Effect of the Time of Application of Fertilizer Nitrogen on the Growth,Flowering and Fruiting of Maiden Apple Trees Grown in Sand Culture

Mailing II rootstocks were grown throughout 1960 in sand on nutrient culture solutions containing 1, 4 or 10 mg. equivalents of nitrogen as nitrate (referred to as N₄, N₁₀ rootstocks) and during that summer each rootstock was budded with the variety Lord Lamboume. The growth, flowering and fruiting performance of the resultant maiden shoots were recorded from bud break 1961 to fruit set 1962. Throughout this second period each tree was given only a minimum of nitrogen (N_x) except during a certain period of one or two months’ duration, when it received a simulated fertilizer application (N₁₀).

The greatest amount of primary extension growth in 1961 took place on the maidens given supplementary nitrogen in June on the N₁ and N₄ rootstocks and in July on the N₁₀. Secondary extension growth in 1961 was apparently induced by supplementary nitrogen given to the maidens on the N4 stocks in July and to those on the N_x in August.

The highest number of fruit buds and blossoms in 1962 resulted from the June 1961 high-nitrogen supplement to the maidens on the N_r and N₄ stocks and from the July supplement to the N₁₀.

After open pollination, the maidens grown on the NIO stocks set fruit better than on those that were more nitrogen-deficient. Among the N₁₀ and N₊ maidens, those receiving the September nitrogen supplement gave the highest yield.

These results are discussed especially in relation to apparent differences in quantity and quality of blossoms. It is suggested that the quantity of blossoms is related to the amount of primary extension growth, while the quality is determined by the extent to which reserves of carbohydrate and nitrogen have been accumulated during the previous autumn.     

Distribution and Phytoavailability of Lead in a Soil Contaminated with Lead Shot

Water, Air, &; Soil Pollution - This paper presents a study of Pb contamination of soil at a clay target shooting facility in Canterbury, New Zealand. The spatial distribution of Pb...     

Modifications of wheat flour proteins during in vitro digestion of bread dough, crumb, and crust: an electrophoretic and immunological study

The proteins of wheat flour have several biological activities that can affect human health and physiology when wheat-based foods are consumed. The modifications of bread crumb and crust proteins during an in vitro peptic/pancreatic digestion process were studied by electrophoresis and immunoblotting with polyclonal antibodies specific for single proteins or groups of homologous proteins of the wheat flour, and the results were compared to those obtained for an unheated dough sample. The results show that baking affects the extent of proteolysis and the immunological and physicochemical features of the digestion products in relation to the level of the heat treatment. Therefore, the results concerning the digestion of the unheated wheat flour or dough are not representative of what happens when baked products enter the human digestive tract.     

EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL SUBSTRATES TO MONITOR RESPIRATORY NITRATE REDUCTASE ACTIVITY IN SOILS

Different inorganic ions were tested for their ability to replace nitrate as the terminal oxidant for bacterial respiration in anaerobic soils. Chlorate, bromate. selenate. tellurite and ferric ions were all unsuitable substitutes, lodate reduction in soils was similar to nitrate reduction because it required anaerobic conditions, was increased by glucose amendment and decreased by phenylmercuric acetate. Amendment of soils with iodate and measurement of iodide production can be used to measure nitrate reductase activity in a soil and so give a qualitative indication, and possibly a quantitative estimate, of the denitrification capacity of soils.     

Multiple-breed genetic inference using heavy-tailed structural models for heterogeneous residual variances

Multiple-breed genetic models recently have been demonstrated to account for the heterogenous genetic variances that exist between different beef cattle breed groups. We extend these models to allow for residual heteroskedasticity (heterogeneous residual variances), specified as a function of fixed effects (e.g., sex, breed proportion, breed group heterozygosity) and random effects such as contemporary groups (CG). We additionally specify the residual distributions to be either Gaussian or based on heavier-tailed alternatives such as the Student's t or Slash densities. For each of these three residual densities using either homoskedastic (homogeneous variance) or heteroskedastic error specifications, we analyzed 22,717 postweaning gain records from a Nelore-Hereford population based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo animal model implementation. The heteroskedastic Student's t error model (with estimated df = 7.33 +/- 0.48) was clearly the best-fitting model based on a pseudo-Bayes factor criterion. Breed group heterozygosity and, to a lesser extent, calf sex seemed to be marginally important sources of residual heteroskedasticity. Specifically, the residual variance in F1 animals was estimated to be 0.70 +/- 0.16 times that for purebreds, whereas the male residual variance was estimated to be 1.13 +/- 0.09 times that for females. The CG effects were important random sources of residual heteroskedasticity (i.e., the coefficient of variation of CG-specific residual variances was estimated to be 0.72 +/- 0.06). Purebred Nelores were estimated to have a larger genetic variance (124.84 +/- 21.75 kg2) compared with Herefords (40.89 +/- 6.70 kg2) under the heteroskedastic Student's t error model; however, the converse was observed from results based on a homoskedastic Student's t error model (46.24 +/- 10.90 kg2 and 60.11 +/- 8.54 kg2, respectively). These results indicate that allowing for robustness to outliers and accounting for heteroskedasticity of residual variances has potentially important implications for variance component and genetic parameter estimates from data on multiple-breed populations.