The association between mean daily weight gain, Theileria parva infections, clinical East Coast fever and other possible determinants of weight gain were examined in a longitudinal observational study that was conducted in cohorts of female calves from five agro-ecological zone (AEZ)-grazing strata. The strata were upper-midlands (UM) 1 zero-grazing, UM 1 open-grazing, UM 2 zero-grazing, UM 4 zero-grazing and UM 4 open-grazing. In total, 225 calves on 188 smallholder dairy farms were visited within the first 2 weeks of life and thereafter at biweekly intervals up to the age of 6 months between March 1995 and August 1996. During each visit, the calves were weighed and other calf-management practices in the farm during the visit such as housing, feeding and tick control also were recorded. Other events such as morbidity and mortality between or during the visits were also recorded.
The overall mean daily weight gains were 0.24–0.29 kg (S.D.=0.17–0.22 kg) and were lower than the recommended targets for smallholder farms of 0.40–0.50 kg. The major tendency in variability of daily weight gains was due to visit-to-visit variation (especially in calves >3 months old).
Differences in mean daily gains were associated with AEZ-grazing strata and calf-level factors that included breed of calf, calf sickness, incidence of ECF, feeding of milk, concentrate feeds and minerals and interaction between calf age and AEZ-grazing strata (P<0.05). ECF and other calf sicknesses exerted a temporal effect on calf-growth at the height of illness and immediately after; calves later recovered the lost growth except where other factors such as poor calf nutrition prevailed. Improvement in calf-growth in Murang’a District is achievable and extension services should continue to target individual-calf-level management practices. 相似文献
Fruits of Pyracantha crenulata were collected from two locations varying by approximately 550 m in elevation from south aspect for assessing seed maturation
indicators. The mean seed size (length×diameter) across the collection dates varied between 1.61 ± 0.7 and 4.93 ± 0.06 mm2 across both the locations. The seed moisture content negatively correlated with germination. The change in fruit colour from
dark green to light orange, the range of fruit moisture content (30.43% ± 0.06 to 36.10% ± 0.25) and the seed moisture content
between 68.8% ± 0.68 and 71.6 ± 0.62 coincided with maximum germination and appear to be major indicators of seed maturation
in Pyracantha crenulata. 相似文献
Abstract:The previous work revealed that the polarization of light reflected from heading wheat canopies allowed the detection of changes in the canopy structure, i.e., the leaf inclination angle. Accordingly, in order to improve measurement accuracy in this study we examined the effects of the solar zenith angle (= 90º–solar elevation) and weather conditions at the time of polarization measurements for the light reflected from wheat canopies that were fertilized by different means. We measured polarization in the 660 nm spectral band from the heading canopies of wheat, which were grown in plots fertilized with a basal dressing and then top-dressed at the jointing and booting stages. The radiometric measurements were carried out at various solar zenith angles: 22º–41º on two proximal days, one overcast and the other clear. An empirical method for the adjustment of view zenith angle, based on the solar position at the time of measurement, was effective for the measurement of the degree of polarization (i.e., ratio of the polarized part of reflected light to the total reflected light energy) to eliminate interference due to the change in solar zenith angle. Although the mean values of polarization degree measured in overcast conditions were significantly lower than those measured under clear conditions, the plots top-dressed at the jointing stage could be detected via the polarized reflected light measured under both conditions of illumination. 相似文献
The association between mean daily weight gain, Theileria parva infections, clinical East Coast fever and other possible determinants of weight gain were examined in a longitudinal observational study that was conducted in cohorts of female calves from five agro-ecological zone (AEZ)-grazing strata. The strata were upper-midlands (UM) 1 zero-grazing, UM 1 open-grazing, UM 2 zero-grazing, UM 4 zero-grazing and UM 4 open-grazing. In total, 225 calves on 188 smallholder dairy farms were visited within the first 2 weeks of life and thereafter at biweekly intervals up to the age of 6 months between March 1995 and August 1996. During each visit, the calves were weighed and other calf-management practices in the farm during the visit such as housing, feeding and tick control also were recorded. Other events such as morbidity and mortality between or during the visits were also recorded.The overall mean daily weight gains were 0.24–0.29 kg (S.D.=0.17–0.22 kg) and were lower than the recommended targets for smallholder farms of 0.40–0.50 kg. The major tendency in variability of daily weight gains was due to visit-to-visit variation (especially in calves >3 months old).Differences in mean daily gains were associated with AEZ-grazing strata and calf-level factors that included breed of calf, calf sickness, incidence of ECF, feeding of milk, concentrate feeds and minerals and interaction between calf age and AEZ-grazing strata (P<0.05). ECF and other calf sicknesses exerted a temporal effect on calf-growth at the height of illness and immediately after; calves later recovered the lost growth except where other factors such as poor calf nutrition prevailed. Improvement in calf-growth in Murang’a District is achievable and extension services should continue to target individual-calf-level management practices. 相似文献