Antibiotic residues in goats milk following intramammary treatment

Two lactational intramammary antibiotic preparations (cloxacillin and oxytetracycline) were each used to treat eight goats by intramammary infusion in one half. The rate of release of the antibiotics was monitored by a diffusion assay based on the sensitive organism Bacillus stearothermophilus var. calidolactis. Cloxacillin was still detectable 156 hours after the final treatment while oxytetracycline was undetectable 108 hours following treatment. A small but significant amount of antibiotic was translocated between treated and untreated halves of the udder in both cases.     

Lagenidium callinectes (Couch, 1942) infection and its control in cultured larval Indian tiger prawn, Penaeus monodon Fabricius

A mycosis in larval tiger prawn, Penaeus monodon Fabricius, is described for the first time from India. The hyphae of Lagenidium callinectes are contorted, irregularly branched, sparingly septate, and contain a cell wall and membrane, vacuoles, mito chondria, ribosomes, small and large vesicles, and Woronin bodies. The spores occur singly or in pairs. The fungal mycelium may either invade and embed itself in the tissues, or alternatively, replace all the muscle tissues of the infected larval P. monodon. Fungus infected, untreated populations of nauplii, zoea and myksis exhibited mortalities of 5.33 ± 0.55%, 24.68 ± 4.58% and 47.89 ± 0.27%, respectively. A 0.5 ppm treatment with trifluralin significantly reduced the mortality of infected larval populations (i.e. 1.1% nauplii, 3.28% zoea and 5.21% myksis mortality). Lagenidium sp. exhibited growth in potato dextrose agar medium and in Sabouraud's agar at 28 °C.     

Increase of forest carbon biomass due to community forestry management in Nepal

Community forest management helps in mitigating deforestation and forest degradation by addressing the negative aspects of rural livelihoods such as poverty and social exclusion. It is important in regulating global climate by encouraging sequestration of carbon in shoots, roots and soils. We studied the status of community forest management, forest resource harvest and carbon stocks in two community forests of the mid hill region of central and western Nepal. The study was based on primary and secondary data collected through carbon stock measurement from field visits and allometric equations, household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and review of past studies. Socioeconomic variables such as gender, age group, livestock and landholding status were related to resource utilization, conservation, and management of community forest. Forest resources such as timber, firewood, fodder and leaf litter were harvested in sustainable ways. People were involved in forest thinning, co-management meetings, guarding and planting trees for forest conservation and management. Density and carbon stock of trees increased gradually in comparison to a previous study. We recommend further research on other community forests for more accurate and better results.     

Identification of windbreaks in Kansas using object-based image analysis,GIS techniques and field survey

Windbreaks are valuable resources in conserving soils and providing crop protection in Great Plains states in the US. Currently, Kansas has no up-to date inventory of windbreaks. The goal of this project was to assist foresters with future windbreak renovation planning and reporting, by outlining a series of semi-automated digital image processing methods that rapidly identify windbreak locations. There were two specific objectives of this research. First, to develop semi-automated methods to identify the location of windbreaks in Kansas, this can be applied to other regions in Kansas and the Great Plains. We used a remote sensing technique known as object-based image analysis (OBIA) to classify windbreaks visible in the color aerial imagery of National Agriculture Imagery Program. We also combined GIS techniques and field survey to complement OBIA in generating windbreak inventory. The techniques successfully located more than 4500, windbreaks covering an approximate area of 2500, hectares in 14 Kansas counties. The second purpose of this research is to determine how well the results of the automated classification schemes match with other available windbreak data and the selected sample collected in the field. The overall accuracy of OBIA method was 58.97 %. OBIA combined with ‘heads up’ digitizing and field survey method yielded better result in identifying and locating windbreaks in the studied counties with overall accuracy of 96 %.     

Genetic Diversity for Morphological and Quality Traits in Quinoa(<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chenopodium quinoa</Emphasis> Willd.) Germplasm

Twenty nine germplasm lines of Chenopodium quinoa and two of Chenopodium berlandieri subsp. nuttalliae were evaluated for 12 morphological and 7 quality traits for two test seasons. The 19 traits were analyzed for cluster and principal component analysis. The first four PCs contributed 78.70 % of the variability among the germplasm lines. The first PC accounted for 39.5% of the variation and had inflorescence/plant, plant height and stem diameter as the traits with largest coefficients, all with positive sign. The characters with greatest positive weight on PC₂ were days to maturity (0.309), inflorescence length (0.260) and branches/plant. All the germplasm lines were grouped into six clusters based on average linkage method. Cluster III had high values for seed yield and most of the quality traits but showed a small seed size. The dendrogram separated the two lines of C. berlandieri subsp. nuttalliae from the quinoa lines.     

Micrometeorite craters discovered on chondrule-like objects from kapoeta meteorite

Craters attributable to hypervelocity impacts of micrometeorites have been discovered on rare chondrule-like objects from the gas-rich meteorite Kapoeta. These chondrule-like objects, probably generated by impacts themselves, provide further evidence for the regolith origin of Kapoeta. The micrometeorite flux at the time of formation of the meteorites was probably an order of magnitude higher than the present flux, but the solar luminosity could not have been higher than 1.7 times its present value.     

Effect of tillage and mode of straw mulch application on soil erosion in the submontaneous tract of Punjab, India

The submontaneous tract of Punjab comprising 10% of the state, is prone to soil erosion by water. Soils of the area are coarse in texture, low in organic matter and poor in fertility. High intensity rains during the monsoon season result in fertile topsoil removal. There is an urgent need to control soil erosion in this region so as to improve soil productivity. A field study was conducted to estimate the effect of tillage and different modes of mulch application on soil erosion losses. Treatments comprised two levels of tillage, viz. minimum (T_m) and conventional (T_c) in the main plots and five modes of straw mulch application, viz. mulch spread over whole plot (M_w), mulch spread on lower one-third of plot (M_1/3), mulch applied in strips (M_s), vertical mulching (M_v) and unmulched control (M_o), in subplots in a replicated split plot design. Rate of mulch application was 6 t ha⁻¹ in all modes. Compared with M_o, M_w reduced runoff by 33%. Runoff and soil loss were 5 and 40% higher under T_c than under T_m. Though other modes of straw mulch application (M_1/3, M_s and M_v) controlled soil loss better than M_o, their effectiveness was less than M_w. T_m was more effective in conserving soil moisture than T_c. Compared with M_o, M_w had 3–7% higher soil moisture content in the 0–30 cm soil depth under T_m. Minimum soil temperature of the surface layer was 1.4–2.4 °C lower under M_w than under M_o. Straw mulching reduced maximum soil temperature and helped in conserving soil moisture. Minimum tillage coupled with M_w was highly effective in reducing soil erosion losses, decreasing soil temperature and increasing moisture content by providing maximum surface cover.     

Tracks of cosmic rays in plastics

Cosmic ray nuclei have been observed with the use of plastic trackdetecting solids in satellites and high-altitude balloon flights. Nuclear emulsions in the stacks of plastic sheets allowed the positive identification of cosmic raynuclei as light as nitrogen. The most striking new information was the failure to observe relativistic iron nuclei, a result which has led to an advance in the understanding of track registration criteria.