Conservation agriculture (CA) relies on low soil disturbance, mulching, and crop rotation, and these characteristics present CA as a good candidate to control soil degradation and preserve soil fertility. Therefore, agricultural scientists promote it as an efficient technique to sustain agricultural production. Conventional tillage (CT) dominates many semi-arid regions of Morocco, like Chaouia. However, crop/livestock management worsens degradation of soil organic matter and thus soil fertility. Since the eighties', controlled experimental trials tried to promote No-Till (NT) system in these regions. But it is still experiencing a low level of adoption. This on-farm research study aimed to evaluate NT effect on some Vertisols' physicochemical properties of this region. Analysis of variance only found a significant NT effect on soil organic matter (SOM), but factorial analysis provided evidence of a behavior of its effect on several physicochemical properties such as active limestone (CaCO3), total nitrogen (TN), nitrate (NO3-), calcium (Ca 2+), potassium (K +) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). Furthermore, pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) and sodium (Na +) did not show any significant difference between the two tillage treatments. This study also found that continuous cereal cropping with no mulching management mostly explains this low improvement in soil quality. This last approach, reduce CA to NT process. To promote CA in these regions, more efforts are still needed for a satisfactory up-scaling and a sustainable soil fertility conservation.
This research investigates whether pollination and pollen sources separately and simultaneously influence fig seed set and quality, as being thus far the less studied part of the fig trees. This is the first research that tries to answer and verify the above hypothesis through a combined approach of vibrational spectroscopy along with lipo-biochemical and ionomic fingerprinting. Results showed that pollination and pollen source significantly impacted seed set as it was higher in fertilized seeds than that in the control. A similar pattern was obtained with oil yield, which generally ranged between 25.93 and 32.59%. Caprification also displayed a substantial effect on seeds' phenolic components, which was more driven by pollen carbohydrates, involved in the phenolic biosynthesis in the endosperm and embryo tissues. This biosynthesis is also activated by minerals, which are cofactors for large varieties of enzymes that are involved in the phenolic synthesis pathways. Ca and Zn did not follow this pattern and have recorded high levels in figs fertilized by the pollen of OZ and FD4 caprifigs pollen, respectively. Vibrational spectroscopy using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy coupled with total attenuated reflectance (ATR) also showed a similar pattern to the seed sets and their lipo-biochemical attributes. Thus, the fertilized seeds displayed high vibrational intensity compared to the control in all fingerprint regions. Peaks at 2928 and 1747 cm−1 had a higher intensity and were attributed to lipids CH2 and CH3 stretching vibration and C=O of the carbonyl groups belonging to the triacylglycerols, respectively. Principal component analysis showed high throughput classification with quite similar patterns for both FTIR-ATR fingerprinting and ionomic and biochemical analysis. As many areas of how caprification impacts other seed aspects still need to be investigated further, this research suggests the importance of caprification in seed valorization for oil extraction and as a functional ingredient.
Biofortification is a promising and sustainable way to improve lentil nutritional value. No-till is an eco-friendly agricultural practice for sustainable agricultural production under climate change conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic variation of lentil grain quality traits under no-till and conventional tillage systems, and to investigate the significance of tillage and genotype by tillage interaction. A Mediterranean lentil collection of 120 accessions, including landraces, advanced breeding lines, local varieties, and improved varieties was assessed for protein, iron, and zinc genetic variability under no-till and conventional tillage systems. Under no-till, substantial genetic variation for protein (19–32%), iron (17–184 mg/kg), and zinc (9–48 mg/kg) was observed, indicating the possibility of lentil biofortification under conservation agriculture. Significant effects of tillage system and genotype by tillage interaction were observed for protein and iron contents. Furthermore, significant effect of tillage system on zinc content was recorded. No-till yielded slightly higher protein and zinc content than conventional tillage. Overall, the results indicated that shifting lentil production from a conventional tillage system to a no-till system would be of interest to increase lentil nutritional value.
Figs are a traditional pantry staple for healthy eating in Middle Eastern and North African countries as fig trees grow abundantly in such hot and dry climates. Despite the importance of this species, chemotypic diversity has gone unheeded and therefore its valorization pathways remain poorly documented. For this reason, high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) alongside vibrational spectroscopy were used to investigate the changes of antiradical potency and primary and secondary metabolites in fresh figs with regard to the combined effect of the cultivar factor and the fruit peel chromatic coordinates. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) fingerprinting displayed six major peaks assigned to functional groups of the investigated samples with significant differences in their vibration intensities. Biochemical screening revealed highly significant variability (p < 0.05) among the investigated cultivars. Antioxidant activity was found to be higher in free radical scavenging using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) compared to ferric reducing ability (FRAP). Chemometric investigations of both biochemical and FTIR fingerprinting showed satisfactory resolutions, and the total phenol contents and chromatic coordinates had the highest scores in the dataset. However, the cultivars’ geographical origin seemed not to have a clear impact on the clustering results. The aforementioned analytical procedures were found to be equally important and can be jointly used for high-resolution screening and discrimination of fig trees.
Article InfoThis study aimed to investigate the co-composting time effectiveness as well as the effect of the initial Carbon/Nitrogen ratio (C/N)i variation on the hygienization of olive pomace and turkey manure. Six different heaps, at 3 levels of (C/N)i ratios: 20, 22 and 28, were installed and monitored during 6 months and assessed at three steps: At the beginning, the end of thermophilicphase and the end of curing-phase. The microbial monitoring concerned 5 microbial pathogens contents, used as hygiene microbial indicators, namely: Sulphite-Reducing Anaerobes (SRA), Escherichia Coli (E. Coli), Total Aerobic Mesophilic Flora (TAMF), Staphylococci, and Salmonella spp. Initially, the mixtures showed high TAMF and Staphylococci loads. Meanwhile, SRA and E. coli populations were relatively low and Salmonella spp. was not detected. The microbial assessment showed a significant effect of composting time on the reduction of pathogens load, except for SRA where its population has increased significantly, while the (C/N)i had a non-significant effect on pathogen content of the end-product. The final values expressed as colony-forming unit per gram (CFU g -1 ), were as follow: Sulfite-reducing Anaerobes (≤3.1 x 10 3 CFU g -1 ), E. Coli germ used as an indicator of faecal contamination (<4 x 10 1 CFU g -1 ), Total aerobic mesophilic flora (≤1.4 x 10 6 CFU g -1 ), Staphylococci (<10 CFU g -1 ) and non-detection of Salmonella spp. Finally, the seed germination tests were carried out on three different seeds: lentils (Lens culinaris), barley (Hordeum vulgare) and durum wheat (Triticum turgidum) showed that the use of the compost extract is favourable for seed germination with germination index (GI%) values exceeding 85%. These results confirm the non-phytotoxicity and maturity of the composts.
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