The cultivation of the strawberry is concentrated in the states of the Southeast and South of the country contributing to generating direct and indirect jobs. The opening of new frontiers in atypical climate conditions for the cultivation, such as regions having higher temperatures, has been investigated. The leaf topography interferes with pathogenicity and deposition of pesticides. This study aimed to analyze the performance of 11 cultivars of strawberry in the tropical conditions of the Mesorregião Mata of the Pernambuco state. The cultivation was done in screenhouse where topographical characters of the median leaves of cultivars were evaluated. The experimental design was Completely randomized, with five replications, being each pot a plot. Dover, Oso Grande and Tudla cultivars showed leaves with a flatter relief. The cultivar Sweet Charlie presented a more rugged topography. Considering the conditions of this experiment, the cultivars Dover, Oso Grande and Tudla were those that presented the most potential to pesticide absorptions.

The objective of this work was to study the behavior of ten soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] cultivars using the electrical conductivity (EC) test by the comparison of curves of the accumulative electrolyte leakage along the time and to establish the statistical model that allow the best adjust of the curves. Ten soybean cultivars were used and they were mechanically harvested in 2004 in the EEA Oliveros, Santa Fe, Argentina. Measurements of EC were made for 100 individual seeds of each cultivar during 20 hours of immersion at intervals of 1 hour using an equipment that permit an individual seed analysis (Seed Automatic Analyzer SAD 9000S). There were proposed two statistical models to study the EC along the time of the 10 cultivars studied using SAS Statistics Program, to select the model that better allow us to understand the EC behavior along the time. Model 1 allowed to make comparisons of EC along the time between cultivars and to study the influence of the production environment on the physiological quality of soybean seeds. The time to reach the stabilization of the EC must not be lower than 19 hours for the different cultivars.

At present, the preference of the internal and external markets is for small fruits. Therefore the size, other aspects equally are important and considered to determining harvest point how soluble solids, coloration and format. The objective of the present work was determined the physical-chemical changes during the development of watermelon 'Quetzali' with support for the harvest in the size demanded by the extern market. Six harvests were made, the first occasion of marks made on fruits with fresh weight of 2 g and the other at 10, 15, 20, 15 and 30 days of development. Next, the fruits were transported for the laboratory of Irrigated Agriculture of the UFERSA, in Mossoró-RN-Brazil. The experiment was installed in design entirely at random composed by five treatments (days of development), five replications and a fruit for replication. Fresh mass was analysed (g), growth rate of the fruit (g.day-1), length and diameter of fruit (cm), firmness of the pulp (N), vitamin C (mg.100 mL-1 ascorbic acid), soluble solids (SS, %) and titratable acidity (AT, g.100 mL-1 acid malic). The watermelon variety Quetzali obtained the very growth rate of 178.64 g to 20 days and the very diameter of 19.57 cm to 25 days, when size adapted for harvest. To 25 days of development the fruits had firmness of pulp 15 N, soluble solids 8.9%, titratable acidity 0.1289 mg.100 mL-1 acid malic and vitamin C 7.3 mg.100 mL-1 ascorbic acid.

The aim of this work was to evaluate some empirical equations performance used to estimate the evapotranspiration of reference in relation to the standard method Penman-Monteith FAO - 56 for the climatic conditions of the city of Eunápolis - BA. Climatic variables were used as referrals to the years of 2006 to 2007 obtained through the automatic platform collection of data from Hydrical Resources Superintendency of Bahia / National Institute for Space Research, where it was obtained the average for two years. In order to compare the values of ET0 estimated by empirical equations with the standard method Penman-Monteith (FAO 56), were considered the parameters of the regression equation (a and b), the coefficient of determination (r²), coefficient correlation c, estimate of the standard err (EEP), index of agreement (d), index of confidence or performance c, in the scales of one, three, five and seven days. The results obtained from this study reveal that the Hargreaves-Samani method overestimated the ET0 in 23% characterizing it as the less method to estimate it. The methods of Radiation and Blaney-Criddle satisfactorily met the estimate of ET0 for the climatic condition on the studied region.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the production of Freshwater Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) in different stocking densities in cages polycultured with Amazon River Prawn (Macrobrachium amazonicum). Four treatments were evaluated (1; 2; 3 and 4 fish.10 L-1) using two ponds and 24 experimental units. Water quality parameter reached adequate levels for the species. Production data were submitted to ANOVA. Fish produced in the lowest density showed higher values of final weight and standard length, and lower total biomass in comparison with the others treatments. Feed conversion rate, survival, batch uniformity and body factor were not significant different among treatments. The highest density tested produced more fish and gross yield than the others treatments. The density 20 fish.10L-1 is recommended to produce Freshwater Angelfish in cages polycultured with Amazon River Prawn.

Beginning with the observed rainfall data and the potential evapotranspiration for normal, dry and rainy years, the best period for the vegetable cultivation was evaluated for Ipojuca, Pernambuco, Brazil. The potential monthly evapotranspiration (ETP) data was computed using Hargreaves' method and transformed into ten-day averages. The sum total of rainfall over a ten day period, full evapotranspiration and half of the potential evapotranspiration data are used to characterize of the growth phase, along with the determination of the pre-humid, humid and post-humid periods. The results show that the best period for the initial growth phase in Ipojuca for dry years is from the 01st of March to the 06th of October spaning 223 days and with a total rainfall of 1414 mm. Results demonstrated that the best initial growth phase for sugar cane during normal years is from the 20th of February to the 06th of October, spaning 236 days and with a total rainfall of 1864 mm. And for the rainy years, the best period for the initial growth phase of sugar cane is from the 23th of January to the 20th of October, spanning a period of 267 days and with a total rainfall of 2578 mm.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the production of lettuce Lactuca sativa cv. Verônica to water levels. The experiment was conducted at Centro de Ciências Agrárias at Universidade Federal de Roraima (State of Roraima, Brazil). The experiment was carried out in a greenhouse following the completely randomized blocks design with four replications. The treatments consisted of six water levels based on fractions of the class A pan daily evapotranspiration (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% e 120%). The results of yield and fresh matter showed a linear response of the applied irrigation levels. The water use efficiency showed a decreasing linear response with respect to the irrigation levels. The maximum of yield showed 17.35 t ha-1 with 120% Class A Pan evaporation level.

Bactris gasipaes is an important Amazonian culture as the main source of hearts of palm. Techniques of plant tissue culture are promising tools in breeding programs of this culture. The objective of this study was to develop protocols for the in vitro establishment and callus induction in Bactris gasipaes shoot tips. Shoots were collected from young plantlets of B. gasipaes, which were disinfected with NaOCl 0.63, 1.25 and 1.88% (v/v), for 10, 20 and 30 minutes. After that, shoot tips were removed and inoculated in MS medium with factorial combinations of the growth regulators 2,4-D (0.0; 5.0; 10.0; 20.0 and 40.0 mg.L-1) and BA (0.0; 3.0 and 6.0 mg.L-1). The experimental design was entirely randomized, replicated three times with ten tubes containing one explant per plot. The disinfection was efficient for 20 minutes of immersion in NaOCl 1.25%, which resulted in 90% of explants without contamination and low oxidation. The greater callogenesis percentage was of 60%, reached at 10.0 mg.L-1 2,4-D and 3.0 mg.L-1 BA combination.

Today there is still a search for substrates economical, easy to use, available in large quantities and good characteristics for the production of seedlings, so are many substrates available. Thus, an experiment was conducted using different substrates for the production of yellow passion fruit seedlings at the University Vale do Rio Doce in Governador Valadares - MG, from November 2007 to January 2008. The objective was to evaluate different commercial substrates and a substrate used by small farmers in the region, associated with different rates of mineral fertilizer 8-28-16 (0, 21.4 and 42.8 g / plant) on the initial growth of two new cultivars (FB100 and FB200). We evaluated the physiological characteristics of seedlings. It was found that the cultivar FB 200 had the best vegetative growth, the substrate manure + soil was the best for cultivar FB 200, together with the plantmax® was superior to coconut fiber in the initial growth of cultivar FB 100 and the increasing rates of fertilizer stimulated the growth of seedlings.

This study was carried out at the Department of Plant Production, Sector Horticulture, São Paulo State University-UNESP, Botucatu Campus, São Paulo State, Brazil in order to evaluate the effect of sources and increasing doses of potassium in roots of eggplant. The experimental design was randomized blocks in factorial scheme 2 x 4 (two sources of potassium: KCl and K2SO4 and four doses of K2O, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 kg ha-1) and three replications. For the experiment, we used Oxisol medium texture (615 g of sand, 45 g of silt and 340 g of clay per kg soil). The soil passed through sieve of 5 mm and packed in plastic pots with a capacity of 32 liters of soil where plants were grown. The pots were distributed with a spacing of 0,63 m between plants and 1,0 m between rows each pot being grown with a plant. The evaluated characteristics were: root dry mass and volume of the root. It was concluded that sources and excessive doses of mineral K2O induces stress in eggplants and affect the roots being less harmful K2SO4 source.