Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the major legume crops grown in Pakistan having a considerable importance as a food, feed and fodder but due to imbalanced use of fertilizers its production is low. To find the optimum level of Phosphorus and FYM for chickpea and study their effect on agronomic characteristics an experiment was carried out at the Agricultural Research Farm of NWFP Agricul...

The soil degradation caused by conventional tillage in rain-fed areas of northwest China is known to reduce the water-use efficiency and crop yield because of reduced soil porosity and the decreased availability of soil water and nutrients. Thus, we investigated the effects of straw incorporation on soil aggregates with different straw incorporation rates in semiarid areas of southern Ningxia f...

Straw provided as a substrate allows pigs to use it as a recreational substrate, as a nutritional substrate and as a bedding material and, because of this, has been reported to improve the welfare of pigs. The aim of this study was to investigate whether different lengths of chopped straw bedding would achieve similar enhancements in pig welfare as those achieved by unchopped, full-length straw...

The transcription patterns of [FeFe]-hydrogenase genes (hydA), which encode the enzymes responsible for H2 production, were investigated during rice straw decomposition in paddy soil using molecular biological techniques. Paddy soil amended with and without rice straw was incubated under anoxic conditions. RNA was extracted from the soil, and three clone libraries of hydA were constructed using...

This study evaluated a cost-effective approach for the conversion of rice straw into fermentable sugars. The composition of rice straw pretreated with 1 % sulfuric acid or 1 % sodium hydroxide solution was compared to rice straw with no chemical pretreatment. Enzymatic saccharification experiments on non-pretreated rice straw (NPRS), pretreated rice straw (PRS), and pretreated rice straw with a...

Sixteen rams (mean age: 13 mo; mean live weight: 40.0 ± 2.4 kg) were randomly allotted to four dietary treatments in a completely randomized design (4 rams per treatment). Diets (dry matter basis) contained 65% concentrate and 35% alfalfa hay (control diet, T1), 35% wheat straw (T2), 35% barley straw (T3) or 35% maize straw (T4). Total-tract apparent digestibility for dry matter, organic matter...

Application of mycorrhiza-biofertilizer and intercropping with legume crops could improve performance yield red-rice grown onraised-beds under aerobic irrigation systems, but weeds became a serious problem, which needs more frequent weeding. A Split Split-Plot (SSP) experiment was designed to examine synergistic effects rice-straw mulch application on yieldof several black rice promising-lines ...

Background: Enzymatic hydrolysis of lactose is one of the most important biotechnological processes in the food industry, which is accomplished by enzyme β-galactosidase (β-gal, β-D-galactoside galactohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.23), trivial called lactase. Orthogonal arrays design is an appropriate option for the optimization of biotechnological processes for the production of microbial...