Reuse of tertiary municipal wastewater effluent for irrigation of Cucumis melo L.

The reuse of tertiary wastewater for crop irrigation presents itself as an alternative to the scarcity of quality water suffered by many countries in the Mediterranean region. Furthermore, this resource can provide an important saving of fertilizers as well as benefits to the environment, as it avoids the discharge of contaminated water into public waterways. This study focuses on the effect of irrigation with ozonized wastewater on the melon crop. In this study, melon crops were irrigated with either ozonized wastewater or ground water commonly used in the agricultural area (control treatment). Fertigation, by means of drip irrigation, was delivered according to the crop’s needs, evaluating the fertilizers contributed by each of the waters and that added in mineral form. Throughout the crop’s development, the characteristics of the water, soil and plant (leaf and fruit) were studied from a chemical, physicochemical and microbiological perspective. The results obtained show that irrigation with ozonized wastewater, in these conditions of crop growth, produces similar effects as ground water on the soil properties, on the concentration of macroelements in the leaf and fruit and on the yield of melon fruit. Furthermore, the reuse of this effluent leads to a greater saving in nitrogenous and potassium fertilizers compared to fertigation of the crop with ground water.     

Effects of microwave cooking conditions on bioactive compounds present in broccoli inflorescences

Cooking as a domestic processing method has a great impact on food nutrients. Most Brassica (Brassicaceae, Cruciferae) vegetables are mainly consumed after being cooked, and cooking considerably affects their health-promoting compounds (specifically, glucosinolates, phenolic compunds, minerals, and vitamin C studied here). The microwave cooking process presents controversial results in the literature due to the different conditions that are employed (time, power, and added water). Therefore, the aim of this work was to study the influence of these conditions during microwave cooking on the human bioactive compounds of broccoli. The results show a general decrease in the levels of all the studied compounds except for mineral nutrients which were stable under all cooking conditions. Vitamin C showed the greatest losses mainly because of degradation and leaching, whereas losses for phenolic compounds and glucosinolates were mainly due to leaching into water. In general, the longest microwave cooking time and the higher volume of cooking water should be avoided to minimize losses of nutrients.     

Influence of wine turbidity on the accumulation of volatile compounds from the oak barrel

In this work the influence of the turbidity of a red wine aged in oak barrels on the accumulation of volatile compounds has been studied. From the results obtained, it may be concluded that the wine turbidity had an effect on the concentration of many of the oak volatile compounds, especially furanic and phenolic compounds. In all cases the concentrations of furanic aldehydes and vanillin were significantly higher (p < 0.01) in the filtered wine than in the unfiltered wine. However, in the unfiltered wine the concentrations of gamma-butyrolactone and eugenol were higher. This difference in the concentrations would be due to the different compositions of the wines and the binding of compounds to some components of the lees. Likewise, it has been observed that the composition of the lees is fundamental in the binding of volatile compounds to the lees as the fermentative lees behave differently from the lees from the wine aging in barrels.