Why do Farmers Prefer Oil Palm? Lessons Learnt from Bungo District,Indonesia

Indonesia has been the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil since 2008. This paper discussed the livelihood impacts of oil palm development in Indonesia, based on lessons learnt from Bungo district, in the province of Jambi. The various community-company partnerships that structure the sector are reviewed and the difficulties raised by the joint ventures schemes are discussed. The merits and drawbacks of oil palm as a smallholder crop are then analysed, based on household socio-economic surveys conducted in 2007–2010. The main causes of conflicts between oil palm companies and communities are unclear land tenure, and a recurrent lack of leadership in smallholders’ cooperatives. Under fair partnerships between smallholders and companies, oil palm could become a smallholder friendly crop. The land-use profitability analysis demonstrates the high returns that can be generated by oil palm independent smallholdings, making it highly competitive with rubber, and much more profitable than rice production.     

Gender discrimination and its impact on income,productivity, and technical efficiency: evidence from Benin

This paper examines the occurrence and impact of gender discrimination in access to production resources on the income, productivity, and technical efficiency of farmers. Through an empirical investigation of farmers from Koussin-Lélé, a semi-collective irrigated rice scheme in central Benin, we find that female rice farmers are particularly discriminated against with regard to scheme membership and access to land and equipment, resulting in significant negative impacts on their productivity and income. Although women have lower productivity, they are as technically efficient as men. The findings suggest that there is considerable scope for improving the productivity of women through increasing their access to production resources.     

Influence of Prescribed Fire on Ecosystem Biomass,Carbon, and Nitrogen in a Pinyon Juniper Woodland

Increases in pinyon and juniper woodland cover associated with land-use history are suggested to provide offsets for carbon emissions in arid regions. However, the largest pools of carbon in arid landscapes are typically found in soils, and aboveground biomass cannot be considered long-term storage in fire-prone ecosystems. Also, the objectives of carbon storage may conflict with management for other ecosystem services and fuels reduction. Before appropriate decisions can be made it is necessary to understand the interactions between woodland expansion, management treatments, and carbon retention. We quantified effects of prescribed fire as a fuels reduction and ecosystem maintenance treatment on fuel loads, ecosystem carbon, and nitrogen in a pinyon–juniper woodland in the central Great Basin. We found that plots containing 30% tree cover averaged nearly 40 000 kg · ha^?1 in total aboveground biomass, 80 000 kg · ha^?1 in ecosystem carbon (C), and 5 000 kg · ha^?1 in ecosystem nitrogen (N). Only 25% of ecosystem C and 5% of ecosystem N resided in aboveground biomass pools. Prescribed burning resulted in a 65% reduction in aboveground biomass, a 68% reduction in aboveground C, and a 78% reduction in aboveground N. No statistically significant change in soil or total ecosystem C or N occurred. Prescribed fire was effective at reducing fuels on the landscape and resulted in losses of C and N from aboveground biomass. However, the immediate and long-term effects of burning on soil and total ecosystem C and N is still unclear.     

Whole genome sequencing of enriched chloroplast DNA using the Illumina GAII platform

Background  

Complete chloroplast genome sequences provide a valuable source of molecular markers for studies in molecular ecology and evolution of plants. To obtain complete genome sequences, recent studies have made use of the polymerase chain reaction to amplify overlapping fragments from conserved gene loci. However, this approach is time consuming and can be more difficult to implement where gene organisation differs among plants. An alternative approach is to first isolate chloroplasts and then use the capacity of high-throughput sequencing to obtain complete genome sequences. We report our findings from studies of the latter approach, which used a simple chloroplast isolation procedure, multiply-primed rolling circle amplification of chloroplast DNA, Illumina Genome Analyzer II sequencing, and de novo assembly of paired-end sequence reads.     

Tunisian Population of the Wheat Pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola is Still Fully Sensitive to Strobilurin Fungicides

Mycosphaerella graminieola （anamorph： Zymoseptoria tritici） is the causal agent of Septoria tritici blotch, the most frequently occurring disease on wheat crops worldwide. A set of 163 monoconidial isolates of this fungus were sampled in 2012 from five geographical locations of Tunisia （Bizerte, B6ja, Kef, Jendouba and Siliana） in order to examine the status of strobilurin resistance of M. graminicola in this country. The resistance was assessed by using PCR-based mismatch mutation assay that determined the cytochrome b substitution G143A responsible for strobilurin resistance. All isolates were found sensitive since they possessed the wild-type allele G143 conferring sensitivity. This study confirms previous reports on the fungus in Tunisia and reveals that the Tunisian population of M. graminicola remains fully sensitive to strobilurin fungicides. An appropriate management of strobilurin applications in Tunisia is thereby recommended to prevent local development and widespread of resistance, as in Europe, where pathogen populations are fully resistant to strobilurins today.