Root traits of common bean genotypes used in breeding programs for disease resistance

The objective of this work was to assess root traits of 19 common bean genotypes, used in breeding programs for disease resistance. Genotypes DOR 364 and G 19833 were used as deep and shallow basal root checks, respectively. The number of whorls and basal roots were assessed on five-day old seedlings grown in germination paper. Growth pouch studies were conducted to evaluate basal root gravitropism and lateral root length from primary roots, in seven-day old seedlings. The following root gravitropic traits were estimated: basal growth angle, shallow basal root length (localized in the top 2 cm), and relative shallow basal root growth. Number of whorls varied from 1.47 to 3.07, and number of basal roots ranged from 5.67 (genotype TO) to 12.07 (cultivar Jalo MG-65). Cultivars BRS MG Talismã, Carioca, BRS Pioneiro, and Diamante Negro exhibited shallow basal roots, while genotypes Vi-10-2-1, TU, AB 136, and México 54 showed deep basal roots. Cultivar Jalo MG-65 showed more lateral roots from the primary root than the other genotypes. Genotypes used on common bean breeding programs for disease resistance have great variability on basal and primary root traits.

The 1925 Opium Purchasing Campaign in Laos: The Anatomy of a Colonial Scandal

Opium purchasing campaigns, initiated in 1915, were abruptly interrupted ten years later following the discovery that the Douanes & Régies of the General Government of Indochina had been victim of a gigantic fraud. Various inquiries expedited with a view to establishing responsibility for the fiasco, involving purchases made at Luang Prabang in 1925, highlight the dysfunctions affecting the colonial civil service. The 1925 scandal revealed not only the difficulties encountered by the French in their attempts to control the drug trade, but also the prevailing circumstantial inefficiency of the colonial bureaucracy.

Evaluation of reed canary grass for different end-uses and in breeding

Selostus: Ruokohelven soveltuvuus non-food-, rehun- ja siementuotantoon

Tolerance to preharvest sprouting and yield of wheat genotypes from different breeding programs

Abstract:The objective of this work was to characterize the performance of elite wheat genotypes from different Brazilian breeding programs for traits associated with grain yield and preharvest sprouting. The study was conducted in 2010 and 2011 in the municipality of Capão do Leão, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in a randomized complete block design with three replicates. Thirty-three wheat genotypes were evaluated for traits related to preharvest sprouting and grain yield. The estimate of genetic distance was used to predict potential combinations for selection of plants with high grain yield and tolerance to preharvest sprouting. The combined analysis of sprouted grains and falling number shows that the TBIO Alvorada, TBIO Mestre, Frontana, Fundacep Raízes, Fundacep Cristalino, and BRS Guamirim genotypes are tolerant to preharvest sprouting. Combinations of TBIO Alvorada and TBIO Mestre with Fundacep Cristalino show high potential for recovering superior genotypes for high grain yield and tolerance to preharvest sprouting.

Breeding objectives for a Nellore cattle rearing system

Abstract:The objective of this work was to define the traits that should be included as breeding objectives for Nellore cattle, according to simulations with a bio-economic model for rearing systems. The economic values (EVs) of the traits were calculated as the differences between the profits due to an increased performance of 1% in each trait, with the others traits remaining constant. To determine the impact of each selection on the revenue system, two scenarios were simulated based on the traits being selected. In the first scenario, the adopted selection criteria were: weaning weight (WW), weaning rate (WR), yearling weight (YW), and mature cow weight (MCW). In the second scenario, the cumulative productivity (CP) of dams was used as an indirect evaluation of the performance of calves, with all the other traits included, except WW. In the first scenario, an EV of R$ 1.44 kg-1 was obtained for WW. In the second scenario, an EV of R$ 2.91 kg-1 was obtained for CP. The trait with the highest EV in both scenarios was WR, which enhanced the profits by R$ 3.21 for each 1% increased performance. The meat price paid to the producer is the factor with the greatest impact on the EVs of all examined traits.

Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra en el comercio de libros con la América colonial (1607-1613)

Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra fue un impresor sevillano activo entre 1604 y 1622. Envió libros en 1607 a Santo Domingo y en 1613 a Guatemala y México. Estos tres envíos sumaban 71, 295 y 186 ejemplares respectivamente. Además, estos envíos incluían en total doce resmas de menudencias impresas (6.000 pliegos) que formaban en su conjunto un surtido notable. En dos de las tres hojas de registro se incluyó el detalle de los títulos embarcados con un nivel de descripción poco habitual, pues se anotaron los datos del autor, el título y el pie de imprenta. Esto último nos ha deparado alguna sorpresa, ya que permite realizar precisiones sobre la producción de los talleres de Gamarra. Es necesario destacar la referencia a una edición desconocida por los bibliógrafos, que aparece declarada por el propio impresor como"Oraciones y exercicios de fr. Luis de Granada Seuilla por Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra 1612".

Cuando los empeños personales son la regla judicial: percepciones subjetivas y valoraciones de la justicia colonial rioplatense

A lo largo de este articulo analizaremos las percepciones subjetivas que nos dejó un actor social de la colonia rioplatense a través de una profusa correspondencia privada. Quizás llame la atención el hecho de que el objeto de nuestro interés sean las valoraciones que hizo Jaime Alsina i Verjés del ámbito judicial, del ejercicio del derecho y del significado de la justicia en el contexto histórico y geográfico en que le tocó vivir su vida adulta: el Río de la Plata durante el periodo virreinal. Abordar el núcleo del funcionamiento del Derecho como es la justicia, pero hacerlo a través de las percepciones de una persona no interesada estrictamente en la defensa o en la transformación del sistema judicial, tiene como finalidad trabajar una de las esferas del sistema jurídico mas descuidadas por la historiografía como es la de la aplicación de la ley.

La vorera d'enfront : trajectòries migratòries a l'Algèria colonial

Des dels inicis de l'ocupació francesa d'Algèria, a les acaballes de la primera meitat del segle XIX, un gran nombre de valencians, menorquins, andalusos i murcians, fugint de la misèria i de la fam o com a conseqüència de la inestabilitat política i social d'Espanya, es dirigiren al país magrebí a la cerca d'una vida millor. Aquesta migració es perllongà al llarg de més d'un segle, i es va caracteritzar pel seu dinamisme: un flux continu d'entrades i eixides i una gran heterogeneïtat de procedències. L'amalgama creada a l'Algèria colonial amb la coexistència i interacció de diferents realitats culturals, donà lloc a un nou sentiment d'identitat dins la comunitat d'origen europeu, impulsat per una solidaritat espontània dirigida a assolir una estabilitat econòmica i de subsistència, però també per un esforç polític premeditat de l'administració colonial francesa adreçat a cohesionar, mitjançant la francització, els europeus i jueus del país nord-africà

Progress in the Spanish National Barley Breeding Program

The Spanish Barley Breeding Program is carried out by four public research organizations, located at the most representative barley growing regions of Spain. The aim of this study is to evaluate the program retrospectively, attending to: i) the progress achieved in grain yield, and ii) the extent and impact of genotype-by-environment interaction of grain yield. Grain yields and flowering dates of 349 advanced lines in generations F8, F9 and F10, plus checks, tested at 163 trials over 11 years were analized. The locations are in the provinces of Albacete, Lleida, Valladolid and Zaragoza. The data are highly unbalanced because the lines stayed at the program for a maximum of three years. Progress was estimated using relative grain yield and mixed models (REML) to homogenize the results among years and locations. There was evident progress in the program over the period studied, with increasing relative yields in each generation, and with advanced lines surpassing the checks in the last two generations, although the rate of progress was uneven across locations. The genetic gain was greater from F8 to F9 than from F9 to F10. The largest non-purely environmental component of variance was genotype-by-location-by-year, meaning that the genotype-by-location pattern was highly unpredictable. The relationship between yield and flowering time overall was weak in the locations under study at this advanced stage of the program. The program can be continued with the same structure, although measures should be taken to explore the causes of slower progress at certain locations.

The impact of breeding on fruit production in warm climates of Brazil

Brazil is a very large country with a diverse climate. This fact allows a diversity of plants to grow ranging from tropical rainforest in the Amazon, passing through Atlantic Forest along the coast, the cerrados (Brazilian savannah) in the Central West region, and semi-arid area in the Northeast. Latitude ranges from 5º N to 33º S, with most of this territory in the tropical region. There are enough reasons to plant breeders devoting great amount of their effort to improve plants suitable for warm climates, though. Among fruit crops, results of breeder's work have been noticed in several species, especially on peaches, grapes, citrus, apples, persimmons, figs, pears and others not so common, such as acerola, guava, annonas (sour sop, sugar apple, atemoya, cherimoya) and passion fruit. Peach tree introduced at low latitude (22 ± 2ºS) requires climatic adaptation to subtropical conditions of low chilling. In Brazil, the first peach breeding program aiming adaptation of cultivars to different habitats was developed by Instituto Agronômico de Campinas (IAC) beginning in the end of the 40's. Apple low chill requirement cultivars obtained in a South state, Paraná, are now been planted at low latitudes. Banana and pineapple breeding programs from Embrapa units along the country are successfully facing new sanitary problems. Petrolina/Juazeiro, in the Northeastern region (9ºS), is the main grape exporting region with more than 6,000 ha. Grape growing in the region is based in the so called "tropical" rootstocks released by IAC, namely: IAC 313 'Tropical', IAC 572 'Jales'. Recently, Embrapa Grape and Wine released tropical grape seedless cultivars that are changing table grape scenario in the country.

Multi-scale effects of nestling diet on breeding performance in a terrestrial top predator inferred from stable isotope analysis

Inter-individual diet variation within populations is likely to have important ecological and evolutionary implications. The diet-fitness relationships at the individual level and the emerging population processes are, however, poorly understood for most avian predators inhabiting complex terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we use an isotopic approach to assess the trophic ecology of nestlings in a long-lived raptor, the Bonelli"s eagle Aquila fasciata, and investigate whether nestling dietary breath and main prey consumption can affect the species" reproductive performance at two spatial scales: territories within populations and populations over a large geographic area. At the territory level, those breeding pairs whose nestlings consumed similar diets to the overall population (i.e. moderate consumption of preferred prey, but complemented by alternative prey categories) or those disproportionally consuming preferred prey were more likely to fledge two chicks. An increase in the diet diversity, however, related negatively with productivity. The age and replacements of breeding pair members had also an influence on productivity, with more fledglings associated to adult pairs with few replacements, as expected in long-lived species. At the population level, mean productivity was higher in those population-years with lower dietary breadth and higher diet similarity among territories, which was related to an overall higher consumption of preferred prey. Thus, we revealed a correspondence in diet-fitness relationships at two spatial scales: territories and populations. We suggest that stable isotope analyses may be a powerful tool to monitor the diet of terrestrial avian predators on large spatio-temporal scales, which could serve to detect potential changes in the availability of those prey on which predators depend for breeding. We encourage ecologists and evolutionary and conservation biologists concerned with the multi-scale fitness consequences of inter-individual variation in resource use to employ similar stable isotope-based approaches, which can be successfully applied to complex ecosystems such as the Mediterranean.