ABSTRACT Avocado Persea americana Mill is an important fruit in Kenya. It is a source of vitamins, oil and income to farmers. However, its optimal production is dependent on insect pollinators. This study was undertaken to determine diversity and abundance of insects visiting avocado flowers, their diurnal visitation counts, the crop floral calendar and the effect of pollination deficit of avocado at Kandara, Murang’a County. The study was carried out in farmers’ fields in upper midland ...
ABSTRACT Mosquitoes are of high public health concern since they are significant disease vectors of different tropical and subtropical life-threatening diseases like malaria, dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, zika virus and encephalitis. Use of synthetic insecticides for control of mosquitoes causes development of resistance in vector species and have negative effects to the environment and human. This study aimed to find alternative, effective tools against these vectors from plant essenti...
ABSTRACT Maize is ranked the third most important cereal under global cultivation after wheat and rice. It is valued for food, fiber, feed and for bio fuel production. However the gap between maize demand and regional supply is increasing as small-holder farmers grapple with many challenges, key among them drought. Thus, research in identifying maize lines that are tolerant to water deficit and that are amenable to A. tumefaciens-mediated transformation is a step towards enhancing food secur...
ABSTRACT Maize farming, though successful in some parts of Africa is greatly hampered by the post harvest handling procedures. Resource farmers in developing countries like Kenya use different plant materials to protect stored grains against pest infestation by mixing grains with protectants made up of plant products. Dry ground plant material, were tested for their activity against the maize weevil; Sitophilus zeamais; (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). All showed no reasonable protectant ability...
ABSTRACT About 43% of people in Kenya have no access to clean water. Lack of clean water may worsen as industrial development and population increases as projected if drastic measures are not taken immediately Pollution of water by heavy metals arises from many sources but most commonly from purification of metals, smelting industries, paint industries and textile industries. Activated carbon and other commercial adsorbents are frequently used as adsorbents. Despite their extensive use in wat...
ABSTRACT Research on utilization of solar energy has been stimulated by Energy crisis in everyday usage of energy. Photovoltaic hold great hopes towards solving energy crisis since they are environment friendly, sunlight is free, abundant and not likely to be exhausted in the near future. In this study SnxSey and SnO2: Co thin films were prepared by spray pyrolysis deposition technique at deposition temperatures of 400 K and 500 K respectively. SnxSey precursor was prepared using 0.05M SnCl4...
ABSTRACT In Kenya, diabetes mellitus is of health concern to the public, because it causes substantial morbidity, mortality, and long-term complications. Synthetic drugs used in the management of diabetes are unavailable, have numerous side effects and are expensive. Many plants such as Piper capense, Berberis holstii, Sonchus asper, Vernonia lasiopus and Galinsoga parviflora used traditionally to manage many diseases including diabetes mellitus but their efficacy and safety after long-term ...
ABSTRACT Energy is globally recognized as one of the most fundamental inputs to social and economic development. Most energy sources are serious pollutants resulting to serious negative effects on the environment. To overcome this challenge, the presence of abundant sunshine has been exploited through the use of solar cells to generate this vital resource through photovoltaic cells. However most photovoltaic cells are silicon based photovoltaic cells which are expensive. This study reports o...
ABSTRACT Garage waste is a major source of environmental pollution since it contains heavy metals. These heavy metals end up being swept by rain water into rivers. When the water is used for drinking or irrigation the heavy metals end up in animal and human tissues causing adverse health effects. In soil, heavy metals exist in different forms which influence their mobility and bioavailability. These forms include those soluble in water, those exchangeable with other metal ions, the reducible...
ABSTRACT Blast disease (Pyricularia oryzae or Magnaporte oryzae) is a disease of the economic importance in rice, causing up to 100% yield loss. The aroma trait of rice grain encoded by the badh2 gene significantly increases its market value. Unfortunately, the aromatic IR97012-27-3-1-1-B (Supa234) line developed at IRRI is susceptible to Pyricularia grisea pathotypes. Improvement of IR97012-27-3-1-1-B (Supa234) rice has been carried out through introgression of R genes (Pi9 and Pita) at IRRI...
ABSTRACT An increase in population results to an increase in the volume of grey water generated, thus decreasing the availability of fresh water. In Kenya and developing countries acute water shortages are extremely experienced consequently resulting to water rationing and increase in water prices by water vendors. Therefore treatment of the grey water generated, for reuse in toilet flushing and laundry work could reduce fresh water demands. This study therefore proposed to determine the effe...
ABSTRACT Pesticides bring a promise of higher yields of more food for the hungry and freedom from diseases spread by pests. However, pesticides are poisons and their residues do harm to human beings when the concentration is higher than the recommended maximum residue limits (MRLs). If a pesticide is left on vegetables, which are considered a cheaper source of natural nutrients, somebody could get sick or even get killed due to the poisoning. Therefore pesticide residues have become a high co...
ABSTRACT More than two thirds of the earth is covered by water however, only 2.5% of all the water on earth is fresh. In Kenya, only 1.9% of land coverage is occupied by water, with more than 41% of the population lacking access to clean drinking water. A major risk arises from consumption of water containing high levels of fluorides or that contaminated with heavy metals. Conventional technologies such as reverse osmosis, ultra filtration and electro dialysis used in water remediation are e...
ABSTRACT The electrical characteristics of semiconductor thin films are of great practical interest in microelectronics industry hence the need to measure these parameters in a cheaper and faster manner possible. This study has embarked on design and fabrication of a simple, effective and portable computer-aided four point probe system for thin film sheet resistivity measurement. A four point probe head has been designed and fabricated from easily available materials. A relay switching devic...
Abstract Lomax distribution is an important lifetime distribution. The process of obtaining estimates of parameters for di_erent lifetime distributions under various schemes still remains an area of interest. In Lomax distribution, parameter estimates have been obtained using ordinary procedures like Newton Raphson when the test units follows a progressive Type-II hybrid censoring scheme whereby within most cases the obtained values do not converge easily to the true value. The MLEs a...