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Habrobracon hebetor Say (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) as an ectoparasitoid of larval stage of lepidopterous pests is widely used in biological control programs. In the present research, the effect of field recommended doses of imidacloprid, indoxacarb and deltamethrin were studied on life table parameters of H. hebetor in pupal stage treatment. One hundred, two-day-old pupae were treated with 1 micro liter insecticide solution using topical method. The pupae were treated with acetone in the control. Thirty emerged adults in each treatment were transferred individually to a Petri dish along with a male for mating. Three last instar larvae of Anagasta kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) were presented to each female wasp daily as host. The numbers of eggs produced per female per day were counted until all of the females were dead. The gross and net reproductive rates in control, imidacloprid, indoxacarb and deltamethrin were 204.6, 207.7, 209.1 and 112.1 and also 75, 41.3, 64.6 and 14.9, respectively. Intrinsic rates of increase were estimated to be 0.215, 0.154, 0.205 and 0.14 female offspring/female/day, respectively. Deltamethrin and imidacloprid had the most adverse effects on life table parameters of H. hebetor. Intrinsic rate of increase was not significantly affected by indoxacarb. These findings indicated that indoxacarb was relatively safe for H. hebetor and could be an appropriate candidate in integrated chemical and biological control.

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A total of 29 species in 16 genera and 8 subfamilies of the braconids (Hym., Braconidae) were collected from alfalfa fields in Bahariya and Farafra oases (Western Desert, Egypt) These species were identified, together with details of the sites where they were found and an indication of their relative abundance in each site. Among the samples, 4 species in 4 genera and 3 subfamilies are recorded as new to the Egyptian fauna. These are: Aphidius asteris Haliday, 1834, Ephedrus plagiator (Nees, 1811) (Aphidiinae), Homolobus (Chartolobus) infumator (Lyle, 1914) (Homolobinae) and Opius lugens Haliday, 1837 (Opiinae). Thirteen braconid species are also newly recorded in association with alfalfa fields, namely A. asteris; Praon necans Mackaeur, 1959 (Aphidiinae); Habrobracon hebetor (Say, 1836) (Braconinae); Chelonus basalis Curtis, 1837; Ch. blackburni Cameron, 1886; Ch. oculator (Fabricius, 1775); Phanerotoma leucobasis Kriechbaumeri, 1894 (Cheloninae); Dinocampus coccinellae (Schrank, 1802) (Euphorinae); H. (C.) infumator (Lyle, 1914) (Homolobinae); Apanteles appellator Telenga, 1949; Cotesia glomerata (Linnaeus, 1758) (Microgastrinae); Psyttalia concolor (Szépligeti, 1910) and P. nilotica (Schmiedeknechti, 1900) (Opiinae).

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Rust caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi Syd. is a major constraint to soybean product in Asia. Early detection and possibilities of controlling plant diseases by the integration of several image processing methods has been the subject of extensive research. The main contribution of this paper is to present different methodologies for quantitatively detecting soybean rust at each stage of disease development, identify disease even before specific symptoms become visible and grade based on percentage of disease severity. Severity of rust infection levels at each stage of disease development was observed for 25 days on soybean leaf. Then color distribution and pixel relationship in rust infected leaf image was calculated based on global and local features for quantifying rust severity. Further, rust disease was categorized into grades based on infection severity levels and percentage disease index (PDI) was calculated. The maximum PDI of 95.5 was observed at 25^th day and minimum PDI of 0.2 was observed at 6^th day.  

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Tuta absoluta(Meyrick) is a serious pest of tomato throughout the world. The life history and the life table parameters of T. absolutawere studied on 12 different commercial tomato cultivars. The longest larval developmental period (12.92 ± 0.11 days), the longest total developmental time (26.20 ± 0.22 days), the longest total pre-oviposition period (29.31 ± 0.63 days) and the shortest oviposition period (5.08 ± 0.43 days) were recorded on Korral cultivar. The highest pupal mortality was found on Korral (23.53%) and the lowest larval and pupal growth indices were observed on Korral (6.57and 8.87, respectively). The highest and the lowest overall mortalities were observed on Korral (35.00%) and on Valouro (21.67%), respectively. The lowest and the highest intrinsic rate of increase (r_m) were found on Korral (0.1046 ± 0.0005 day^-1) and on Valouro (0.1584 ± 0.0002 day^-1) cultivars. Also the lowest finite rate of increase (λ) (1.1102 day^-1) and the highest doubling time (6.63 days) of the tomato leafminer were observed on Korral cultivar. Therefore, it was concluded that among the 12 tomato cultivars that were studied in this research, Korral was relatively unsuitable to T. absolutaand can be used in the integrated control programs (IPM) of this pest.

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In the present study, the toxicity of three oxygenated monoterpenes, viz., (R)-carvone, (R)-camphor and (1R, 2S, 5R)-menthol was evaluated against the adults of the peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata (Saunders). Effects of these monoterpenes on oviposition, adult longevity and ovarian development have also been studied. The tested compounds revealed strong toxic effect against the adults of B. zonata. Nevertheless, (-)-carvone showed higher insecticidal activity than (1R, 2S, 5R)-menthol and (R)-camphor. Moreover, the tested monoterpenes induced significant reduction in female longevity at 20 and 50 mg/kg compared with control, with (-)-carvone being the most effective monoterpene. In addition, egg deposition was completely inhibited when the adults were treated with (-)-carvone at 20 and 50 mg/kg, and (1R, 2S, 5R)-menthol and (R)-camphor at 50 mg/kg. Histological studies indicated that monoterpenes induced delay in the development of ovarioles of females that fed on artificial diet treated with 20 and 50 mg/kg of compounds. Changes, such as empty egg chambers; constricted germarium, vacant spaces between ovarioles and failure of oocyte formation were observed.

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Red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), is a cosmopolitan and serious pest of cereal grains and their products in storage. In this research, nutritional indices and digestive enzymatic activity of T. castaneum fourth instar and adults were studied on ten barley cultivars (Fajr30, Behrokh, Sahra, Makuyi, Neek, Lout, Bahman, Nosrat, Abidar, and Sahand) at 30 ± 1 °C, relative humidity of 75 ± 5% and darkness conditions. The results showed that fourth instars and adults reared on cultivars Makuyi and Fajr30 had the lowest weight gain, efficiency of conversion of ingested food (ECI), relative growth rate and growth rate (GR) values. However, T. castaneum fed on cultivar Lout showed the highest weight gain, ECI and GR. The highest amylolytic activity of larvae was on cultivar Bahman, whereas the lowest activity was on cultivars Makuyi and Neek. Amylolytic activity of adults was the highest on cultivar Makuyi, and the lowest on cultivar Lout. Moreover, proteolytic activity of fourth instar was the highest when larvae were fed on cultivar Sahra and the lowest when they were fed on cultivars Behrokh and Makuyi. The highest proteolytic activity of adults was on cultivar Abidar, and the lowest on cultivar Bahman. The results of this study indicated that cultivars Fajr30 and Makuyi were less nutritive and cultivar Lout was more nutritive to T. castaneum. Therefore, more attention should be paid to manage the pest on cultivar Lout as a susceptible cultivar.
 

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Abstract: Direct calculation of free term coefficients for linear isotropic problems in three dimensional displacement boundary integral equations is presented in details. In addition, the shape functions of 9 node non-continuous and semi-continuous elements for modeling the crack surfaces, layers interface, infinite boundary and other similar problems have been demonstrated. This proposed method for calculating cij coefficients has been verified comparing with some solved problems.

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The paper attempts to study the efficiency of crop production and resource use effi-ciency on temple tenants and owner farms in Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu. A sam-ple of 90 temple tenants and 50 owner farmers from two taluks of Tirunelveli District, nawely, Shencottah and Tenkasi were selected for the study. The reference period of the study was 2002-2003. The efficiency analysis with the stochastic frontier production func-tion has shown, and a resource use efficiency analysis implied that there was ample scope to increase the productivity of the temple tenants and owner farmers by adopting appro-priated technologies as well as the optimum allocation of the available resources. Effi-ciency of the farmers could be supported by technical efficiency, the results of which had indicated that owner farmers were more efficient than the temple tenants. This reveals that there is wider scope for further improvement in the technical efficiency of the temple owned lands.

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A knowledge of soil surface conditions, especially desert crust, salt crust and desert varnish is useful for improving classification of remotely sensed data. Desert crust can generate high levels of reflectance, similar to those areas with high salt concentration and non-saline soil. Therefore, soil surface crusts might bias thematic remote sensing of soils. In this study, we evaluated the efficiency of the Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) reflective and thermal bands in detecting crusted surfaces and soil salinity conditions. The study areas were Ardakan, Damghan, Lut Desert, Qom, and Abarkooh which are located in arid regions of Iran. To assess the Landsat TM ther-mal data for detecting land cover types, the following steps were taken: 1) determination of correlation coefficients between TM wavebands, 2) assessment of the relationship be-tween TM thermal and TM reflective bands on land cover types, 3) assessment of the rela-tionship between soil salinity and TM Digital Numbers (DN), 4) two dimensional Feature Space (FS) analysis of the training samples, 5) field sampling, 6) image classification and accuracy assessment, and 7) comparison of surface reflectance of different soil surface types. The results show that the trend of correlation coefficients of TM6 with reflective bands is completely different from the correlation between reflective bands. The behav-iour of the thermal band on gypsiferous soils is completely different from that on saline soils. Moreover, with an increasing correlation between soil salinity and reflective bands, the correlation between soil salinity and the thermal band decreases. In image classifica-tion, the thermal band improved the separability of the crusted and gravely classes. Therefore the TM/ETM+ regions of the electro-magnetic spectrum have complementary capabilities for spectral separability of gravely and crusted surfaces. In general, selection of the TM/ETM+ thermal band combination is an important step for classifying the re-mote sensing data and for securing class separability of gravely and crusted surfaces in arid regions. We also concluded that TM/ETM+ thermal bands may contain information complementary to the TM/ETM+ reflective bands and therefore this combination of the TM/ETM+ thermal and reflective bands provide a viable method for soil salinity studies in arid regions.

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The seasonal abundance patterns of the cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover, in cotton fields at Gorgan in northern Iran were studied during two growing seasons of 2002 and 2003. The spatial distribution of different developmental stages and morphs of the aphid was described by fitting data to Poisson (random) and negative binomial (aggregated) dis-tributions, and calculating the dispersion indices. A sequential sampling plan was also de-veloped using the fixed-precision method of Green for estimating the density of the adult, nymph and total population. The first aphid colonies appeared on plants during late June and early July and peaked in early September when cotton plants were at the boll matu-ration and opening stages. Aphid populations, especially nymphs and apterous females, were aggregated during most of the growing season and negative binomial models fit data sets better than the Poisson series. The percentage fit for alate morphs showed a slight tendency to the Poisson distribution. With respect to sampling cost or required sample size, the developed fixed-precision sequential sampling plans showed an acceptable per-formance for estimating aphid density at the precision level of D= 0.25. The optimum sample size was flexible and depended upon the aphid density and desired level of preci-sion, and generally ranged from 10 to 513 and 62 to 3,206 at the precision levels of 0.25 and 0.10, respectively. The sequential sampling plans developed could be recommended to estimate the aphid density in integrated pest management programs.

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 In this study, the effect of five host plants on the biology and food consumption of the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) was evaluated in Egypt. Developmental periods and weight of different growth stages, percentages of pupation and adult emergence, survival, and nutritional indices were evaluated on maize, castor oil, clover, broad bean, and lettuce. The results showed that the developmental period of S. frugiperda was significantly longer on the broad bean. The pupation percentage of S. frugiperda was significantly affected by the host plant. In contrast, the adult emergence was not significantly different on host plants. Our result also showed maximum weights in food consumption, and frass occurred in the larvae fed on lettuce. While the lowest weights for consumption were observed in larvae on maize and broad bean resulting in minimum frass weights. The highest percentage of approximate digestibility (AD) of the larvae was on broad bean and clover, and the lowest AD was by larvae fed on maize. The highest percentages of conversion of ingested food (ECI) and conversion of digested food (ECD) were observed for larvae fed on maize leaves. The lowest values of ECI and ECD were observed on larvae fed on broad bean leaves. Based on the results, it seems that lettuce, castor, and maize were preferred for S. frugiperda.


 

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Gully erosion can be considered as one of the advanced and critical forms of water erosion causing the destructors of the large amount of the earth. Identifying the factors that have an important impact in the occurrence of this type of erosion and its zoning can also be considered as one of the essential and important tools for managing and controlling this phenomenon. This study has been carried out with the purpose of identifying the factors affecting on the creation of gully erosion and the stimulation of the possibility of its occurrence in Dyreh catchment. The most effective factors in gully creation are: slope, slope direction, horizontal and vertical curvature of the slope, lithology, distance from waterway, and distance from the road. The land was selected and then these layers were created in GIS. Therefore, in the creation of gully erosion, they were classified based on preferences in order to have a paired comparison in the matrix table. Finally, the act of weighting the functions and overlapping of the layers were done by Arc GIS software and according to the resulting coefficients' hazard zonation map obtained in 6 layers: without risk, very low risk, low risk, medium risk, high risk, and too high risk. The final coefficient of numerical value was defined using the numbers obtained by multiplying the weight of each criterion in the index anywhere between zero and 100. In which the more tendency to 100 indicates as high risk of landslide’s, and the coefficients close to zero indicate that there is less risk and that its occurrence is without danger. The results further showed that %36 of Dyreh basin faces high risk, and too high risk causing the displacement of large volume of soil.    

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 In the present study, we aimed to screen indigenous rhizospheric Bacillus strains, capable of producing antiphytopathogenic and plant growth promoting traits. Isolate CTS-B19 and CTS-G24 exhibited quite noticeable antagonistic activity initially against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri and Rhizoctonia bataticola, and, later, against a panel of phytopathogens. Partial 16S rRNA sequence analysis showed that the isolate CTS-B19 and CTS-G24 exhibited 99% homology with Paenibacillus polymyxa and Bacillus subtilis and the sequences were deposited in GenBank with accession numbers KF322038 and KF322037, respectively. In vitro detection for fungal wall degrading enzymes revealed that both isolates produced chitinases, β-1,3-glucanases, proteases and cellulases. While siderophores and catalase activities were observed only in Bacillus subtilis (CTS-G24), both strains exhibited a positive result for in vitro ammonia production. Besides, the strain CTS-B19 could also solubilize phosphate. Lytic enzymes and siderophore produced by Bacillus subtilis can be considered as potential antiphytopathogenic traits involved in the inhibition of fungal growth. Both strains exhibited either no or negligible antagonistic activity against other plant growth promoting bacteria. Additional to antagonism, plant growth promoting traits exhibited by these natural biocontrol agents may suppress plant diseases and might be applied in agriculture as an alternative to chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

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Excessive use of antibiotics in the production of livestock has led to the accumulation of antibiotic residues in various livestock products such as meat and milk. Consumption of foods containing antibiotics leads to problems such as increased antibiotic resistance, while their accumulation in the body can lead to mutagenesis and cancers, liver damage and abortion. For this reason, monitoring residual antibiotics, especially in high-consumption and beneficial food products such as milk and dairy products, is of particular importance. In this research, a dispersive solid-phase micro-extraction method for the extraction of tetracycline, oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline antibiotics from 50 milk samples and their quantitative measurement by HPLC was developed. For this purpose, the effect of various parameters affecting the extraction efficiency such as the volume of the precipitating agent, the type and amount of solid adsorbent, ionic strength, aeration time and flow rate, type and amount of surfactant and type and volume of elution solvent were optimized. The results showed that all milk samples contained tetracycline residue and its concentration varied in the range of 146 to 319 ng / ml. No other antibiotics were found in the samples. The advantages of the proposed extraction method include high separation power and the possibility of analyzing a mixture of highly sensitive analytes, so that under optimal conditions, recoveries of the proposed method ranging from 80 to 91%, the LOD were in the range of 0.17-0.33 ng / ml and the linear range was in the range of 0.63-2000 ng / ml.

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The overall objective of the present paper is demonstrating the utility of price forecasting of farm prices and validating the same for major crops namely, Paddy, Ragi and Maize in Karnataka state for the year 2016 using the time series data from 2002 to 2016. The results were obtained from the application of univariate ARIMA techniques to produce price forecasts for cereal and precision of the forecasts were evaluated using the standard criteria of MSE, MAPE and Theils U coefficient criteria. The results of ARIMA price forecasts amply demonstrated the power of the ARIMA model as a tool for price forecasting as revealed by pragmatic models of forecasted prices for 2020. The values of MSE, MAPE and Theils U were relatively lower, indicating validity of the forecasted prices of the three crops.

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Plant essential oils can prevent the growth of bacteria and increase the shelf life of food products such as seafood and fish. In this study, the effect of zizphora and tarragon essential oils at concentrations of 500, 1000, and 2000 mg/L on microbial quality and shelf life of rainbow trout fillets stored at 4 ºC was investigated. The results showed that the essential oils of ziziphora and tarragon were effective in reducing the production of volatile nitrogen bases and the greatest effect was related to ziziphora essential oil with a concentration of 2000 mg/L. It was also observed that the use of ziziphora and tarragon essential oils reduced the total viable counts, psychrotrophic bacteria, coliforms, and Escherichia coli bacteria compared to the control sample, which confirms their antimicrobial properties. It was concluded that ziziphora essential oil with a concentration of 2000 mg/L was more effective than tarragon essential oil in controlling the microbial load and delaying the spoilage of rainbow trout fillet at refrigerator temperature.

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Excessive use of antibiotics in the animal husbandry causes the accumulation of their residual amounts in food of animal origin such as dairy products. Since the consumption of these foods has a negative effect on human health, authorized organizations such as the European :union: have set maximum residue limits (MRLs) for antibiotics in food of animal origin. This research aimed to present a magnetic ionic solvent based extraction procedure for preparation and preconcentration of tetracycline, oxytetracycline and enrofloxacin residues in cheese samples and their determination by high-performance liquid chromatography equipped with a diode array detector. For this, the effect of various parameters on the extraction efficiency was investigated and optimized. The results showed that the residual amounts of oxytetracycline and tetracycline in 4 and 5 samples of the tested cheeses, respectively, were determined above the permissible limits. Enrofloxacin residue was not found in any of the samples. From the advantages of the proposed extraction method, we can point out the high separation power and the possibility of highly sensitive analyzing of mixed analytes, so that under optimized conditions, the recovery percentage ranges were 80-91. The limits of detection and quantification were respectively less than 1.8 and 6 ng/g, which is much lower than the MRLs set for target antibiotics in cheese (100 ng/g).

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A new and optimized protocol, here called 6hDNA (i.e. a genomic DNA obtained by a six-hour extraction method), has been developed based on the traditional Cetyl-TrimethylAmmonium Bromide (CTAB) method. It allows a fast and easy isolation of genomic DNA from plant species, especially from those with high polyphenol and polysaccharide contents. Co-precipitation of polysaccharides was avoided by adding higher concentrations of selective precipitants of nucleic acid, CTAB 3% (w/v) and sodium chloride (NaCl) (1.42M). PolyVinylPyrrolidone (PVP) 1% (w/v) was applied to remove polyphenols as PCR inhibitors. Proteins were degraded by treatments of chloroform:isoamyl alchol (24:1) and phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alchol (25:24:1) and removed by centrifugation from plant extracts. The yield of total DNA from leaves of Vitis vinifera, Citrus sinensis and Olea europaea ranged from 42 to 980 ng µL^-1 with A260/A280 ratio values between 1.6 and 2.06. The purity and integrity of the obtained DNA guarantees successful downstream applications including PCR and microsatellite markers. The use of lyophilized plant material and the reduced time of the total procedure make this new 6hDNA protocol more convenient when compared to the most common DNA isolation protocols, such as: “Doyle and Doyle”, “Lodhi”, “Li”, or those using the DNAzol reagent and the Nucleospin Plant Minikit.
 

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Mode I fracture toughness (KIC) is one of the most important parameters in fracture mechanics, which represents the ability of a material containing a pre-existing defect to resist tensile failure. In this paper, the crack length effect on the mode I fracture toughness of an isotropic homogeneous material was investigated. For this purpose, several disc shaped PPMA samples were loaded in pure tension by performing pseudo-compact tension (pCT) tests. Digital image correlation (DIC) method was utilized to assess and monitor the distribution of the deformation field during the tests. DIC results were also used to compare the effect of crack length on the deformation field variation in samples. Very good agreement was found between the KIC values estimated in this study and those reported in the past for the similar material; indicating that the pCT method is convenient for the assessment of KIC. The experimental results also show that the initial crack length has a tangible impact on KIC, although the magnitude of its influence is closely related to material structure and type. According to the tests results, an increase in the initial crack length leads to increase the ultimate displacement at failure point, decrease the maximum load and the amount of absorbed energy until the moment of failure, and finally decrease the mode I fracture toughness of the material. Results of this study show that the pCT method configuration is useful for testing PMMA and may be useful for testing other materials suitable amenable of molding such as mortar, concrete and ceramics. According to the comparison of the results, in the optimum range of sample diameter, about 50 mm, the initial crack length is suggested between 11.5 to 15.5 mm for the PMMA.