Coffee ripeness monitoring using a UAV-mounted low-cost multispectral camera

Coffee beverage quality is highly correlated with the degree of fruit ripeness. In this sense, monitoring fruit ripeness is of utmost importance for harvest planning and, especially for obtaining high-quality beverages. Currently, this process is carried out through manual counts of unripe fruits, which is laborious and limited to a few plants within the field. This study aimed at evaluating the potential of a low-cost multispectral camera for coffee ripeness monitoring in the Zona da Mata region of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. For that, five fields of Arabica coffee with distinct characteristics were evaluated. During the coffee ripeness period, four flights were carried using a Phantom 4 Pro quadcopter equipped with a Mapir Survey 3W camera for imagery acquisition. After that, nine vegetation indices (VIs) were obtained. For the same dates, the percentage of unripe fruits was obtained using an irregular grid in all fields. The data was split into two ripeness classes: suitable for harvest (R) with?<?30% of unripe fruits; and not suitable for harvest (U), with?>?30% of unripe fruits. Then, a principal component analysis was used to infer the importance of the VIs to discriminate plants with unripe fruits from those with ripe fruits. The first two principal components explained?>?75% of the variance in the datasets from all coffee fields. The VIs were able to discriminate the ripeness classes (U and R) in most fields; however, their performance was directly influenced by the crop yield and canopy volume.

     

Effect of processing on some chemical and nutritional characteristics of pre-cooked and dehydrated legumes

The effect of processing on chemical composition and protein quality of three legumes was studied. The species analyzed were beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), Tórtola and Coscorrón varieties; lentils (Lens esculenta), Laird variety; and chick peas (Cicer arietinum), California-INIA variety. The legumes were soaked in a solution of Na₂ EDTA at 0.03% for 16 h and cooked for a predetermined period for each species. They were dried in a tray drier with cross currents of air flowing at a speed of 10 m/min until the residual mositure content was 8%. The water activity in the resulting products ranged from 0.574 to 0.587, thus completely assurring no microbial activity. No important changes were observed in the legumes protein, fat, or fibre contents after processing. The soaking solution was effective in reducing the phytic acid content from 2.99 to 1.64 mg/100 g in the Tórtola beans, which had the highest acid value prior processing. In all the species the heat treatment reduced the activity of the trypsin inhibitors by at least 50%. Cooking and drying significantly increased protein digestibility in all the legumes studied, with chick peas showing the most dramatic increase: from 54.7% pre-processing to 94.9% post-processing. With regard to Net Protein Ratio (NPR), chick peas had a value of 4.03, followed by Tórtola beans (3.29), Coscorrón (3.09) and lentils (2.61). The NPR value for the casein diet was 4.20.     

Cytotoxic effect of two legumes in epithelial cells of the small intestine

The previously known high toxicity and hemagglutinin concentration found in Escumite bean (Phaseolous acutifolius), widely consumed in the south-east of Mexico, induced us to study the cytotoxic effect of these beans on the epithelial cells of the small intestine of rats. Another, less toxic leguminosae, chick-pea (Cicer arietinum), was used for comparison. In vitro tests showed that the viability of the cells was much more affected by the Escumite bean extract than by the chick-pea extract (P<0.001). The cellularity was much diminished when the epithelial cells were treated with Escumite extract (P<0.001), but not with chick-pea extract. In vivo experiments confirmed these findings. The present results suggest that the deleterious effect of some toxicants present in the raw legume is due to an interaction with intestinal epithelium, which, in turn, may cause a reduced absorption of nutrients.     

Characterization of Industrial Onion Wastes (<Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Allium cepa</Emphasis> L.): Dietary Fibre and Bioactive Compounds

The food industry produces a large amount of onion wastes, making it necessary to search for possible ways for their utilization. One way could be to use these onion wastes as a natural source of high-value functional ingredients, since onion are rich in several groups of compounds, which have perceived benefits to human health. The objective of this work is to gain knowledge of any differences between the different onion wastes obtained from industry and non-commercial bulbs to use them as food ingredients rich in specific compounds. The results showed that brown skin and top–bottom could be potentially used as functional ingredient rich in dietary fibre, mainly in insoluble fraction, and in total phenolics and flavonoids, with high antioxidant activity. Moreover, brown skin showed a high concentration of quercetin aglycone and calcium, and top–bottom showed high concentration of minerals. Outer scales could be used as source of flavonols, with good antioxidant activity and content of dietary fibre. However, inner scales could be an interesting source of fructans and alk(en)yl cystein sulphoxides. In addition, discarded onions (cvs Recas and Figueres) could be used as a good source of dietary fibre, and cv Recas also as a source of phenolics compounds.     

Influence of Fruit Ripening Stage and Harvest Period on the Antioxidant Content of Sweet Pepper Cultivars

Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) fruits are highly appreciated by producers and consumers for their economical and nutritional value. Four different cultivars of coloured peppers in immature and mature stages were harvested throughout the spring and examined for their content of phenolic compounds, ascorbic acid and total antioxidant capacity (TAA) as well as for lipid peroxidation and carbonyl proteins as index of oxidative stress. Ripening and harvest period influenced the antioxidants and the development of oxidative processes in the cultivars differently: lipid peroxidation increased in mature peppers except in one cultivar (Y1075), while no changes in protein oxidation or in TAA were produced, except in Y1075 in which both parameters increased. Each cultivar presented differences in antioxidant compounds depending on the harvest period, but we could recommend May as the optimal if all cultivars have to be harvested at the same time, when levels of ascorbate, phenols and TAA were not decreased, fresh weight and proteins were elevated, and levels of oxidation were not as high as in June (except for Y1075). A previous study of the response of each cultivar to different environmental conditions results essential to establish a good program of selection of cultivars with high quality and productivity.     

Safety of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Modified Live Virus (MLV) vaccine strains in a young pig infection model

The objective of this study was to compare the safety of all modified live virus vaccines commercially available in Europe against Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) under the same experimental conditions. For this purpose, one hundred and twenty three-week-old piglets, divided into five groups, were used. On day 0 of the experiment, nine pigs per group were removed and the remaining fifteen were vaccinated with the commercial vaccines Ingelvac PRRS MLV, Amervac PRRS, Pyrsvac-183 and Porcilis PRRS by the IM route or were mock vaccinated and used as controls. On day 3, the nine unvaccinated pigs were re-introduced into their respective groups and served as sentinel pigs. Clinical signs were recorded daily and lung lesions were determined on days 7, 14 and 21, when 5 vaccinated pigs per group were euthanized. Blood samples and swabs were taken every three days and different organs were collected at necropsy to determine the presence of PRRSV. None of the vaccines studied caused detectable clinical signs in vaccinated pigs although lung lesions were found. Altogether, these results indicate that all vaccines can be considered clinically safe. However, some differences were found in virological parameters. Thus, neither Pyrsvac-183 nor Porcilis PRRS could be detected in porcine alveolar macrophage (PAM) cultures or in lung sections used to determine PRRSV by immunohistochemistry, indicating that these viruses might have lost their ability to replicate in PAM. This inability to replicate in PAM might be related to the lower transmission rate and the delay in the onset of viremia observed in these groups     

Okadaic Acid Meet and Greet: An Insight into Detection Methods,Response Strategies and Genotoxic Effects in Marine Invertebrates

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) constitute one of the most important sources of contamination in the oceans, producing high concentrations of potentially harmful biotoxins that are accumulated across the food chains. One such biotoxin, Okadaic Acid (OA), is produced by marine dinoflagellates and subsequently accumulated within the tissues of filtering marine organisms feeding on HABs, rapidly spreading to their predators in the food chain and eventually reaching human consumers causing Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) syndrome. While numerous studies have thoroughly evaluated the effects of OA in mammals, the attention drawn to marine organisms in this regard has been scarce, even though they constitute primary targets for this biotoxin. With this in mind, the present work aimed to provide a timely and comprehensive insight into the current literature on the effect of OA in marine invertebrates, along with the strategies developed by these organisms to respond to its toxic effect together with the most important methods and techniques used for OA detection and evaluation.