This study was conducted to determine the associations of some milking traits and milk yield in water buffalo farms located in Bafra district of Samsun province. In total, 37 Anatolian Buffalo farms enrolled to Buffalo Breeders Association (BBA) were evaluated by applying face to face survey on the current milking practices and farm characteristics in February 2020. Number of milking cows (NM), number of workers (NW), age of the milker (AM), experience of the milker (EM), education of the farm owner (EO) and hygiene score of the milking parlor (HM) were evaluated as the farm traits affecting daily milk yield (dMY). Milking type (MT), milking frequency (MF), udder cleaning pre-milking (UC1), udder cleaning post-milking (UC2), giving feed after milking (GF) and milking duration (MD) were selected as the milking practices affecting dMY. It was concluded that dMY was significantly affected by AM, EM, EO and MD.

The storage of spermatozoa and keeping alive for years in the spermatheca by the honey bee queen is a phenomenon allowing her to fertilize eggs throughout her life. In this study, the queens that were 2-week, 1-year, and 2-year-old were analyzed to determine the viability of spermatozoa in their spermathecae. The sister queens reared by the grafting method were instrumentally inseminated with 8 μl fresh semen when they became 6 days old. One week after instrumental insemination, one batch of queens (2-week-old) was dissected for spermatozoa viability test. Another set of queens was introduced into production colonies in Langstroth hives after the onset of oviposition in the mating nuclei. The queens were maintained in production colonies for one year and two years until the dissection process for spermatozoa viability test. The viability of spermatozoa was measured by the dual staining method. We determined that the mean viability of spermatozoa in 2-week, 1-year and 2-year-old queens were 97.3%, 91.1% and 88.1%, respectively. The viability of spermatozoa in queens decreased with age, and the differences between the viability means were significant. However, we did not detect a steep decline in the viability of spermatozoa in queens (6% in one year and 9% in two years) in a wide range of timescale in contrast to previous reports. Furthermore, we found high viability of spermatozoa in the spermathecae of queens at the start of their lives and one- and two-years of age.

This study investigated the reproductive performance, lamb survivability, and growing performance of Morkaraman ewes, the estrus of which was induced by natural and synthetic progesterone and which were inseminated by laparoscopic technique at the end of the mating season (December). In the study, 5 different estrus synchronization methods (CIDR, Crestar, Natural progesterone, Cronolone and MAP), 100 Morkaraman ewes, and lambs born to them were used. After the completion of the estrus synchronization methods, the first sign of estrus was detected earliest in the natural progesterone group (39.53±1.87 hours), and there was a significant difference between the natural progesterone and vaginal sponges containing MAP and Cronolone concerning the time to the first hour of estrus. Estrus rates were found significantly different across the study groups, with the shortest time to estrus having been achieved by MAP. The lambing rates for CIDR, Cronolone, Natural progesterone, MAP, and Crestar groups were 74%, 61%, 56%, 33%, and 10%, respectively. There was no significant difference between the treatment groups concerning birth weight, weight at various periods, and survivability of lambs although a significant difference was found in their weaning weight.

Tea is one of the most important non-alcoholic beverage in the world and has been gaining further popularity as an important ‘health drink’ in view of its inferable medicinal value. In Bangladesh, commercially tea was cultivated since 1854 by establishing first tea garden Malnicherra Tea Estate in Sylhet. From 1947 to 2020, tea growing area, production and per hectare yield were increased 127.71%, 370.53% and 137.96% respectively. The major reasons behind the increasing tea productivity are extension of tea growing areas as well as cultivation of the tea clones (BT clones) released by Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI). Till now BTRI released 23 clones and 5 biclones, having average per hectare yield of 3461.67 kg. In the world, tea production, consumption and exportation have increased significantly. Unlike world condition, there is a negative relation between tea production and export in Bangladesh. From 1980 to 2020 the quantity of tea exports was decreased by 92.99%. This situation emphasizes the need for exploring alternative means by the tea industries of increasing profits from tea cultivation and tea export. As a result, researches on tea varietal improvement is needed for rapid economic growth and development of tea industry as well as to encourage tea plantation business to go ahead with more production to meet our own demand along with quality tea to flourish tea business in Bangladesh.

Due to high cost of importation and inability of wheat to thrive in Nigeria, baked products like chin-chin are costly and out of the reach of common people. Since baked products are convenient snack relished by all, substitution with readily available materials like cassava flour becomes the only available option. Wheat and cassava flours were blended in the ratios of 70:30%, 50: 50% and 30: 70% respectively while 100% wheat and cassava flours served as controls. Deep fat fried chin-chin samples were prepared from the blends. Proximate and functional properties were conducted on the flour blends while proximate composition and acceptability test were on the chin-chin samples. The results revealed that with increase in cassava inclusion levels in the composite flour blends, there was increase in moisture (7.77-8.23%), carbohydrate (73.42-79.23%), ash (0.75-1.00%), bulk density (0.51-0.61 g/ml), swelling index (0.96.1.09%), water absorption capacity (1.10-1.88 g/g), and emulsion capacity (27.41-39.48%) while dry matter (91.20-9.84%), protein (8.55-6.55%), fat (2.08-0.98%), fibre (2.53-2.20%) and oil absorption capacity (1.29-1.16 g/g) decreased. For chin- chin, there was significant increase in moisture (8.29-10.40%) and carbohydrate (63.63-66.54%) while dry matter (91.70-89.59%), protein (6.66-3.50 %), fat (17.57-16.84%), ash (1.88-1.38) and fiber (1.96-1.69%) decreased. There was no significant difference in the overall acceptability of the chin-chin samples. Therefore, cassava flour substitution of up to 70% is acceptable, but with decrease in most of the nutrient composition which can be improved with lower (

Processing tomato is an important agricultural crop worldwide suffering from genetic erosion due to a severe genetic diversity reduction and domestication hindrance. In Tunisia, some old underutilized tomato cultivars are increasingly being considered as genetic resources and are marginally used by small farmers constituting a real safety valve for the sustainability of the processing tomato value chain. Those tomato cultivars differ in their biometric, processing and functional quality attributes. Therefore, there is an increasing interest to examine their performances for processing and fresh market quality improvement. Recently, there was also a particular focus on improving the quality of fresh fruit via the introgression of high-pigment genes in processing tomato in order to obtain a high quality processed products. The results are important as large differences are highlighted and the main traits affecting tomato quality are also reported and clearly discussed. This suggest that maintaining of the existing genetic pools among cultivated tomato is as important as creating novel hybrids.

In this study, dragon fruit was dried by a microwave-assisted foam drying method and the effect of different microwave powers (350, 460 and 700W) on the drying kinetics and powder product properties were investigated. The properties (foam stability, expansion and density) of the foams obtained by adding egg white to dragon fruit puree were examined. The highest R2 and lowest RMSE and χ2 values of foam dried samples obtained from the Silva models. The effective moisture diffusion coefficient values of the samples (5.93×10-8-1.16×10-7 m2/s) increased due to the increase of microwave power. Activation energy values were calculated as 74.77 W/g. The effects of different microwave powers on moisture, water activity, color and powder product properties of dragon fruit powders dried by foam drying method were determined. In addition, in all conditions where microwave foam drying is performed, dragon fruit powders showed very good flowability and low stickiness.

The experiment was conducted under in-vivo condition in a betelvine baroj at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh. Nineteen isolates of Sclerotium rolfsii collected from different regions of Bangladesh designated as isolate-1 to isolate-19. Soil inoculated with S. rolfsii exhibited mycelial growth on the soil surface and around the base of the betelvine plant within 2-4 days after inoculation. Only 2 days after inoculation were required to manifest cottony colony on soil surface near root zone of inoculated betelvine plants by the isolate-3, 5, 7, 9 and 12. The first disease symptoms were observed within 6 to 16 days after inoculation where minimum days were required by the isolate-9 and maximum by the isolate-2 and 14. The highest lesion length (6.50 cm) was produced by the isolate-9 and isolate-13. All the isolates were found to be pathogenic in some cases, disease delayed due to their degree of pathogenicity. The isolate-9 showed highest disease incidence of 100% which was superior as compared to all other isolates at 15 days after inoculation. The isolate-19 showed least disease incidence of 66.66% even at 30 days after inoculation. Among the isolates, the most pathogenic one was isolate-9 collected from Kaligonj upazilla of Jhenaidah.