The relationships between the fruit features of Juniperus communis and the presence of fruit pests were studied in Sierra Nevada, SE Spain. The abundance of two insect species a pulp-sucking scale and a seed-predator wasp was surveyed with respect both to fruit characteristics and to viability of seeds contained therein. Seed-predator pressure was not significantly related to any fruit characte...

This is a brief review of what is known about the role of pectate lyases in plants. The mode of action and three-dimensional structure of microbial pectate lyases is discussed first and then the limited information on the plant proteins is presented. Pectate lyase-like genes have been isolated from a wide range of plant tissues including germinating seeds, pollen, cell cultures, and ripening fr...

Omnivorous endemic Canarian lacertids (Gallotia atlantica and G. galloti) do not present any speciŽ c digestive and physiological adaptations to herbivorous diet, compared to species and populations with a different degree of herbivory in the Canarian archipelago. The only characteristics that could be related to the type of diet were the number of cusps per tooth (between species) and the numb...

Carotenoids are essential pigments of the photosynthetic apparatus and an indispensable component of the human diet. In addition to being potent antioxidants, they also provide the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene. In tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruits, carotenoids accumulate in specialized plastids, the chromoplasts. How the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway is regulated and what limits total...

Plants are very complex organisms that produce medicinally important natural products. The Star-fruit producing plant (Averrhoa carambola L.) is a species of woody plant in the family Oxalidaceae native to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; but, cultivated in many parts of the world. Star-fruits are popular tropical fruits and used commonly in Ayurve...

The intake of 400-600 g/d of fruits and vegetables is associated with reduced incidence of many common forms of cancer, and diets rich in plant foods are also associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and many chronic diseases of ageing. These foods contain phytochemicals that have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties which confer many health benefits. Many phytochemicals are colo...

Plants employ highly variable chemical defenses against a broad community of herbivores, which vary in their susceptibilities to specific compounds. Variation in chemical defenses within the plant has been found in many species; the ecological and evolutionary influences on this variation, however, are less well-understood. One central theory describing the allocation of defenses in the plant i...

in order to study the effects of foliar application of naa and plant thinning on growth, yield and fruit quality of melon genotype khatooni, the experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications at research field of faculty of agriculture, university of zanjan. treatments consisted of foliar application of naa at three levels (25, 50 and 100 mg.l-1 at 4-6 tr...

Application of the plant growth regulator paclobutrazol (PBZ) to aid mango floral induction has been widely performed by producers. However, its application done manually, resulting in low uniformity and losses with labor. The objective this study was adjust PBZ dose be applied via micro-sprinkler system for induction, indicating an efficient management ‘Palmer’ Brazilian semiarid. experiment c...

In this study, the effects of different pruning heights and number of branches left were evaluated to determine the most effective pruning height and optimum number of branches to be left after branch thinning to increase seed yield production of Jatropha curcas. The experiment, which was conducted at the MMSU Experimental Station from 2009-2011, was laid-out in Split plot design and was replic...