Both biometric behavior study and fruit biochemical analysis of five varieties of Syrian Pistacia vera introduced in Algeria in 1998 and raised in semi-arid bioclimatic stage (common Maoussa, Mascara, Algeria) led to a qualitative comparison. Based on the pistachio descriptor criteria established by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in 1997, characterization and descriptor of female varieties of pistachio were performed. The obtained results allow the better choice of sp...
The present work is to study the emergence and growth of seedlings of five pistachio varieties that are: Batouri, Achouri, Neb-Djemel, Adjmi and Bayadhi. The study was conducted in a greenhouse temperature and photoperiod were controlled. The seeds are germinated in pots filled with peat without going through the damp cold stratification at a temperature of 4ºC. The results obtained showed that growth parameters (length and diameter of the plants) revealed significant tests while other p...
The study aimed at identifying animal manure which influences soil health indicators (microbial abundance), was conducted at Lilongwe university of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) crop and soil science student farm. The experiment had four treatments; cattle manure., goat manure,pig manure and chicken Manuel. Treatments were arranged in RCB replicated three times. The ANOVA shows that there was significant difference (p
Assessment of the response of maize (Zea mays L.) planted between hedgerows of Tithonia diversifolia in Lubumbashi, DR Congo Objective: Two trials were carried out over time at the Centre de Recherche Agroalimentaire (CRAA) and aimed at evaluating the behavior of maize cultivation in hedgerows of Tithonia diversifolia (Mexican sunflower). Methodology and results: The experimentation design was a completely randomized, the distances from maize planting lines to the T. diversifolia hedge ar...
Mass human starvation is currently likely if global agricultural production is dramatically reduced for several years following a global catastrophe: e.g. super volcanic eruption, asteroid or comet impact, nuclear winter, abrupt climate change, super weed, extirpating crop pathogen, super bacterium, or super crop pest. This study summarizes the severity and probabilities of such scenarios, and provides an order of magnitude technical analysis comparing caloric requirements of all humans for f...
Analysis of future food security typically focuses on managing gradual trends such as population growth, natural resource depletion, and environmental degradation. However, several risks threaten to cause large and abrupt declines in food security. For example, nuclear war, volcanic eruptions, and asteroid impact events can block sunlight, causing abrupt global cooling. In extreme but entirely possible cases, these events could make agriculture infeasible worldwide for several years, creating...
"Global Catastrophic Risks” collectively have ~1 in 10 probability of occurring per decade. With the possible exceptions of China, USA and South Korea, current resilience, financial systems and relief capacity are designed to mitigate only limited food price increases (such as in 2008 which was caused by impacts totalling
The literature suggests there is about a 1 % risk per year of a 10 % global agricultural shortfall due to catastrophes such as a large volcanic eruption, a medium asteroid or comet impact, regional nuclear war, abrupt climate change, and extreme weather causing multiple breadbasket failures. This shortfall has an expected mortality of about 500 million people. To prevent such mass starvation, alternate foods can be deployed that utilize stored biomass. This study developed a model with litera...
A number of catastrophes could block the sun, including asteroid/comet impact, super volcanic eruption, and nuclear war with the burning of cities (nuclear winter). The problem of feeding 7 billion people would arise (the food problem is more severe than other problems associated with these catastrophes). Previous work has shown this is possible converting stored biomass to food if industry is present. A number of risks could destroy electricity globally, including a series of high-altitude e...
ABSTRACT Breadfruit (Treculia Africana) or simply breadnut is very important both as food and as a potential source of oil. The economic importance of this tropical seed on domestic and commercial basis has necessitated the development of a pedal breadfruit dehuller, that would reduce the Cost of maintaining and purchasing motorized dehuller, Solve the problem of fuel scarcity, inadequate electricity supply . In the engineering design of this machine, the action zone consisted esse...
In developing processing machines for plant materials, the frictional property of the seed on structural surfaces of Mild steel (MS), Plywood (PW), Concrete (CC) and Glass (GL) is a parameter which needs to be measured. In this study, the static coefficient of friction of two Nigerian beniseed accessions (Yandev-55 and E8) were determined at moisture content levels of 5.3, 10.6, 16.1 and 22.4 per cent (wet basis). These were used as inputs into designing a beniseed oil expeller. A - 2 x 4 fac...
ABSTRACT Physical and aerodynamic properties of African breadfruit (Treculia africana) seeds were studied at four moisture levels: 12.50, 15.00, 17.50 and 20.10% wet basis (w.b). As moisture content increased from 10.50 to 20.10% wet basis (w.b), the average weight, major diameter, minor diameter, intermediate diameter, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter of the seeds ranged from 0.35-0.60g, 8.0-10.06mm, 4.04-5.00mm, 2.96-4.60mm, 4.52-6.03mm, and 5.03-6.55mm respectively. Also t...
ABSTRACT The city of Nairobi was initially engineered to keep stormwater out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, that approach has turned a potential resource into a waste product and created new environmental hazards. Once the rain falls onto the impervious surfaces of the streets, sidewalk, parking lots and rooftops, it picks up any and all pollutants that are in its path, gathering volume and speed into the storm drain where it is piped underground int...
Swine enterprise is one of the best options to choose when investing in livestock production, but has been suffering a big neglect due to lack of awareness and ignorance on the part of investors in most developing countries including Nigeria. Everything about swine enterprise depends on how they are managed as they do not demand much financially for their labour, feeding, housing and equipment selection and for other basic needs as compared to other livestock enterprise. Therefore, due to the...
African locust bean is a leguminous plant that is rich in nutrients and is used as food condiment. The traditional method of processing this food condiment is mostly unhygienic; consume a lot of fire wood, human energy and time. Using traditional methods for boiling 33.7Kg of locust bean would take about 12 hours. This study attempts to mechanize the existing traditional methods of boiling locust bean by designing, constructing, and evaluating electrically powered locust bean boiler. The...