BACKGROUND Cassava starch, the economically important agricultural commodity in Thailand, can readily be cast into films. However, the cassava starch film is brittle and weak, leading to inadequate mechanical properties. The properties of starch film can be improved by adding plasticizers and blending with the other biopolymers. RESULTS Cassava starch (5%w/v) based films plasticized with glyc...

The maximum daily cassava flour intake of children may be calculated from determination of the total cyanide content of cassava flour and urinary thiocyanate levels of school children in samples collected at the same time and place. Four sites, two with and two without recent konzo cases, were chosen for study. In two sites with recent konzo cases, 84% and 93% of school children consumed cassav...

Retrotransposons are ubiquitous in eukaryotic genomes and now proving to be useful genetic tools for genetic diversity and phylogenetic analyses, especially in plants. In order to assess the diversity of Ty1/Copia-like retrotransposons of cassava, we used PCR primers anchored on the conserved domains of reverse transcriptases (RTs) to amplify cassava Ty1/Copia-like RT. The PCR product was clon...

The effect of Aspergillus niger hydrolysis on cassava peel meal based diet on the growth performance and nutrient retention of broiler chickens was studied. Delignified cassava peel was used as the carbon source in a composed medium under a pH of 5.0, concentration 3% and 35C to grow Aspergillus niger for five days. The culture filtrate obtained was then used to hydrolyze delignified cassava pe...

Cassava breeding is difficult and, compared with other crops, inefficient. The problems in cassava breeding relate to the length of the breeding cycle, the large genetic load present in the crop, and the heterozygous nature of the parents and progenies evaluated. The production of doubled haploids, through tissue culture techniques, offers interesting advantages. By definition, any process that...

Objective(s): Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) contains cyanogenic glycosides (linamarin and lotaustralin) that have been associated with neurological disorders in humans and rats. In basal ganglia, the dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) show high cytotoxic susceptibility; therefore, the chronic consumption of cassava (CCC) could induce neu...

OBJECTIVE This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of a corn- or cassava- based diet on the production of meat-type ducks. METHODS Four hundred day-old ducks were used in this experiment. They were divided into five groups with each group replicated eight times. The ducks fed the corn-based diets served as the control group. The four other groups comprised different treatments, w...

Whiteflies, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) are major insect pests that affect many crops such as cassava, tomato, beans, cotton, cucurbits, potato, sweet potato, and ornamental crops. Bemisia tabaci transmits viral diseases, namely cassava mosaic and cassava brown streak diseases, which are the main constraints to cassava production, causing huge losses to many small-scale farmers. The aim of this ...

The inhibitory effect of onion extract on cassava leaf polyphenol oxidase was investigated. The polyphenol oxidase from cassava leaves was strongly inhibited by various anti-browning agents such as L-ascorbic acid and L-cysteine. The percentage of inhibition increased with the increased of anti-browning agents concentrations. The addition of heated onion extract exhibited a stronger inhibitory ...