Inspection system for in use pesticide application equiupment in Greece. First three years of application

According to Directive 2009/128/EC, all member states should have inspected all in-use Pesticide Application Equipment (PAE) by November 2016. In Greece, Law 4036/2012 embodied the provisions of this Directive into Greek legislation, but unfortunately due to various reasons, the inspections were significantly delayed. Aim of the current study is to briefly present the inspection system of in-use PAE that was developed due to the aforementioned law and then provide the statistical results of the inspections until February 2018. The progress of the last two years was significant, but a lot of work remains to make the inspection system functional and unproblematic.According to Directive 2009/128/EC, all member states should have inspected all in-use Pesticide Application Equipment (PAE) by November 2016. In Greece, Law 4036/2012 embodied the provisions of this Directive into Greek legislation, but unfortunately due to various reasons, the inspections were significantly delayed. Aim of the current study is to briefly present the inspection system of in-use PAE that was developed due to the aforementioned law and then provide the statistical results of the inspections until February 2018. The progress of the last two years was significant, but a lot of work remains to make the inspection system functional and unproblematic

Effects of dietary pomegranate seed oil addition to diets for laying hens on fatty acid profile of eggs

In an experiment with 60 laying hens (ISA Brown), 25 weeks of age, effects of dietary pomegranate seed oil supplementation on performance and egg quality were determined. In the 6-week experiment, hens were allocated to five dietary treatments (PSO0, PSO250, PSO500, PSO750 and PSO1000 with pomegranate seed oil addition at an increasing level from 0 to 1000 mg/kg diet respectively). Hens were allocated to 6 cages (replicates)/treatment of 2 hens each and received a diet at 120 g/hen/day. During the experiment, no differences (P > 0.05) occurred among pomegranate seed oil treatments in final body weight (1644 g), feed intake (119.5 g), production of cracked, thin-shelled and shell-less eggs (0.011 eggs/hen/day) and egg weight (61.26 g). However, egg production and egg mass tended to be improved for hens receiving 250 and 500 mg of added pomegranate seed oil in the diet. Feed conversion ratio was tended to be reduced for hens of the PSO250 and PSO500 treatments compared to the other ones. In addition, eggshell weight and yolk index increased, with increasing dietary pomegranate seed oil inclusion levels. The increasing dietary pomegranate seed oil inclusion levels increased egg yolk dry matter content, ash content and antioxidant activity as measured with ferric reducing antioxidant power. Regarding the egg fatty acid profile, the contents of conjugated linoleic acid, saturated fatty acid, polyunsaturated fatty acids were increased. In conclusion, dietary pomegranate seed oil supplementation, at inclusion levels up to 1000 mg/kg of concentrate mixture, tended to improve performance of laying hens and some egg quality characteristics, and increased egg yolk conjugated linoleic acid and polyunsaturated fatty acids content indicating the potential to create enriched eggs