The study examined the constraints of access to the use of agricultural insurance schemes (AIS) by small-scale farmers in Kogi State, Nigeria. Sustainable agricultural enterprise in most developing countries like Nigeria can be achieved through adequate financing especially in the area of agricultural insurance. Despite the existence of insurance services by the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation and other private firms in Nigeria, there has been a low level of participation of farmers buying insurance premium; thus, there is a need to examine the hindrances in accessing the scheme. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economics characteristic of small- scale farmers, examine the types of agricultural insurance and evaluate the constraints in accessing AIS in the study area. Primary data were collected from 150 farmers with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results showed that farmers in the study area were dominated by the married (68%), literates (81.33) and males (73.33%) with the mean age and farming experience of 47 and 19 years respectively. Crop insurance (56%) and farm implement insurance (46%) were the major types of agricultural insurance used by the farmers. Rigorous procedures in claim settlement (3.266), poor government attention (3.106) poor repayment (3.080) and non-coverage of all the crops (3.093) were among the major challenges in accessing AIS) in the study area. The study recommended that the government through the ministry of Agriculture or Bank of Agriculture should eliminate the bureaucratic processes and bottlenecks encountered by the farmers in accessing AIS.

Food security is one of the major global challenges of the twenty-first century. World population is expected to increase by one-third, between 2009 and 2050, and in Asia, crop yield is estimated to decline by 5 to 30% from 2050 onwards compared to 1990. It is high time to seek alternatives that can increase production utilizing existing resources ensuring food security. A home garden can be a viable and sustainable alternative in this regard; nevertheless, it is often neglected. Thus, this study aims to understand the role of the home garden in maintaining household food security and enhancing rural women’s status in Nepal. Two villages of Bishnupur rural municipality, namely, Bajitpur and Musharniya were selected as study sites. 78.6% of households in Bajitpur and 68.4% households in Musharniya were found to have a home garden where crops and livestock were organized in an integrated way. The home garden was found to maintain household food security, ensure food availability for most of the seasons, access of household members to food, its utilization, and stability in production. Furthermore, 66.67% and 58.33% of women sold surplus home garden products in Bajitpur and Musharniya respectively. This signifies the role of home gardening activities in uplifting the social and economic status and, farming knowledge of rural women in both villages. However, there is a lack of extension facilities and subsidies for the home garden to encourage farmers. Therefore, different models of home gardens should be developed and disseminated, prioritizing the integration of the scientific farming system with traditional knowledge for sustainable adoption of the home garden in Nepal.

This study was conducted to determine the effect of zinc on the productive performances, carcass yield and blood profiles of broilers. Experiment was done for a period of 35 days with a number of 60, day old broiler chicks. Birds were divided into four dietary treatment groups with 3 replications each having 5 birds per replication. The dietary treatment groups were; T0 (basal diet; no zinc), T1 (basal diet + 50 mg zinc/kg feed), T2 (basal diet + 100 mg zinc/kg feed), T3 (basal diet + 150 mg zinc/kg feed). Results revealed that body weight and body weight gain were significantly increased in the zinc supplemented group compared to the control group. Higher feed intake and better FE were also observed in the zinc supplemented group than the control group and the best performance was observed in the group fed 150mg zinc/kg feed (T3). Carcass yield was significantly higher in the groups fed dietary zinc. Net profit was slightly higher in the T3 group but not significantly (P.0.05) differed with the control group. However, T1 and T2 showed less profit even than the control group. Blood profile of the experimental birds including Hb, PCV, and ESR did not significantly differ among the groups. The results indicate that the addition of zinc in the broiler diet improves productive performances, carcass yield and increases net profit without affecting the health status of broiler. So, zinc can be used as an effective and useful micronutrient to improve the performances of broiler.

Drying is the process of removing of the water that has destroying effect in food products by evaporation and. Research project on the basis of direct sun drying and solar greenhouse. Basic operations research in food engineering, food chemistry, food quality control and toxicology has been established over such a broad spectrum. Subjects of investigation were in accordance with all of the values of dry matter basis. The study of dry matter and water activity values of each product (aw), direct sun drying, drying in the greenhouse. It was determined comparing nutrients of samples those were applied directly to the greenhouse and drying in the sun. Sampling patterns of research were explained as follow; tomatoes drying in the sun (external environment), and greenhouse, bell peppers in the greenhouse and drying in the sun, soaked raisins (sultanas) and not-soaked (raisin), sun-dried, sun-dried fig products directly. Nutrients of the samples such as; lycopene, thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), retinol (A), Pyridoxine (B6), ascorbic acid (C), folic acid, magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), sodium (Na), phosphorus (P), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), copper (Cu) were quantitatively determined. The red pepper products, dried figs and dried grapes mycotoxin amounts were in safe levels, which had not created any hazard and risk for health. Red pepper and dried figs, total aflatoxins, (B1, B2, G1, G2), ochratoxin A (OTA) levels in raisin in the European Union is set well below the limits in terms of human health hazard and the risk factor has been identified.

Tea (Camellia sinensis) is the world's most popular beverage plant, as well as an important plantation crop with high commercial value. It has been maintained for centuries through conventional vegetative propagation. Tea clonal propagation in vitro has the advantage of producing a large number of elite plants. If an efficient in vitro regeneration technology is available, this technique could be exploited for selection of tea plants for desired trait. The selected plants could be later on multiplied through in vitro or ex vitro techniques. The study aimed to induced somatic embryogenesis from immature embryo explants to genetic variaton. Different concentrations of phenylboronic acid with benzyladenine and phenylboronic acid with kinetin were tested in MS medium with 30 g/L sucrose and 8 g/L agar. MS medium without any plant growth regulators was used as control group. Considering the embryo survival rate, 1.5 mg/ L-1 phenylboronic acid + 1 mg/ L-1 kinetin produced highest result as 87.3% while lowest was in control group as 36.7%. The highest plant regeneration rate was found in 1,5 mg/ L-1 phenylboronic acid + 1 mg/ L-1 kinetin and 1.5 mg/ L-1 phenylboronic acid + 1 mg/ L-1 benzyladenine medium respectively as 58.3% and 55.6%. Kinetin treatment with increasing phenylboronic acid concentrations gave the best results in terms of somatic embryo survival rate. Also, kinetin treatment produced better results when compared to benzyladenine concentrations.

This study aimed to determine the L-DOPA content in the flowers of some different faba bean genotypes and determine the L-DOPA levels in tea prepared from flowers. The experiment was carried out under the ecological conditions in Samsun by the Black Sea with 15 genotypes using a randomized complete block design in three replications. The flowers were harvested three times and the number of flowers and flower yields were determined. The L-DOPA content of the flower and flower tea were determined using HPLC. Different solvents were used to extract the L-DOPA from the faba bean flowers. As a result of the HPLC analyses, the highest L-DOPA yield was determined to be in the tea samples brewed with hot water. It was found statistical differences between genotypes in the second and third harvests for the number of flowers in the plant and the total number of flowers. Dry flower yields ranged from 11.33 to 37.78 kg da−1 while L-DOPA levels were 6.2 to 9.17 g 100g−1 in dry flowers and 6.69 to 9.23 g 100g−1 in infused tea. The study concluded that flower tea of faba bean can be investigate for medicinal purposes and that L-DOPA in the plant can be extracted by brewing without requiring any solvent. This shows that L-DOPA is in a salt form within the plant.

This paper attempts to review the major sorghum production constraints, the progress and perspective on sorghum anthracnose (Colletotrichum sublineolum) resistance breeding. The importance of anthracnose in sorghum production and breeding for resistance status and progress were also primly discovered. Sorghum is an ancient environment resilient crop and believed to be a future crop due to its important merits like tolerant to stresses, wide adaptability and low input requirement. Insects and disease are major biotic impediments to realizing the yield potential of the crop. Anthracnose disease caused by Colletotrichum sublineolum is the most important disease that severely affecting the crop in all sorghum producing regions of the world. Research results revealed that anthracnose resulted in 30-50% or greater yield losses. Several management strategies such as, cultural, chemical and using resistance varieties have been developed. Employing host-plant resistance is the most economical and environmentally friendly approach which can successfully control the disease. Breeding assisted with molecular markers plays a great role in resistance breeding programme as it makes easy to screen large number of genotypes at once. Recent advancement of molecular breeding and bio-informatics tools are playing a significant role in efficiencies and precisions of resistance breeding. QTLs or genomic area for resistance were identified using traditional molecular markers and recent research results revealed discoveries of specific gene and locus using high throughput markers like SNPs using GWAS approach. The discovery of genes/QTL associated with the resistance trait, using the high through put molecular markers like SNPs, facilitates the easiest way for gene pyramiding from different individual genotypes to a single variety, introgression into adapted elite cultivar through marker assisted and editing genes for elite landraces to develop durable resistance varieties. Transgenic approach is now a day becoming a powerful tool to utilize novel alien genes for crop improvement including anthracnose resistance breeding in sorghum.

Bu çalışmada, 2017 yılından 2021'e kadar beş generasyon boyunca ıslah ve seleksiyonu sürdürülen Anadolu-T etlik piliç saf hatlarının gelişme ve karkas özelliklerinin ticari hibritle karşılaştırmalı olarak ortaya koyulması amaçlanmıştır. Her generasyonda seleksiyon işleminden sonra yeterli sayıda saf hat (A1, A2, A3, B1, B2) ve ticari hibrit (Ross-308) yumurtaları kuluçka edilerek her genotipten 120 dişi-erkek civciv üretilmiştir. Etlik piliçler 6 hafta süreyle etlik piliç üretim standartlarında yetiştirilmiş ve bu süre sonunda kesim ve karkas özellikleri belirlenmiştir. Gelişme özellikleri olarak canlı ağırlık (CA), yemden yararlanma oranı (YYO) ve yaşama gücü; karkas özellikleri olarak göğüs ve but eti oranı ele alınmıştır. Beş generasyon boyunca 6 haftalık yaşta en yüksek ortalama CA ve en iyi YYO Ross-308 ticari hibritlerde (CA: 2961,2 ile 3481,2 g ve YYO: 1,43 ile 1,60 arasında) elde edilmiştir ve bunu sırasıyla baba (CA: 2633,8 ile 3180,2 g ve YYO: 1,65 ile 1,77 arasında) ve ana hatları (CA: 2307,7 ile 2698,5 g ve YYO: 1,65 ile 1,78 arasında) izlemiştir. Saf hatların yaşama gücü generasyonlara bağlı sayısal farklılıklar gösterse de ticari hibritle genel olarak benzer (%96-100) gerçekleşmiştir. Hem ana hem de baba hatların göğüs oranı ticari hibrite göre daha düşük iken, saf hatlarda but oranının daha yüksek olduğu belirlenmiştir. Saf hatların beş generasyonluk kısa bir seleksiyon geçmişine sahip olması henüz yeterli bir değerlendirmeye imkân vermemektedir. Ana ve baba hatlarında bireysel yemden yararlanma testine ek olarak baba hatlarında canlı ağırlık ve göğüs alanı özelliklerinin de seleksiyon kriteri olarak kullanılmasının canlı ağırlık ve yemden yararlanmayı iyileştirmesi beklenmektedir.

Şalgam (Shalgam) beverage, which is manufactured by lactic acid-ethanol fermentation, takes its name from turnip radish and its purple-reddish colour from purple carrot, is a drink with certain turbidity and sour taste. This research was carried out to determine the effect of using an autochthonous starter culture and purple carrot size in şalgam production. For this purpose, with the direct production process, purple carrot in two different sizes (4 cm horizontally cut purple carrot or 12 cm vertically cut purple carrot) and şalgam with the addition of 3% L. plantarum was produced. The added starter culture enabled the fermentation to start quickly and the maximum total acidity and LAB count was reached earlier. Besides, the addition of starter culture significantly affected the overall composition of şalgam. In the production of shalgam beverage, the use of horizontally cut purple carrot and L. plantarum as an autochthonous starter culture can be recommended.

In this study, an image processing algorithm and classification unit were developed to classify the fruits according to their size and color characteristics. For this purpose, a total of 300 fruits (50 fruit samples from each of the Starkrimson Delicious and Golden Delicious apple varieties, Washington Navel and Valencia Midknight orange varieties, Ekmek and Eşme quince varieties) were used in the experiments. The size and color values measured with a caliper and a spectrophotometer were entered in the developed image processing algorithm to determine the success rates of classifying the fruits. The integration of image processing algorithm with the classification unit classified 88%, 100%, 96%, 82%, 86%, respectively. On the other hand, the size and color values read in fruits with the image processing algorithm were evaluated using predictive techniques used in data mining. For this purpose, K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Decision Tree (DT), Naive Bayes classification and Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP) algorithms were used. Algorithms were run with 10-fold cross validation method. In the training of artificial classifiers, the success was 93.6% for KNN, 90.3% for DT, 88.3% for Naive Bayes, 92.6% for MLP and 94.3% for RF.