Seed abnormalities and associated mycoflora of rain-fed wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in South Western Nigeria

The health of wheat seeds produced under rain-fed conditions in South Western Nigeria was investigated. There were more abnormal (1.0 – 79.7%) than normal (10.7 – 28.7%) seeds. Forms of seed abnormality observed include wrinkled seeds (64.2 – 79.7%), entirely discoloured seeds (1.0 – 12.5%), seeds with discoloured embryo (germ) (1.2 – 1.5%) and brush (0.25 – 1.25%) ends. Fusarium graminearum and Helminthosporium sativum were associated with all seeds, but at higher levels in abnormal (F. graminearum, 0.5 – 78.5%; H. sativum, 2.5 – 86.0%) than normal seeds (F. graminearum, 2.25%; H. sativum, 0.75%). Viability of abnormal seeds was 1.50 – 32.0% which is much lower than the 88.0% germination of normal seeds.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (7), pp. 672-675, 200

Effect of drying method on the quality and storability of ‘egusi\' melon seeds (Colocynthis citrullus L.)

The effect of sun-, oven-, smoke- and solar drying on the physicochemical properties and storability of melon seeds (Colocynthis citrullus L.) was investigated. Oven drying most significantly reduced the moisture content, followed by smoke drying and solar drying in decreasing order. The proximate composition of seeds was not significantly affected by the drying methods, but panelists most preferred the oven-dried seeds in the sensory analysis. Oven- and smoke dried seeds had the lowest incidence of diseased seeds, moisture content and level of Aspergillus spp. infestation and also recorded the highest seed germination and oil content in stores. The peroxide values and percentage free fatty acids were lowest in oven dried seeds, followed by the smoke dried seeds and the lowest in sun dried seeds. Thus, oven- and smoke drying could be used to dry melon seeds, particularly during the first season harvest when sun drying often proves difficult.Key words: Drying method, melon seeds, quality, storability. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (8), pp. 799-80

IDENTIFYING INFLUENTIAL BLOGGERS ON THE WEB

Blog has take an important aspect of internet since the introduction of Web 2.0 technology because blog as been away to influence others who read the blogs. People now have interest in finding materials and friends on the internet.Many users visit blog sites to read the posts and comment on them. Most people do read blog to gather informationon things that are important before take major decision about them. Because blogger always share their experienceon a topic for others to comments and through this others share their own experience. With the impact thatinfluential blogger have in a community. The benefits of achieving competitive advantages in a blog community byidentify influential blogger have created several research gaps and the popularity of these services has make theproblem of identifying the most influential bloggers significant, since its solution can lead to major benefits for theusers of this services i.e. education, politic, participatory journalism, advertising, searching, commerce etc. Thecurrent works in this regard ignore some important aspects of the blogsphere. This paper focuses on using acrossbreed method as an improvement to the existing methodologies. With the introduction of new parametersFBCount and Mining Comments the new approach show that the score of each blog post reflect quality andgoodness of blog post. A program prototype was designed to calculate the influential bloggers. The results obtainedconfirm that current approach could significantly identify influential of bloggers on the web and the proposed modelhas better performance than other approaches. There are still a few of avenues for the future research. Future workcan include full implementation of the program prototype and try to improve on it to directly get the parameters usedfrom the blog post on the web in a blog community, more parameters like twitter shares, G+1s Pin shares etc can beincluded into the literature and check for the behavior of the influence and future research can investigate more timein deciding weight parameter that is crucial for tuning between different influential factors.Keyword: Blog, Blogger, Social networks, Blogosphere, Influential bloggers, Influential, Models

TUBE GRAFTING REDUCES INCIDENCE AND SEVERITY OF BACTERIAL WILT IN TWO TOMATO CULTIVARS IN ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA

Bacterial wilt, Ralstonia solanacearum, causes severe loss of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) pro-duction in Nigeria. Tube grafting of two tomato cultivars (Beske and UC82-B) on bacterial wilt-resistant tomato landrace rootstock (Tomachiva) was conducted to reduce incidence of bacterial wilt and in-crease the yield in the two cultivars. The experiments were laid in Randomized Complete Block De-sign (RCBD). Percentage incidence and Percentage Severity Index (PSI) of grafted tomato were 0.00% each in the early planting season. Incidence (1.70%) and PSI (1.50%) of grafted tomato were observed in late planting season. Non-grafted tomato had higher significant values of 42.50% and 38.80% in incidence and percentage severity index in late planting season. Grafting on Tomachiva effectively reduced the incidence and severity of bacterial wilt in two cultivars of tomato in southwest Nigeri

Nematicidal Effects of Carbofuran and GC-MS Analysis of its Residue in Pineapple Fruits

Concerns over the safety of food items from fields treated with nematicides had risen in recent times. In this study, two field experiments arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design were conducted to assess the efficacy of poultry manure and carbofuran in suppressing nematode population and determine the residual presence of the nematicide in pineapple fruits. Three poultry manure rates (0, 20 and 25 metric tonnes per hectare) and carbofuran treatments (0, 3.0 kg a.i/ha and 3.4 kg a.i/ha) were applied to two naturally infested pineapple fields. Twenty core soil samples per plot were collected from plants rhizosphere at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 months after planting. Fifty grams each of chopped pineapple samples from the carbofuran-treated and untreated plots was extracted with 20ml of ethyl acetate solution for fruit analysis to determine the residual presence of carbofuran using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The study indicated that poultry manure and carbofuran significantly (P� 0.05) suppressed nematode population in both locations and promoted crop yield. The GC-MS test showed that carbofuran and its metabolites were not detected in the pineapple fruits, suggesting that carbofuran is not likely to constitute dietary risks to consumers of fruits from treated plots. © 2015 Friends Science Publisher