Variety Of Seeds Research Articles

Методические подходы (гипотезы) к оценке пригодности сортов винограда к возделыванию в корнесобственной культуре

Abstract. One of the ways to reduce the cost of grapes and intensify the industry is to preserve and expand the own-root culture of phylloxera-tolerant grape varieties. Currently, there are all the prerequisites for expanding the own-root grape culture – a number of varieties have been obtained that are resistant to phylloxera and root rot with good quality of grape berries and their processed products. To extend the life of plantings and increase their profitability, it is important to identify grape varieties for cultivation in ownroot culture. However, comparative pairwise studies of varieties in own-rooted and grafted culture are lengthy and costly. The purpose of the research is to search for criteria for the accelerated assessment of Vitis vinifera L. varieties for suitability for cultivation in own-root culture using the example of genotypes of the DBESV&VG breeding. The research was carried out at the experimental base and the Ampelographic Collection of DBESV&VG in 2017-2023. The object of research is model and fruit-bearing rooted and grafted plants of different grape varieties with different resistance to phylloxera, 47 seed varieties of the Ampelographic Collection of DBESV&VG, 16 varieties and hybrid forms of DBESV&VG breeding. It has been assumed and experimentally confirmed that the higher the seed productivity of a grape variety (high proportion (mass) of seeds in a bunch, low seed index of the berry), the higher the tolerance of the variety to root phylloxera. Grape varieties, the reaction of which is expressed in an increase in seed progeny (“mass of seeds in a bunch”) with hormonal regulation of the development of rooted plants, can be cultivated in a rooted culture against the background of phylloxera. Keywords: grapes, phylloxera, root culture, phylloxera tolerance, seed productivity, phylloxera resistance criteria, hormone regulation

Research on nondestructive detection of sweet-waxy corn seed varieties and mildew based on stacked ensemble learning and hyperspectral feature fusion technology

The variety and quality of corn seeds are crucial factors affecting crop yield and farmers’ economic benefits. This study adopts an innovative method based on a hyperspectral imaging system combined with stacked ensemble learning, aiming to achieve varieties classification and mildew detection of sweet-waxy corn seeds. First, data interference is eliminated by extracting the spectral and texture information of each corn sample and preprocessing the data. Secondly, a stacked ensemble learning model (Stack) was constructed by stacking base models and meta-models. Its results were compared with those of the base models, including Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (GBDT), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM), and Random Forest (RF).Finally, the overall performance of the model is improved through the information fusion strategy of hyperspectral data and texture information. The research results indicate that the GBDT-Stack model, which integrates spectral and texture data, demonstrated optimal performance in the comprehensive classification of both corn seed varieties and mold detection. On the test set, the model achieved an average prediction accuracy of 97.01%. Specifically, the model achieved a test set accuracy ranging from 94.49% to 97.58% for different corn seed varieties and a test set accuracy of 98.89% for mildew detection. This model not only classifies corn seed varieties but also accurately detects mildew, demonstrating its wide applicability. The method has huge potential and is of great significance for improving crop yield and quality.

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКОЕ ОБОСНОВАНИЕ ТРАНСПОРТЕРА ДЛЯ ВЫГРУЗКИ КОРНЕПЛОДОВ ОВОЩНЫХ КУЛЬТУР И КЛУБНЕЙ КАРТОФЕЛЯ ИЗ ХРАНИЛИЩА

The need to develop specialized machines and equipment for laboratory and field research on potato breeding is due to the fact that the methodology of breeding processes and the first stages of seed production involves comparing many plants of different origins and selecting the best for further work up to the creation of a new variety or transfer of seeds for propagation in production conditions. The large variability of machines for unloading vegetables and potatoes does not adequately prevent damage to vegetable and potato products, which is due to the imperfect design of such machines, including the imperfection or absence of patterns of automated control of the technological process of work and justification of the parameters of their working parts. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the parameters of the conveyor for unloading vegetable crops and potatoes into storage and to determine the patterns of formation of the control signal of the transfer function of automatic control of operation. The power required to move the pick-up depends on the maximum pressure force of introducing the intake element into the embankment, the mass of the pick-up and the rolling resistance coefficients of the running wheels of the pick-up and transport sections. The length of the unloading conveyor of the machine is determined by the reserve zone to prevent wheels from hitting the tubers, their maximum difference in the embankment, the height of the layer, as well as the angle of inclination of the unloading conveyor. The width of the conveyor belt for unloading products from storage is determined by the values of the coefficient of friction of root crops on the surface of the belt, the coefficient of working time utilization and the forward speed of the conveyor belt. After removing the collapsed mass of tubers, the line of crumbling slopes and the limiting equilibrium are a straight line, characterized by an empirical equation for determining the coordinates of the tuber collapse point, the height of the tuber layer and the embankment collapse coefficient. When the feeder tubers are introduced into the surface of the embankment, the formation of slopes occurs in four stages: the formation of a natural slope, a limiting equilibrium slope, a shedding slope and a product collapse slope.

Digital Economy: ICT Framework for Farming Information Dissemination and Management in DRC By IJISRT

The agricultural sector is increasingly becoming both knowledge-intensive and techno-intensive. Generally speaking, agriculture sector is dynamic, farmers actively seek timely, accurate and relevant information to keep up with daily challenges. These challenges will significantly grow as a result of climate change that causes changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events including, more frequent droughts and floods. ICTs has been instrumental for information broadcasting to farmers. Policy makers, extension practitioners, scholars and development agencies including, NGOs are advocating ICTs as a tool to foster smallholder farmers productivity, efficiency and performance through information including, new variety of seeds, fertilizer, livestock breeds, emerging diseases, vaccines, farming technologies, use of pesticides as well as market information. In addition, they enable large hub of know-how and sharing opportunity between agriculturalists, investors and entrepreneurs. Most African countries are essentially agrarian economies and agriculture turns out to be livelihoods of hundreds of millions households as well as a key driver of the economic development. However, most farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo – especially smallholder farmers – perform below their potential. Many governments and scholars have developed innovative solutions related agricultural practice. The challenge is to enable information dissemination by large numbers of smallholder farmers. The study aims to propose a framework and policies for farmers to share information through ICTs. It used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The case study design is applied where empirical data was collected using questionnaires, interviews, documents analysis, and group discussions with farmer groups. Based on the research objectives, it was discovered that ICT policies is quasi-inexistent in agricultural sector. The government provides no agricultural information to farmers. In terms of ICT access, 36% of farmers own a telephone. 58% use basic feature phone while 42% of the respondents use smartphone. 66% of farmers would like to be provided information by a mobile phone. 63 % of farmers would prefer to have information in video format while 34 % in audio format. 95% of respondent strongly agree that ICT can improve their farming condition.

Analysis and Characterization of Four Selected Sri Lankan Seed Oils for the Potential Applications in Cosmetics and Dietary Supplements

As a tropical country, Sri Lanka has a wide variety of oil-bearing seeds explicitly used in Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine. Plant seed oils offer an exciting avenue for the use in cosmetic and dietary supplements due to their fatty acid composition and other non-polar constituents specially found in unsaponifiable fraction. This study aimed to characterize plant seed oils by determining Fatty Acids (FA) composition, constituents in unsaponifiable matter, and other physical properties. Mesua ferrea L. (Na), Crotalaria juncea L. (Hana), Ricinus communis L. (Thel edaru), and Bauhinia acuminata L. (Koboleela) seeds having some medicinal values were selected. The oil was extracted using soxhlet extraction method with Hexane. Moisture and ash content, Acid Value (AV), Iodine value (IV), and Smoke Point were also determined. Prepared Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) and unsaponifiable matter were analyzed using GC-MS. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) was performed to access the thermal stability. M. ferrea obtained the highest oil yield of 63.87% while others lay within the range of 28.59-29.94%. Smoke point values of these oils varied from 179.0±10.5oC to 241.5±6.2o C. AVs lay between 4.62±1.18-49.64±2.92 mgKOH/g range. IVs ranged from 6.82±0.89 to 16.82±0.45 gI2/100g. Ash content values varied from 1.42±0.33% to 3.69±0.29% while the moisture content ranged from 0.69±0.09% to 4.46±0.51%. The yield of unsaponifable matter of these four seed oils ranged from 0.7024±0.0001% to 1.5864±0.0001%. All except M. ferrea oil exhibited higher levels of unsaturated fatty acids than saturated fatty acids. In contrary M. ferrea contained almost equal amounts of UFAs and SFAs. The most abundant FA constituents of all the oils were long-chain FAs like Oleic, Linoleic, and α-Linolenic Acid. γ- Sitosterol was the most dominant compound in unsaponifiable fraction in most of the seed oils which indicate their potential use in dietary supplements. The high level of Squalene found in R. communis shows its applicability in the cosmetic industry as a moisturizing agent. This analysis found that all 4 oils have the potential to use in dietary supplements and cosmetics. 
 Keywords: Seed oils, Unsaponifiable matter, Fatty acids, Cosmetics and dietary supplements

Economic efficiency of smallholder okra (Abelmoschus species) production in Kaduna State, Nigeria: Implication for poverty alleviation

This study evaluated economic efficiency of smallholder okra (Abelmoschus species) production in Kaduna State, Nigeria: Implication for poverty alleviation. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 smallholder okra farmers. Primary sources of data were used. Data were analyzed using farm budgetary technique, financial analysis, stochastic production frontier model, allocative efficiency model, economic efficiency model, Tobit dichotomous regression model, and principal component model. The results show that the mean age of smallholder okra farmers was 43 years. Averagely, okra farmers had 1.8 hectares of farm land. The gross margin and net farm income of okra production per hectare was estimated at 619,325.77 Naira and 559, 194.76 Naira respectively. This signifies that the smallholder okra production was profitable. The mean technical, economic, and allocative efficiency scores were 0.7918, 0.5338, and 0.8345 respectively. The socio-economic factors influencing economic efficiency of smallholder okra production include: age (P<0.01), educational level (P< 0.10), marital status (P< 0.01), household size (P <0.01), farm size (P<0.01), and member of cooperative organization (P<0.05). The major constraints encountered by okra producers were lack of farm inputs, lack of credit facilities, and high cost of labour. The study recommended that farmers should be provided with improved variety of seeds, chemicals, credit facilities, and fertilizer inputs in order to increase their productivity and efficiency.

Productivity of remote pastures depending on the season in conditions of vertical soil regionality

The development, grovth and productivity of livestock depend primarily on providing it with a variety of nutritious feeds. Daily feeds should consist of microbiologically synthesized protein, as well as a variety of seeds, mineral and vitamin supplements of animal and vegetable origin. Indeed, the maximum disclosure of the genetic potential of livestock largely depends on both the quantity and quality of feed. One of the stages of feed quality assessment is the measurement of their chemical composition. The chemical composition is not always constant and depends on many factors, including the species composition of plants, fertilizer application rates, climatic conditions and storage methods. The least accumulation of moisture in the soil was observed in areas where pasture grasses were regularly treated with wormwood. Pacture productivity was also the lowest in the control plots, where the average phyto-chemical composition over three years showed that the dynamics of protein content was the same in all pastures – the protein content reached a maximum at the beginning of the growing sea son and decreased from spring to autumn, while the lowest content of crude protein during harvesting in summer was in control plants of varieties.

Utilization of Social Media by Input Dealers for Information Needs in Agriculture

The study was carried out with an objective to assess the utilization of social media as an information source in agriculture by the input dealers. The study was conducted with randomly selected 80 respondents from Malda district. The study shows that extension services in agriculture was still the most preferred information sources for agricultural input dealers followed by social media. The increasing trend of using social media for agricultural information was very much encouraging. The study shows that social media platform such as WhatsApp was most preferred by the input dealers followed by YouTube and Facebook. Further, the study shows that the information searched on social media were highest on latest technologies available in agriculture followed by information on education and training and variety of seeds. The input dealers were considerable active in sharing of agricultural information in social media and considerable percentage of input dealers were having trust on social media for agricultural information need.

Enhanced Rice Germination Using of Bio-humic Solution from Cacao Pod Compost with Seed Coating Method

The purpose of this study was to identify the optimal bioactivator for rice seed germination. Based on a randomized block design, a factorial design was used to set up the study experimentally. There were two treatments in the study: One of the factors was the availability of seed coating, which could be found in two variants: S1 and S2. Soaking in the bioactivator, which includes soaking the seeds in water or control (B1), Pleurotus sp (B2), and a biohumic solution (B3), is the second factor. The findings demonstrated that the Ciliwung variety of rice seeds germinated more readily after being coated with bio-humic material.

Similar seed preferences explain trophic ecology of functionally distinct, but co-occurring and closely related harvester ants.

To understand how food resource use and partitioning by closely related species allows local coexistence, it is key to determine whether a species' diet reflects food availability or food preferences. Here, we analysed the diets, seed selection, and seed preferences of three closely related harvester ants: Messor barbarus, M. bouvieri, and M. capitatus. Sympatric within a Mediterranean shrubland, these species differ in foraging behaviour and worker polymorphism. For 2 years, we studied the ants' diets and seed selection patterns as well as the local availability of seeds. Additionally, we performed a seed-choice experiment using a paired comparison design, offering the ants seeds from eight native plant species. The three ant species had the same general diet, which was primarily granivorous. Although they all consumed a wide variety of seeds, they mostly selected seeds from a small subset of plant species. Despite their morphological and behavioural differences, the ants displayed similar seed preferences that were highly consistent with their diets and seed selection patterns. Our results support the idea that the trophic ecology of these three harvester ants is driven by similar seed preferences rather than by their morphological and behavioural differences. Seed diversity and abundance were high near the ants' nests, suggesting that seed availability is not limiting and could in fact favour local species coexistence.

RiceNet: A deep convolutional neural network approach for classification of rice varieties

The cultivation of desired grain varieties holds immense significance as about 67% of the world’s population is associated with the agriculture sector. Unknowingly sowing the wrong variety of seeds may lead to a colossal waste of effort and money. Furthermore, the growing issue of rice grain adulteration in high-quality rice poses a threat to the trust of rice importers and exporters. While traditional methods are expensive, laborious, and error-prone, Computer Vision provides a good alternative that constitutes a current, advanced technology for image processing and data evaluation that holds tremendous promise and potential. In this research study, five varieties of rice grains including Jehlum Sr-1, Mushkibudji, Sr-2, and Sr-4 were collected from local grain and were used for research analysis. A computer vision system “RiceNet” contingent upon Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) framework has been designed for ameliorating the accuracy of identifying five unique groups of rice grain varieties. Deep Learning (DL) based pre-trained architectures including InceptionV3 and InceptionResNetV2 models were also adopted for classifying five specific groups of rice species. To optimize model parameters and alleviate back-propagation error during training, the Adam optimizer with a learning rate (lr) of 0.00003 has been employed to fine-tune the pre-trained InceptionV3 and ResNetInceptionV2 models. The proposed RiceNet architecture and pre-trained models were also compared with traditional ML approaches of HOG-SVM, SIFT-SVM, HOG-Logistic Regression(HOG-LR), SIFT-Logistic Regression(SIFT-LR), HOG-KNN, and SIFT-KNN for rice grain classification. With these experimentations at hand, it was observed that our proposed model “RiceNet” outperformed other approaches in similar computer vision tasks. The prediction accuracy outcome for the test dataset by HOG-SVM, SIFT-SVM, HOG-LR, SIFT-LR, HOG-KNN, and SIFT-KNN models were 66.0%, 65.33%, 62.67%, 65.0%, 54.0%, and 52.0% respectively. RiceNet, InceptionV3 and ResNetInceptionV2 have the best prediction accuracy of 94%, 84% and 81.333%. The remarkably high success rate of DCNN models makes them highly valuable and can be extended to endorse an integrated grain identification system that can operate in real-world situations.

Long-Term Survival of Listeria monocytogenes in Nut, Seed, and Legume Butters

Nut, seed, and legume butters have become increasingly popular with consumers. Listeria monocytogenes contamination of a variety of butters has resulted in several recalls, although no known outbreaks have been identified. L. monocytogenes has been shown to survive on a variety of seeds for up to 6 months, legumes and nuts for over 12 months, and in peanut butter and peanut-chocolate spreads for 21 to 60 weeks depending on formulation; however, long-term survival in other butters has not yet been characterized. In this study, the survival of L. monocytogenes in various nut, seed, legume, and chocolate-containing butters (n = 10) based on inoculation level, storage temperature, and the pH, aw, and nutrient contents of the butters was examined. First, butters were inoculated with L. monocytogenes at 4 log CFU/g and stored at either 5 or 25°C with enumeration and/or enrichment at intervals over 12 months. L. monocytogenes survived in all butters examined with no significant change in population after storage at 5°C, whereas the population was reduced to <1.70 log CFU/g in as little as 3 months at 25°C; the only exception was for sunflower butter, where L. monocytogenes decreased approximately 1 log CFU/g. Subsequently, all butters were inoculated at 1 log CFU/g and stored at 25°C for 6 months with enrichment during storage. L. monocytogenes was detected in all butters, except pecan butter, after 6-month storage. Butters containing chocolate did not inhibit L. monocytogenes survival, regardless of the inoculation level. Results indicate there may be an association between high-fat and carbohydrate level and survivability of L. monocytogenes in various types of butters. This work highlights the need to mitigate the potential for cross-contamination of L. monocytogenes into nut, seed, and legume butters due to the potential for long-term survival.

Integrating biopolymer design with physical unclonable functions for anticounterfeiting and product traceability in agriculture.

Smallholder farmers and manufacturers in the Agri-Food sector face substantial challenges because of increasing circulation of counterfeit products (e.g., seeds), for which current countermeasures are implemented mainly at the secondary packaging level, and are generally vulnerable because of limited security guarantees. Here, by integrating biopolymer design with physical unclonable functions (PUFs), we propose a cryptographic protocol for seed authentication using biodegradable and miniaturized PUF tags made of silk microparticles. By simply drop casting a mixture of variant silk microparticles on a seed surface, tamper-evident PUF tags can be seamlessly fabricated on a variety of seeds, where the unclonability comes from the stochastic assembly of spectrally and visually distinct silk microparticles in the tag. Unique, reproducible, and unpredictable PUF codes are generated from both Raman mapping and microscopy imaging of the silk tags. Together, the proposed technology offers a highly secure solution for anticounterfeiting and product traceability in agriculture.

Evaluation of the Crop Insurance Performance in Haryana

Abstract Subject and purpose of the work The purpose of the study is to evaluate the overall physical and financial performance of the crop insurance schemes in Haryana. Materials and methods The study was purely based on secondary data collected from the Department of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Union of Haryana. The compound annual growth rate and the percentage method have been used to analyse the performance of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. Results The compound annual growth rate of benefited farmers was higher in the Rabi crop (28%), and in the same way, the overall area covered (1.4%) was also higher in the Rabi crop. The non-loanee farmers adopted Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) without any kind of loan in any scheme such as the Kisan credit card. The growth rates of non-loanee farmers of Rabi and Kharif crops were observed at 143.2% and 184.3% which was highly satisfactory. Loanee farmers were already large in number since the commencement of PMFBY. Conclusions It was found that the parameters such as area covered, loanee, non-loanee farmers and the number of beneficiaries of Rabi and Kharif crops increased and had a significant effect on the farmer’s coverage over the years. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana gives a positive assurance to farmers. As the number of beneficiaries of this scheme increases and farmers have the assurance that if their crop is damaged due to natural calamities their claim will be settled, they will use a high-yielding variety of seeds, pesticides, herbicides, and new technology, thus production and productivity will increase. They play a vital role in the coverage of cultivated area and will ultimately decide to participate in crop insurance. Hence, this scheme has proved effective in maintaining the farmer’s interest in crop insurance and ensuring the timely settlement of claims, which has been the main driving force in retaining farmers under crop insurance.

Variety identification of sweet maize seeds based on hyperspectral imaging combined with deep learning

Seed classification and identification is of great importance for cultivar breeding. In this study, hyperspectral imaging technique combined with deep learning approaches are employed to identify the varieties of sweet maize seeds. First, a total of 1000 seeds, including five varieties of sweet maize seeds, are extracted and preprocessed. Secondly, support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), extreme learning machine (ELM), and backpropagation (BP) are used for the establishment of classification models. Finally, convolutional neural networks (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), three-dimensional convolutional neural networks (3DCNN), multiple spectral resolution 3D convolutional neural network (MSR-3DCNN), spatial attention-based network (SATNet) and the proposed CNN-LSTM are applied to discriminate spectral images of sweet maize seeds. The experimental analysis results show that the deep learning model performed best with a classification accuracy of over 95% in the training and test sets. Besides, the performance of the proposed CNN-LSTM is slightly better than the other five models. The overall study demonstrated that deep learning combined with the hyperspectral image could potentially be a valuable alternative for identifying the variety of sweet maize seeds.

Raman‐based genetic purity identification of soybean seed production on line

Raman‐based genetic purity identification of soybean seed production on line

The Effects of Heat Treatment on the Oxidation Resistance and Fatty Acid Composition of the Vegetable Oil Blend.

The purpose is to elucidate the effects of the duration of heat treatment on the resistance of vegetable oils to oxidative processes. Iodine and acid values were analyzed before and after heat exposure. Rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, and a blend of rapeseed and sunflower oils (ratio 55:45) were used as samples. Sunflower oil heated at a temperature of 40°C for 80 minutes had its peroxide value increased by 3.0 times (p ≤ 0.05) as compared to rapeseed oil and the blend. At 75°C, the peroxide value increased by 4.0 times for sunflower oil (p ≤ 0.05), by 3.0 and 3.3 times for rapeseed oil (p ≤ 0.05), and by 3.1 and 3.4 times for the blend (p ≤ 0.05). At 40°C, no peroxide values were obtained that exceeded the threshold limits. The concentration of fatty acids in oils depends on the plant variety, growth conditions and maturity of seeds or fruits. Therefore, the concentration of fatty acids in the oil should be measured before oil blending.

Perceived Effects of Rainfall and Temperature Variability on Yields of Cereal Crops in the Mion District of Northern Ghana

Climate variability has been a major threat to achieving sustainable food production in many countries, including Ghana. This is attributable to insufficient and erratic rainfall coupled with increasing temperature. This study examined the perceived effects of rainfall and temperature variability on yields of cereal crops in the Mion District of the Northern Region. The study reveals that farmers in the Mion District have experienced changes in climatic conditions evident in high temperatures and low rainfall. The study also reveals that rainfall and temperature variability adversely affect the yields of cereal crops such as rice, maize, and millet. The effect could manifest in either yield reduction or total crop failure of cereals. The study also showed that factors that enable farmers to respond to impacts of rainfall and temperature variability are Agric extension services, application of fertilizer, irrigation farming, use of improved seeds, and favourable government policies such as subsidies and credit facilities. The study, therefore, concludes that yields of cereal crops are adversely affected by rainfall and temperature variability. However, farmers resort to Agric extension services, application of fertilizer, irrigation farming, use of improved variety of seeds, and favourable government policies in response to the impacts of rainfall and temperature variability. The study recommends that government should employ more extension agents and construct more irrigation facilities in the Mion District to reduce the adverse effects of climate variability on yields of cereal crops.

The eternal return: Imagining security futures at the Doomsday Vault

This article examines how imaginaries of security in the Anthropocene function at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), otherwise known as the ‘Doomsday Vault’. Recent explorations by scholars of security have suggested that different ways of seeing, understanding, acting in, and imagining the world are necessary to adequately respond to complex crises in the Anthropocene. The dissolution of the nature/culture divide and the existential risk from planetary threats are said to require new and creative formations of security. Buried in the Norwegian high Arctic, the heavily fortified SGSV was built in 2008 as a planetary-scale, ‘deep-time organisation’ that would forever secure a wide variety of plant seeds and their genetic makeup against regional or global upheavals. The article argues that his seed ‘ark’ materialises three Anthropocene security imaginaries: apocalypse, hope and escape. The prevalence and use of these imaginaries reveal the stability of long-held security logics and challenge the widely-held belief in the innately transformative properties of the Anthropocene concept for security. Instead, the SGSV demonstrates the difficulty in overcoming a collective mindfulness that fixes security to eternal forms even in the midst of unprecedented threats, interventions and technology.

Mycoflora Associated with Barely Grains (Hordeum vulgare L.) in the Eastern Parts of Libya

During the harvest season (2019-2020), local variety of barley seeds (Hordeum vulgare L.) were collected from three different locations, Almerj, Gerdina, and Sultan; situated in the eastern part of Libya. The present experiment was performed to identify, and compare natural mycoflora associated with barley seeds among these locations, also to evaluate sodium hypochlorite’s application, as seed disinfectants against fungal contaminators. Barley seeds were surface disinfected with a 4% sodium hypochlorite for two minutes or washed only with deionized water (control) before plating on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium. The following parameters were recorded and calculated: seed survival (G %), fungal frequency (F), isolation frequency (IF) and fungal relative abundance (RD). Four fungal species were identified as Aspergillus niger van Tiegh, A. flavus Link (ascomycetes), Rhizopus stolonifera (Ehrenb. :Fr.) Vuill (zygomycetes), and Bipolaris australiensis (Bugnicourt) (ascomycetes). The most predominant recovered species was A. niger followed by B. australiensis, R. stolonifera, and A. flavus, (18.5%), (9.67%) (2.84%), (4.65%), respectively. Results also showed Sultan had the highest seed germination, followed by Almerj and Gerdina, 64.5 %, 44.5%, and 20.5 %, respectively. Moreover, seed’s pretreatment with sodium hypochlorite and seed’s origin had no significant effect on frequency and relative abundance of fungi.