Eggs were coated with propolis in order to determine its effect on egg quality and total bacterial count. Effect of storage time prior to propolis coating was also studied. Eggs were obtained from a local farm, coated with 0, 3, 6 or 9% of propolis and stored at 4 ºC with a humidity of 75% for 30 days. A total of 18 eggs were used for egg quality traits and 6 eggs were chosen for microbial activity for each group. Bacteria were recovered with sterile cotton swabs from egg surfaces. Colonies with different morphology and color were detected. 11 bacterial species were determined following the characterization of 14 isolates. Elevated levels of bacterial counts were detected for daily eggs, which were significantly higher than those stored for 30 days. The quality traits of the daily eggs have also been found higher compared with the other groups. It was observed that coating the eggs with varying concentrations of propolis lead to significant differences in the total bacterial counts of the eggshells. Moreover, the egg quality traits which decreased with the increase in storage time have not been further affected with propolis coating.

Proteins consumed by poultry turns into ammonia as a result of microbial activities depending on the pH, temperature, moisture content of the litter, litter type, manure condition, relative humidity and ventilation condition and spreads to the environment as ammonia gas. Ammonia gas, which is one of the problems caused by poultry breeding, is a harmful gas in terms of animal welfare, health of employees and its effects on the environment. In this article, ammonia gas emission in poultry and practices to reduce this emission have been discussed and recommendations have been made.

In this study, commercial parents and synthetic parents which were developed from commercial maternal and paternal lines are compared. During the study, a total of 19654 animals, as being 8520 female, 1275 male chicks from commercial line (TK) and 8584 female, 1275 male chicks from synthetic line (SH), were used. Broiler experiment was conducted with a total of mixed-sex 2073 chicks, as being 1044 (3x348) chicks from TK group and 1029 (3x343) chicks from SH group. In 23 weeks growing period, female parents from TK and SH groups consumed 9.91 and 9.87 kg feed per animal, completed the process with 6.5% and 7.3% mortality and separation rate, 87% and 85% uniformity and lastly, 2846 and 2753g live weights at the end of 23 weeks, respectively. In the meantime, male parents with 9.5% and 10.8% mortality and separation rate consumed 11.1 and 11.3 kg feed per animal, respectively. Female parents from TK and SH groups reached 5% egg production efficiency at the ages of 26 and 25 weeks, and peak production at the ages of 35 and 32 weeks, respectively. At the age of 50 weeks, 5.7% and 6.0% mortality and separation rate, 84.5% and 83.8% peak egg production efficiency, 129.0 and 128.0 pcs of egg production, 116.8 and 118.5 pcs of incubating egg production, 62.5 and 60.0g of average incubating egg weight, 82.1% and 80.6% incubation yield were observed in the parents from TK and SH groups, respectively. Broiler chicks, with the weight of 39.7 and 37.7 g, obtained from TK and SH parents respectively reached the live weight of 2481 and 2375 g at the 42nd day consuming 4429 and 4372 g feed, respectively. In this broiler experiment, the feed conversion ratio was determined as 1.79 and 1.80 respectively. In the study, it was concluded, that new synthetic line obtained from commercial maternal and paternal lines can be used for broiler production.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) has been cultivated as an important cereal crop for more than 9,000 years and more than half of the world’s population depend on rice as it is their primary source of energy. Almost 30% of the current world cereal production is represented by the rice alone. It is estimated that the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 i.e. 34 percent higher than today and for ensuring an ample amount of food and nutrition to such large population, global consumption of cereals will need to increase from 2.6 to 2.9 billion tonnes by 2027. On the other hand, the impacts of climate change in agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening the global food security. Besides, agriculture and global food security will be severely affected due to the COVID-19 pandemics as its after-effects are yet to be ascertained. The world needs an introduction of a new “Green revolution” in agriculture to increase crop production for food security and biofuel, because conventional breeding method have not brought much of gains not keeping its pace with the world population growth. Hence, the current study was done to review the various ongoing approaches and possible ways of designing a rice with enhanced productivity and photosynthetic capacity. One of the ways to increase yields, photosynthetic capacity accompanied by an increased Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and Nutrient Use Efficiency could be to introduce C4 traits into rice. Besides, genetic engineering using CRISPR-Cas9, molecular breeding, developing ideotype, heterosis breeding, developing apomictic rice, nitrogen fixing rice, use of nanotechnology as well as precision farming are the probable future approaches for designing a rice with high productivity. However, there are challenges and limitations in developing such rice and further research in this matter could help us get closer to developing the future rice.

Two new spider mites, Tetranychus kanzawai Kishida and Eotetranychus rubiphilus Reck (Trombidiformes: Tetranychidae) were recorded for Turkish phytophagous mite fauna. While E. rubiphilus was obtained from Prunus domestica L. and Prunus cerasus L. (Rosaceae), T. kanzawai was found only on P. domestica in different municipalities of Ordu province, Turkey.

It is stated that concrete, which is the basic building block of most of the buildings built today, is the most consumed the construction material in the world after water. cement is that is the main ingredient of concrete, has significant share because of the cost of concrete, the use of various additives as a cement substitutes is the subject of many studies. However, it should firstly be determined to what extent the additives used to affect the concrete properties. In this study, it was tried to determine to what at level the use of the ash of rice husk as a cement substitute changed some concrete properties. Within the scope of the study, the usability of the raw form of rice husk as aggregate in concrete was evaluated and thus an effective method in the disposal of rice husk, which is a agricultural waste, was tried to be determined. The study results show that the addition of both ash of rice husk and rice husk aggregate significantly alter almost all properties of concrete. These changes are at different levels for different characteristics. As a result of the study, it was determined that as the amount of foam increased, the flow diameter increased, while the addition of rice husk decreased the flow diameter. It was determined that the addition of rice husk decreases the depth of water penetration depending on time, the porosity of the samples with the high level of rice husk addition increases, and the compressive and flexural strength decreases.

This study includes some deep underground well waters opened to supply the irrigation water in Tekirdağ province. The sampling was done from 22 wells in the irrigation season period. The parameters such as pH, EC, TDS, Na, Ca, Mg, K, Cl, HCO3, B, NO3-N, Sodium Absorption Ratio and Residual Sodium Carbonate parameters, which were significant in terms of irrigation water classification, were examined in the samplings. According to the results, it was determined that thirteen well waters were in medium salty and eight well waters were in high salty water classes. Besides, Na and HCO3 harms were determined in five and three well waters, respectively. In seven well waters, it was concluded that RCE values were over 2,5 me L-1 and these water were not suitable in the usage of irrigation. As a result of the evaluations in terms of the specific ions, it was determined that CL, B and NO3-N concentrations which were found in three, two and one wells respectively, could create damages in some crops. As a result of the evaluations in terms of salinity and SAR parameters, it was concluded that the usage of T5, T6, T8, T10, T13 and T14 well waters was undesirable and the usage of T9, T11, T12, T16, T17 and T21 well waters can be suggested by the provision of some special conditions (appropriate drainage conditions, appropriate plant selection, coarse textured soils).

Colour is an essential parameter at product quality control stages, and finally, it is necessary for the consumer marketing decision. It is possible to damage the products during the process from collection to storage. Also, it is a well-known condition, cold environmental conditions protect fruits from deformations negative effects, but most of the time, most of the consumers keep the fruits at room temperature in open packs during the consumption process. Also, this condition affects the product storage time. In this study, it is aimed that to determine the behaviours of the fruits in room temperature and humidity conditions. For this aim the colour change of the damaged pears were determined, in another term, colour change value from red to green and yellow to blue at the damaged pears were determined with lightness values by using image analysis technique and analysed with data mining methods. For this purpose, 100 “Akça” pear and 100 “Deveci” local pear cultivar used for experiments. Fruits were equally damaged by using a pendulum mechanism. The damaged fruits were kept at room temperature. Colour change areas on fruits were evaluated with X-rite Ci60 spectrophotometer, and the hardness of fruits was measured by using a fruit penetrometer. The colour (L, a, b) and ΔE values were analysed for the fruit cultivars. The relationship between fruit hardness and colour change were also demonstrated. The predictions were done supervised machine learning algorithms (Decision Tree and Neural Networks with Meta-Learning Techniques; Majority Voting and Random Forest) by using KNIME Analytics software. The classifier performance (accuracy, error, F-Measure, Cohen's Kappa, recall, precision, true positive (TP), false positive (FP), true negative (TN), false negative (FN) values were given at the conclusion section of the research. The best prediction were found at the Majority Voting method (MAVL) 98.458 % success given with 70% partitioning.

This study was aimed to determine the responses of some sunflower hybrids to drought and low temperature stresses during germination and seedling development period. Sunflower hybrids of Sanbro MR, 63LE113, 64LL62 and Meteor were used in the study. Germination percentage, mean germination time, root and shoot length, root / shoot ratio, seedling fresh and dry weight of the sunflower hybrids were investigated at two temperatures (low 15°C and optimum 25°C) and drought stresses (distilled water, -1.5, -3.0, -4.5 and -6.0 bar) induced by polyethylene glycol 6000. The results of the research showed that there were significant differences among the sunflower hybrids in terms of the investigated characteristics. Increased drought stresses led to decreasing germination percentage, root and shoot length, seedling fresh weight, but caused a prolonged germination time and increased seedling dry weight. No significant change was observed in the germination and seedling development of the sunflower up to drought of -3,0 bar. The root / shoot ratio of sunflower hybrids increased at 15°C. The Sanbro MR had the fastest and highest germination along with the highest seedling fresh and dry weight at low temperature and higher drought stresses. It was concluded that sunflower hybrid Sanbro MR gave better performance under drought and low temperature conditions than the other hybrids.