Sensing and control system for spot-application of granular fertilizer in wild blueberry field

An automated sensing and control system (hardware and software) was developed for real-time spot-application of granular fertilizer in mowed wild blueberry fields. The custom hardware system was incorporated into a commercial pneumatic granular fertilizer spreader. Custom software for the sensing and control system was developed by combining color co-occurrence matrix based texture analysis and g-ratio algorithms in C++ to acquire and process images in real-time to differentiate mowed wild blueberry plants from bare spots and weeds. The performance accuracy of the spot-applicable fertilizer spreader was evaluated both in laboratory simulation and real-time field tests. Simulation results reported that the accuracy of the developed system was 94.9 %. Real-time field tests reported that the system produced acceptable results at ground speeds of 1.6 and 3.2 km h^?1 for the spot-application of fertilizer at target areas (in plant areas only) within the field. Results also indicated that the ground speed of 4.8 km h^?1 was unacceptable, which could be due to blurred images at high speed and surface unevenness of the wild blueberry field. Spot-application of fertilizer using the modified fertilizer spreader could save fertilizer for the wild blueberry producers.     

Frequency of antibodies against Besnoitia besnoiti in Brazilian cattle

Besnoitia besnoiti is a cyst-forming parasite that has been associated with economic losses in Africa and Europe. Besnoitiosis is considered as a re-emergent disease in the European continent. It is unknown whether cattle are exposed to B. besnoiti in the Americas, thus the aim of this study was to serologically investigate antibodies against B. besnoiti in a total of 2014 cattle serum samples from two states from Brazil. All samples were evaluated by IFAT and part of the positive sera was tested by Western blot (WB) using tachyzoites extracts under non-reducing condition. A total of 3.48% (70/2014) of the tested sera reacted positively by IFAT with titers of 200 (85.7%), 400 (10%) and 800 (4.3%). When 47 positive samples were assessed by WB a range of antigens from 7 to 206 kDa was recognized by the IFAT-positive sera. The results are suggestive of exposure of Brazilian cattle to B. besnoiti due to the titers (≥200) observed for some sera using IFAT. However, the antigens recognized by the IFAT-positive animals did not completely match with the WB patterns previously described by other working groups. It is possible that Brazilian cattle are exposed to B. besnoiti strains with different antigenic composition of those described in the European and African continent. Further studies are needed to confirm the presence of B. besnoiti or other Besnoitia species in Brazilian cattle.     

Characterization of high-level deoxynivalenol producer Fusarium graminearum and F. culmorum isolates caused head blight and crown rot diseases in Turkey

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection - In vitro and in planta determination and quantification of deoxynivalenol (DON) are a crucial step in food safety. tri13 amplicons of 282 bp and...