87 Kcal 100 g-1 while it ranged from 367.23 to 372.57 Kcal 100 g-1 for the new lines. In all cases, this energy slightly decreased after fermentation. Protein digestibility of normal sorghum was 22.60% and, for the new lines, it ranged from 37.00 to 57.19%. After fermentation, protein digestibility and the total and extractable Ca, P, and Fe increased significantly (P
0.05) for all genotypes studied.

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We assessed the size and composition of the soil seed bank and above-ground vegetation in 52 relevés representing a range of habitats within an old- growth, temperate deciduous forest at Hyrcanian region, northern Iran. We identified 63 taxa in the seed bank, with an average density of 4202 seeds/spores per m2 by seedling emergence method. Hypericum androsaemum, Cardamine impatiens, and Rubus hyrcanus, with Athyrium flix- femina and Pteris cretica as two ferns, were the most abundant species in the seed bank and spore bank that made up to 92 % of the seeds/spores recorded in the soil seed bank. Totally, 107 species were recorded in the vegetation and soil seed bank of the study site, of which 33 % were common in both seed bank and vegetation and 26 % and 41 % were found only in the seed bank or in the vegetation, respectively. The dominant tree species with many woody understory species found in the above- ground vegetation were absent from the persistent soil seed bank. Jaccard’s similarity coefficient revealed that the correspondence between the species in the vegetation and the same species in the seed bank were consistently low (average of 24.3%) based on presence/absence data. Yates- corrected c 2 test showed that sites present significant differences (P<0.001) in seed bank and vegetation species composition. DCA ordination of the above-ground vegetation and soil seed bank flora displays a clear pattern, with two distinct groups on the basis of the above-ground vegetation and soil seed bank floristic data. Our results explain the low similarity between soil seed bank and vegetation of the Darkola oriental beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) forest only to a limited extent, but confirm that most of the species of the above-ground vegetation do not depend on the persistent soil seed bank. Therefore, it may be concluded that the persistent soil seed bank is not capable of restoring the extant vegetation of the studied site.

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Some factors affecting crude protein balance (CPB), as a measure of efficiency, were studied using 2824 records of 501 lactating Holstein cows. The CPB (kg d-1) was calculated as crude protein (CP) intake (kg) minus CP yield (kg). Two different statistical methods including principal components (PCs) and general linear model analyses were used to study the effects of different factors. Crude protein balance had a moderate correlation with PCs 1 (-0.206), 2 (0.318) and 3 (-0.281), which accounted for 65.6% of total variations. Age, parity, lactation stage, pregnancy stage, dry matter intake (DMI), milk yield (MY), fat corrected milk yield (FCM), milk fat percentage (F%), milk lactose percentage (L%), milk fat yield (FY), milk protein yield (PY), milk lactose yield (LY), dietary levels of net energy for lactation (NEL), CP, ruminally undegradable protein (RUP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and ether extract (EE) and income over feed cost (IOFC) were correlated to CPB, at least, in one of PCs 1, 2 or 3. In general, linear model analysis CPB was significantly affected by parity and lactation stage and had significant partial linear regression coefficients on DMI (kg d-1), F%, FY (kg d-1), PY (kg d-1), NEL (Mcal kg-1) and dietary levels of CP (%), RUP (%), NDF (%) and EE (%). The quadratic partial regression coefficients of CPB on NEL, CP, RUP and NDF were also significant. The estimates for optimum dietary levels of NEL, CP and RUP for minimizing CPB in the studied population were 1.49 Mcal/kg, 11.29% and 7.58%, respectively. In comparison to NRC’s estimates, it seems that, more NEL, RUP and NDF and less CP are needed to minimize protein balance in lactating dairy cows.