The production of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is developing and it is most cultured finfish species in Turkey. It was first introduced in Turkey in the mid 1970s from Italy. In the following years, culture studies of native trout strains, mainly Black Sea trout; Salmo trutta labrax and Abant Lake trout, Salmo trutta abanticus started in late 1990. Market size trout production was performed in two main categories, inland areas (mainly concrete ponds by flow through fresh water and cages) and in sea (offshore cages). Total trout production was 61.173 tons in 2007.

Turkish traditional food producers are mainly subsistence and semi-subsistence farmers who have a limited marketing knowledge. They thus encounter a significant number of problems during the supply chain due to the lack of capital, awareness and equipment, as well as underutilized resources and insufficient rural infrastructure. They are also not actively encouraged by the policies implemented at the regional level. The majority of the food reaches consumers either directly (the less common purchases from the farmer) or via a number of intermediaries. If the current volume of traditional food is compared with the past production volume, it can be clearly seen that there is a sharp decrease in the production in contrast to the rapidly increasing population. This study aims to find willingness of Turkish consumers to pay for a MarketMaker website – an electronic trading platform of traditional products in Turkey. The estimations rely on data collected from 157 persons covering all regions in Turkey through an online survey in August, 2015. The average willingness to pay (WTP) annually was found to be about 32 Turkish Liras (TRY) for all observations including zero bids and TRY 164 excluding zero bids. The results of the probit model show that age, marital status and shopping in traditional food markets were identified by the model to have a significant impact on the probability of WTP.

Turkey is a mountainous country with many high mountains. Recent estimations show that there are approximately 20.7 million ha of forested area in Turkey, covering 25.8% of the total land area. However, little over half of this forested area is classified as unproductive (51.7%). Artvin is located in the North Eastern Black Sea part of Turkey and is the home of a very rich biological diversity. Forests in Artvin region are in different climatic zones - from temperate climate to continental climate zone - and there are several vegetation zones in the region which ranges from sea level to the altitude of 3500 m. A Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) plantation, planted in 1996 in the alpine zone in Artvin-Ardanuc region, was investigated. The size of study area was 40 ha and this research was done on 12 sample plots. There were 50 Scotch pine seedlings on each sample plot. Height and root collar diameter of the seedlings were measured. The mean slope was the same (60%) on the sample plots, and the effects of exposure and altitude significantly affected the height and root collar diameter growth of the seedlings (P is less than 0.05). It was determined that increased altitude is associated with decreased height growth and root collar diameter of the seedlings.

Turkey has rich inland water sources, about 200 natural lakes, about 750 artificial lakes or ponds, about 193 reservoirs, 33 rivers and streams of 177,714 km length and 8333 km of coastal strips. Some lagoons covering of 70,000 ha in Aegean and Mediterranean coastal strips are very suitable for aquaculture. The main fish species cultured in Turkey are carp (Cyprinus carpio), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata), European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), Blackl sea turbot (Pselta maxima), Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and shrimp (Penaeidae spp). Aquaculture production of Turkey has grown steadily over the years from 5,782 t in 1990 to 63,000 t in 1999 and to 79,031 t in 2000. There are 1309 farms in inland water producing approximately 32,466 t of fresh water fish species and 352 farms at sea producing 40,119 t of sea fish species, mainly Gilthead sea bream and European sea bass.

The South-Esatern Anatolia Project (GAP) is a multi-sector and integrated regional development project in Turkey. The project area covers 9 administrative provinces - Adiyaman, Batman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Kilis, Mardin, Siirt, Sanliurfa, and Simak - in the basins of the Euphrates and Tigris. The GAP planned in the 1970s consists of projects for irrigation and hydraulic energy production on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The development program encompasses such sectors as irrigation, hydraulic energy, agriculture, fish farming, rural and urban infrastructure, forestry, education, and health. This project envisages the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydraulic power plants and irrigation of 1.7 million hectares of land. The total cost of the project is estimated as US $ 32 billion. The construction of several dams will cause an increase in total capacity of more than 600 000 tons of fish in the region. Aquaculture will be an important source of income for the people and the economy of the country, a sum of US $ 1.8 billion of income will be obtained each year.

In this study, forest type mapping data set taken from UCI (University of California, Irvine) machine learning repository database has been classified using different machine learning algorithms including Multilayer Perceptron, k-NN, J48, Naïve Bayes, Bayes Net and KStar. In this dataset, there are 27 spectral values showing the type of three different forests (Sugi, Hinoki, mixed broadleaf). As the performance measure criteria, the classification accuracy has been used to evaluate the classifier algorithms and then to select the best method. The best classification rates have been obtained 90.43% with MLP, and 89.1013% with k-NN classifier (for k=5). As can be seen from the obtained results, the machine learning algorithms including MLP and k-NN classifier have obtained very promising results in the classification of forest type with 27 spectral features.

This study was carried out in 2012 to determine the effects of different irrigation intervals and irrigation water amounts on the cut flower performance of oriental lilium (Lilium L.) ‘Casa Blanca’ cultivated in greenhouse conditions. Different ratios of the plant water consumption (Tr) calculated using exterior radiation values of the greenhouse were applied to the plants as irrigation water. Irrigation water amounts varied between 199.3-589.0 mm, whereas measured plant water consumption (ETa) varied between 314.9-613.8 mm according to the treatments. Different irrigation water amounts and irrigation intervals had statistically significant effects on flower stem length, flower stem diameter, stem weight and number of flowers. In the study the stem length varied between 26.4-74.7 cm, stem weight varied between 72-175 g, stem diameter varied between 5.0-9.5 mm and the number of flowers buds varied between 3.6 and 8.0. The experimental treatment on which about 1.25 times of the potential plant water consumption calculated in two day intervals and the experimental treatment on which about 1.50 times of the potential plant water consumption calculated in four day intervals were selected as irrigation program.

The purpose of this study was to predict and compare salt accumulation in the soil profile under drained and undrained conditions. The water management simulation model, Drainmod (Ver. 6.1) was used to determine the optimal drainage system design parameters, which will decrease soil profile salinity and provide maximum crop yields in Ankara-Bala Basin of Turkey. Soil sampling points were coordinated with the Global Positioning System (GPS). Soil, crop and site parameters were obtained as an input. The model was run for 5 years from 2005 to 2010 to simulate optimum drainage design parameters (drain depth, drain spacing) while controlling soil salinity in the root zone. Soil water conditions and soil salinity level were simulated for crop rotation of corn (Zea mays) and winter wheat (Triticum). Yield of individual crops was predicted for each growing season. The results of the simulations were analyzed to identify alternatives of subsurface drainage system that would satisfy maximum crop productions. According to the simulation results, the drain spacing of 130 m and drain depth at 160 cm are recommended for Bala Basin. Soil salinity maps were created for undrained and drained conditions. Results showed that the soil salinity level and salinity stress can be reduced and yield increased by installing a drainage system.

This research was conducted to determine the chemical composition of smooth bromegrass in artificial pasture from the years 2010 to 2012 in Isparta Province located in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. The mixture of the pasture used were alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) + sainfoin (Onobrychis sativa Lam.) + crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum L.) + smooth bromegrass (Bromus inermis L.). Animal grazing applications were performed in the second and the third year of the study since the first year covered only the establishment of the artificial pastures. Forage samples were collected from grazing and non-grazing areas once every 15 days during the grazing seasons. The crude protein (CP), acid detergent fibre (ADF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) contents, total digestible nutrient (TDN) and relative feed value (RFV) were determined on the smooth bromegrass forage samples. According to results, CP, TDN and RFV values decreased throughout the grazing season, while ADF and NDF contents increased in grazing and non-grazing areas. The ADF and NDF contents of smooth bromegrass in non-grazed areas were higher than the grazed areas, while CP, TDN and RFV values of grazed areas were higher than non-grazed areas. It can be concluded that the harvesting at the late stages caused a reduction in forage quality of smooth bromegrass in grazing and non-grazing areas.

With this issue of 2009, we bring 52 proceedings of the 98, which started life as presentations at the Annual 15th International Scientific Conference Research for Rural Development 2009 held at the Latvia University of Agriculture, in Jelgava, on 20 to 22 May 2009. In the retrospect of four months later, we can count the Conference as a great success. The theme - Research for Rural Development - attracted participation of 321 researchers with very different backgrounds. There were 4 presentations from Ukraine, 3 from Sweden, 2 from Belarus, 3 from Estonia, 1 from Belgium, 1 from India, 1 from Turkey, 10 from Lithuania and 64 from Latvia. Four independent reviewers estimated each report. The proceedings of the Annual 15th International Scientific Conference Research for Rural Development 2009 is intended for academics, students and professionals researching in the area of crop production, animal breeding, agricultural engineering, agrarian and regional economics, food sciences, veterinary medicine, forestry, wood processing, water management. The proceedings will also be useful for researchers in educational sciences.