This article aims to analyse the main features, importance and benefit of wellbeing research for rural development. Wellbeing research, which is becoming more and more important in social sciences discourse and its interrelations with rural development were analysed using analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, logic and systematic analysis, comparison and graphic modelling methods. The interest in the research significantly grew at the end of the 20th century and it is already recognized as a challenge and/or new instrument evaluating the progress and development of society. It should be noted that this direction of research can be adapted to different territorial levels. Wellbeing research is not only about the worldwide (macro level) wellbeing of nations, but also highlights specific features of smaller units like rural areas and their development (micro level). So when implementing the wellbeing research it is important to choose correctly whether objective or subjective wellbeing can be evaluated based on what positive or negative aspects it gives at the local level. This article deals with the main features of wellbeing research and what is common between this research and rural development as well as what benefit they give to rural communities and development. Research results show that benefit of wellbeing research for rural development is important because it allows to get information about the wellbeing situation of rural people, reveals existing problems and positive changes, gives an opportunity to observe how to improve the evaluation of wellbeing and informs rural actors about their role in the wellbeing research and their possible influence on the rural development.

The municipalities of Latvia are different in terms of business development level. Latvia’s regions are grouped into clusters based on several indicators: number of economically active individual merchants and commercial companies per 1000 capita, territorial development index, and proportion of working-age population. In addition to the business indicators, the following tourism indicators were selected: number of recreational establishments, number of bedplaces, number of individual rooms, number of farms and individual merchants making use of culinary heritage. All these indicators are statistically significant for clustering municipalities. The clustering was performed by employing K-Means clustering and using the data processing programme SPSS. All Latvia’s municipalities were divided into four clusters based on the business development level and the level of exploitation of tourism infrastructure and culinary heritage. The analysis results enable conclusions to be made that a positive correlation exists between the business environment development level, and the level of use of tourism and culinary heritage. Culinary heritage is an important additional possibility for fostering business and economic growth in Latvia’s municipalities. A linear multifactor regression equation was obtained, which associated the revenues of the operating budget of a municipality with the following statistically significant factors: population density, territorial development index, expenditure on economic activity development, number of economically active entrepreneurs and commercial companies, number of tourism establishments, and number of enterprises dealing with culinary heritage. The analysis of regression equation coefficients points to the positive effects of all the factors included in the equation on the revenues of the basic budget of a municipality.

Unemployment and labour market adjustments have featured prominently among the problems of transitional economies. However, the position of young people and their transition from school to work in these new market economies has been virtually ignored. This paper deals with long-term youth unemployment problems and their integration into the labour market as viewed by different authors. The authors consider that the youth long-term unemployment is a global problem. Also, there are analysed statistical data on youth long-term unemployment, and a forecast of the youth unemployment rate for the 1st quarter of 2014 is made. The weakening of the global recovery in the years 2012 and 2013 has aggravated the youth employment crisis when there were no free jobs with adequate requirements for people without education and professional skills. The current situation promotes the trend that was already evident before the economic crisis. Most of young people are now turning to available part-time jobs or choose to study only. The author considers that the youths who have access to different resources will find more stable jobs or make their own businesses after unemployment than those lacking such different kinds of support. In building the education and employment decisions in the transition from school to work, there is a strong evidence of the importance of youths making good initial career decisions and an enduring effect of academic achievement on labour market and education outcomes.

The positive place image attracts investors, foreign and national guests, creates the local residents’ pride and distinguishes it form the competing locations. Project activities are completed/or being carried out under the funding of the European Union and the Republic of Lithuania. The research problem: do project activities form positive place image? The research object – place image formation carrying out project activities. The purpose of the article – to analyze the implemented projects by Silale district Municipality and investigate their impact on the location image formation in Silale district. Research objectives are: (1) to identify and investigate the factors impacting the formation of Silale district Image; (2) to analyze and assess the project activities performed by Silale district Municipality. For the research completion the methods of questionnaire survey and content analysis were applied. The gained research outcome has disclosed that project activities in Silale district are focused to the restoration and beautifying of environment, but not on the investors, and there are not carried out any investment attraction projects. Two segments – local residents and tourists – received the benefit from the project activities in Silale district.

Land fragmentation is a problem for many post-communist countries. Different aspects of land fragmentation have been investigated by many researchers. However, there is little attention paid to the issues of internal fragmentation of agricultural parcels. In this study, internal fragmentation is understood as the following phenomenon: a parcel consists of different types of land plots or one land type (e.g. arable land) is split into separated plots. In this study the empirical test of internal fragmentation of arable land inside agricultural parcels has been made. The aim of the study was to examine the existence and extent of internal fragmentation of agricultural parcels. The digital map of boundaries of arable land parcels and data about land types (arable land, roads, etc.) from the Estonia National Topographic Database were the data sources of the study. The following characteristics were calculated in a GIS environment for agricultural parcels: compactness coefficient; number of pieces of arable land inside a parcel; Januszewski index for characterization of internal land fragmentation and the ratio (in percent) of arable land in a parcel. The results of the study show the existence of internal fragmentation of arable land inside agricultural parcels. Arable land is internally fragmented in about 30 percent of agricultural parcels. The area of the arable land plot inside parcels is 7.7 hectares if there is no internal fragmentation. In the case of internal fragmentation of the arable land, this area is 5.6 hectares respectively.

Environmental conditions and climate change on a global scale affects the overall agriculture and food supply. Consumers demand for vegetables with high nutritional value is increasing. Consumers more and more are thinking about a healthy and balanced diet, but it is not easy to provide year-round fresh vegetables. Nettle (Urtica) leaves traditionally are used in early spring as a leafy vegetable in salads and soups. Young leaves before flowering are used for human consumption. Nettle contains a lot of vitamins and biologically active compounds. The research aim was to evaluate different stinging nettle clones, which grow in Pūre village (Tukuma district, Latvia). Samples were collected, when shoots were 10 – 15 cm long. Content of chlorophyll, carotenoids and anthocyanins in five nettle clones leaves were analysed. Biochemical analysis was done in Latvia University of Agriculture, Institute of Soil and Plant Science laboratory. Differences were observed between all clones. Significant difference between genotypes was observed in anthocyanins content, but not in chlorophylls and carotenoids content. Higher anthocyanins content was observed in samples, which grow in places with low nitrogen and phosphorus content. Content of biochemical compounds can influence some metal ions, environmental and other factors.

The aim of this article was to provide an overview on the current status of fruit tree diseases caused by Pseudomonas syringae, their importance and distribution, epidemiology and control possibilities with emphasis on plums and cherry. The plant diseases caused by Pseudomonas syringae are economically important and occur worldwide on large diversity of plants. On stone fruits, diseases caused by different pathovars of Pseudomonas syringae are economically important in major fruit growing regions. The severity of damages and economic importance depends on the geographical region, host plant species and pathovar of P. syringae involved in the disease. Bacterial canker induced by P. syringae pv. syringae on all commercially grown stone fruit species and by pv. morsprunorum predominantly on cherries and plums is considered to be the most serious one. Bacterial decline caused by P. syringae pv. persicae is severe on nectarine and peach. Despite the wide spread and economic importance in the most stone fruit growing areas the diseases caused by Pseudomonas syringae in some areas, e.g. Baltic States, are poorly studied, and the data on distribution and pathovars involved in the diseases observed are still missing.

The number of grape (Vitis sp.) cultivars is increasing every year, the focus point of recent grapevine studies are heading to producing high quality fruits for producing quality wine. A field trial with cultivar ‘Zilga’ was established in 2007 at the Estonian University of Life Sciences and in 2010 in a greenhouse. ‘Zilga’ is one of the well adopted cultivars in Estonia, which has been used mostly for producing wine and grown in open field conditions. The aim of the present experiment was to find out the yield maturity parameters of cultivar ‘Zilga’ for red wine in Estonian conditions. Data was collected from the year 2011 to 2013. The bunch weight and °Brix were determined from fresh materials, but all the other biochemical parameters were determined from frozen (-20 °C) grapes. The recommended content (20 °Brix) of soluble solids was not obtained in open field conditions, but reached to 24.1 °Brix in greenhouse conditions in 2013. Titratable acids content was higher than recommended values, ranging from 1.4 to 1.6 mg 100 gE-1 in open field and showing the lowest content (1.2 mg 100 gE-1) in greenhouse conditions. Maturity index values ranged from 117 to 224, and the optimum was reached in two years from three. The highest total phenolics content, 293 mg 100 gE-1 was obtained in 2011, while anthocyanin content was significantly increased in 2013.

Field trials were carried out at Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute in 2008 – 2011 to identify the possibilities of using early red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) ‘Jõgeva 433’ (diploid), Washington lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus Lind.) ‘Lupi’ and crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.) as green manure. Fresh material of the above species was ploughed into the soil in autumn of the sowing year. Fertilizer value was quantified through yield and grain quality of spring wheat ‘Vinjett’ and barley ‘Inari’. The composition and amount of ploughed biomass were recorded. By the time of ploughing, Washington lupine had produced the most abundant biomass. >From studied species crimson clover had the lowest fertilizer value – only by 6–7% extra yield of spring wheat in the following year. Crimson clover had no residual effect of fertilization in the second year. The fertilizer values of red clover and Washington lupine were approximately equal. Their effect on yield increase of spring wheat and barley lasted for three years, on grain quality for two years. Red clover, ploughed into the soil in the year of sowing, resulted in maximum spring wheat yield increase of 23.9%, compared with N 0 treatments; that of Washington lupine was 21.3%. The residual positive effect in the second year quantified as barley production increased by 6.2% in Washington lupine and 7.9% in red clover. The yield increase in the third year was 3.9% and 12.1%, respectively. Green manure increased the contents of crude protein and gluten in spring wheat and crude protein content in barley.