The sense of taste is critical in determining the nutritional suitability of foods. Sweet and bitter are primary taste modalities in mammals, and their behavioral relevance is similar in flies. Sweet taste drives the appetitive response to energy sources, whereas bitter taste drives avoidance of potential toxins and also suppresses the sweet response [1, 2]. Despite their importance to survival...

Non-uniform heating of fresh fruit caused by variations in radio frequency (RF) fields is a major obstacle in developing postharvest insect control treatments based on RF energy. A fruit mover was developed to evaluate possibilities to improve RF heating uniformity of large fruit, such as oranges and apples, in a 12 kW batch type RF system. This fruit mover provided a means to rotate and move f...

Direct competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) was developed. Varying the concentrations of monoclonal anti-2,4-D-antibody and the conjugate of soybean peroxidase and 2,4-D the conditions of ELISA performance were optimised. The chemiluminescent method based on peroxidase-catalysed oxidation of luminol was applied to measure the enzyme ac...

Rain-splash dispersal of Phyllosticta citricarpa (syn. Guignardia citricarpa) conidia (pycnidiospores) from infected oranges was studied in still air and combined with wind. High power microscopy demonstrated the presence of conidia in splash droplets from diseased oranges, which exuded conidia for over one hour during repeated wetting. The largest (5 mm) incident drops produced the highest spl...

Sweet aspartyl di- and tripeptide esters were extended toward the N-terminus in relation to the structural features of sweet peptides. The sweet peptides were designed on the basis of the receptor site model. It was found that an extension of the sweet aspartyl dipeptide esters by adding a small D-amino acid residue mostly gave sweet compounds (e.g., D-Ala-L-Asp-D-Ala-OMe), although this signif...

Papayas, rambutans, and Kau oranges were irradiated at 0 (control) and 0.75 (irradiated) kGy and stored for 2 and 9 days to determine the Hect of X-irradiation on objective and sensory quality attributes. Irradiation at 0.25 kGy, as a minimum dose, has been approved as a quarantine treatment for the export of tropicalmts grown in Hawaii. The fleets of irradiation and storage on specific sensory...

Traditionally, Sicilian blood oranges (Citrus sinensis) have been associated with cardiovascular health, and consumption has been shown to prevent obesity in mice fed a high-fat diet. Despite increasing consumer interest in these health-promoting attributes, production of blood oranges remains unreliable due largely to a dependency on cold for full color formation. We show that Sicilian blood o...

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is one of the stable tuber crops consumed by many households in Nigeria. It can be found in different varieties and exist in many colours of skin and flesh. The production of this important crop is still very low, thereby compromising food security. Sweet potato is one of the target commodity crops under the Nigerian Agriculture Sector Investment Opportun...

in order to study yield and yield components in intercropping bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) and sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) and evaluating effect of intercropping on weed control, a field experiment was conducted at the agricultural research station, ferdowsi university of mashhad during growing season of 2008. treatments: included 1- sole crop of bean 2- sole crop of sweet basil 3- strip ...