Assessing seed desiccation responses of native trees in the Caribbean

New Forests - Native trees from the Caribbean were tested for seed desiccation responses, by adapting the “100-seed test” protocol. Ninety-seven seed lots of 91 species were collected...     

The Field Performance of Cold-Stored Strawberry Runners in South-East England

After 4-5 months’ storage at 30° F. (-1° C.), runners of Redgauntlet and Cambridge Favourite strawberries established well when planted in June or July. In contrast to freshly lifted runners, stored plants runnered fairly freely in the year of planting and grew with an erect habit. In the year after planting, plant habit was normal but more stolons were produced early in the season.

Deblossoming cold-stored runners after planting, though not necessary for satisfactory establishment, increased the subsequent yield. Cold-stored runners planted in late July and deblossomed in August cropped well in the following year, the total crop and in particular the yield of large fruit (> ? in. diameter) being similar in amount to that from fresh runners planted in early August. The weight of early fruit harvested from Redgauntlet was appreciably greater from cold-stored than from early-planted fresh runners, but stored runners of Cambridge Favourite showed no gain in earliness. It is concluded that stored runners may satisfactorily be used as a substitute for fresh ones to obtain the recognized advantages of early planting.

Cold-stored Redgauntlet runners planted in June ripened a small crop of fruit in August. Reducing the inter-plant spacing from 18 in. to 9 in. doubled the initial yield and also increased the total amount of fruit harvested in the two succeeding years without lessening the quantity of large fruit.     

Evaluation of formaldehyde adsorption by bamboo charcoal using a photoacoustic method

This study focuses on a novel, multipass, acoustically open photoacoustic detector designed for fast-response high-sensitivity detection of formaldehyde adsorption by bamboo charcoal in an ambient atmosphere. The detection range, estimated from formaldehyde measurements at a wavenumber of around 2805 cm⁻¹, is 0–2.0 parts per million by volume. In this work, photoacoustic (PA) detection with various bamboo charcoals was analyzed at our laboratory for the detection of a photoacoustic signal using a pulsed laser system and the comparative performances of the charcoals were studied. The PA system is applicable to pollution monitoring and detection of hazardous gases in an indoor environment.     

Antibody response of two populations of common carp, Cyprinus carpio L., exposed to koi herpesvirus

Common carp, Cyprinus carpio L., exposed to koi herpesvirus (KHV) may become persistently infected and populations containing such virus-infected individuals may transmit the virus to other fish when co-habited. Detection of virus-infected fish in a population is thus critical to surveillance and control programmes for KHV. A study was therefore designed to detect anti-KHV serum antibodies, with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, in common carp following experimental exposures to KHV under varying environmental conditions. The study determined that a proportion of fish within a population experimentally exposed to KHV (at least 10–25%) develop high antibody titres (1/1600 or greater) to the virus, and this immunological response was detectable for several months (observed at the termination of the experiments at 65, 46 and 27 weeks post-exposure). Furthermore, this response was detected in one population of fish that did not succumb to a high level of mortality when maintained at water temperatures that were non-permissive for KHV. Elevating the water temperatures to permissive conditions for KHV resulted in recurrence of disease despite the presence of anti-virus antibodies, suggesting that serum antibodies alone are not protective under the conditions of our trials.