Cytogenetic studies were carried out on 22 accessions of Brachiaria jubata from the Embrapa Beef Cattle Brachiaria collection. One accession was diploid (2n = 2x = 18) and the remaining 21 were tetraploid (2n = 4x = 36). Among five tetraploid accessions, a specific and constant pattern of cell fusion involving only two microsporocytes was recorded. Meiosis proceeded normally from prophase I to ...

Improving grassland conditions under grazing has the potential not only to accumulate carbon in soils, but also reduce nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from animal urine deposition. However, measurements developing countries are still scarce. In Orinoquia region, permanent grasslands (PG; this unimproved, native pasture is considered as at some state of degradation) based on unimproved grasses f...

We sampled and analyzed 43 Poaceae plants from the Pacific Ocean island of Tonga for the presence of circular DNA viruses. From these samples, we recovered three gemycircularvirus genomes, which share >99% identity, from Brachiaria deflexa (n = 2) and sugarcane (n = 1). These genomes share <61% genome-wide identity with other gemycircularvirus sequences in public databases.

This work is aimed at modeling the heat transfer mechanism in a fluidized bed of grass seeds (Brachiaria brizantha) for supporting further works on simulating the drying of these seeds in such a bed. The three-phase heat transfer model, developed by Vitor et al. (2004), is the one used for this proposal. This model is modified to uncouple one of the four adjusted model parameters from the gas t...

The aim of this study was to use multivariate methods and Pearson and partial correlations to disregard phenotypic characteristics that contribute little to differentiation between Brachiaria ruziziensis genotypes. Eighty-one genotypes of B. ruziziensis were assessed in completely randomized blocks with three replications. Ten phenotypic characteristics were assessed: plant height, leaf length,...

MOTIVATION We developed a technique and a tool for degenerate primer design based on multiple local alignments employing the MEME algorithm supported with electronic PCR. The objective is to find adequate primers starting from sequences with poor global similarity. We show an example of its application in our laboratory to find sequences in Brachiaria with similarity to ESTs related to apomixis.

Agriculture and livestock production systems are two major emitters of greenhouse gases. Methane with a GWP (global warming potential) of 21, and nitrous oxide (N2O) with a GWP of 300, are largely emitted from animal production agriculture, where livestock production is based on pasture and feed grains. The principal biological processes involved in N2O emissions are nitrification and denitrifi...