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The tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is an invasive pest of solanaceous crop plants, especially tomato, threatening worldwide tomato production. It has been a quarantine pest for Iran since 2010. However, it is now dispersed to all the main tomato production sites across the country. To assess crop loss and determine economic injury level (EIL), a field study was conducted in a 600 m² common research field for two consecutive years (2014-2015). Each tomato seedling (Super Strain B c.v.) was infested by different densities of the pest, including control, 1, 2, 4, and 8 tomato leafminer eggs in the first year and control, 2, 4, 8, and 16 leafminer eggs in the second year of study under cages. There was a significant relationship between the number of infested fruits and the number of leaf galleries made by tomato leafminer larvae. The EIL of tomato leafminer, according to the field experiments, was estimated to be 6.3 and 5.7 larvae/plant in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Evaluating the impact on crops and estimating the EIL are essential elements within a cost-efficient integrated pest management strategy, which provide practical tools for making informed decisions regarding the application of pesticides against T. absoluta.


 

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The Hargreaves-Samani (HS) equation, which estimates reference evapotranspiration (ET0) using only temperature as input, should be most suitable for ET0 prediction based on weather forecasting data. In the current study, the HS equation is calibrated with daily ET0 by the Penman-Monteith equation, and is evaluated to check the possibility of predicting daily ET0 based on weather forecast data. The HS equation is likely to overestimate daily ET0 in the humid regions of China. Coefficients a and c are calculated as 0.00138 and 0.5736 according to local calibration. The calibrated HS equation performs considerably better than the original one. The proposed equation could be an alternative and effective solution for predicting daily ET0 using public weather forecast data as inputs. The error of daily ET0 prediction increases with the increase in the error of daily temperature range (TR) or daily mean temperature (Tmean). This error is likely to be more sensitive to the error in TR than in the Tmean. Ensuring that TR errors are less than 2°C is necessary for perfect estimations of ET0 based on public weather forecast data using the calibrated HS equation.

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Exploitation of the full potential of any hybrid requires the possessing of genetically high-purity seeds. Commercial soybean hybrids have been developed using a cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) system. In order to avoid reduction in yield caused by using low-purity seeds, development of a simple, rapid, and accurate method for hybrid purity assessment is of great essence and significance. Therefore, the parental lines of HybSoy 1 to 5 were screened using 160 Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) makers, of which 8 markers exhibited polymorphism. A PCR-based assay with these markers detected both alleles of the parental lines in pure hybrids, proving their heterozygosity, whereas impurities were identified by the presence of only one parental allele. The confirmation of hybrid purity indicated that a single polymorphic marker was sufficient for detection of contaminations of these hybrids from their parents. It was also found that if a hybrid seed lot was contaminated by another hybrid or its parental lines, two or more appropriate markers could be used to easily detect such contamination. This method could accurately and effectively identify the hybrid purity in a predetermined sample of soybean hybrids constituted by deliberately mixing seeds of parental lines. This is the first report that demonstrates the utility of SSR markers for assessment of genetic purity of soybean hybrids.

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Evaluating fertilizer quality is important in selecting the appropriate fertilizers for agricultural production. In this experiment, the effectiveness of Composite Inorganic Fertilizer (CIF), Composite Organic Fertilizer (COF) and Foliar Spray of Multi-Nutrients (FSMN) on the growth, yield, and fruit quality of cherry tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) were compared. The results showed that the applications of fertilizers enhanced the leaf area, photosynthesis rate, fruit setting rate, and average fruit weight, and yield. The fruit setting rate and average yield in COF treatment increased by, respectively, 25.16% and 81.91% when compared to the control (without fertilization). Also, the contents of reducing saccharide, vitamin C, and lycopene in tomato fruit improved, especially in the COF treatment, in which the contents of saccharide, vitamin C, and lycopene were higher than the control by 40.84%, 28.74% and 13.97%. Treatment CIF had similar effects on growth and yield when compared to COF, but the influence of CIF on the fruit quality was lower than that of COF. Meanwhile, treatment CIF also had the highest contents of nitrate and nitrite in the fruit (2.32 and 1.42 mg kg^-1, respectively). In this study, FSMN was ineffective when used separately.