Thinning with lime sulphur - effect on flowers or on leaves?

Behandlung von nicht nur der Blüten aber auch die Rosettenblätter mit Schwefelkalk vergrößert nicht den Ausdünnungseffekt. Das Entfernen (einen Teil) der Rosettenblätter verringerte den Fruchtansatz ein wenig aber vergrößerte den Junifall stark. Die Schlussfolgerung war das Schwefelkalk ausdünnend wirkt durch Verbrennung der Blüte und nicht durch Schädigung der Blätter. In diesem Fall mit Handsprühgerät, wann die Blumen gut getroffen werden mit Schwefelkalk, ist die Ausdünnung sehr gut

Effectivity of lime sulphur as a flower thinning agent

Unter 3 verschiedenen Bedingungen wurde die Blütenausdünnung vom Schwefelkalk untersucht. Die Wirkung wechselt von 12 bis 40% abhängig von Spritzgerät, Anwendungszeit und Wassermenge. Die Daten nach Junifall sind gestört durch schweren Apfelsägewespenbefall. Durch die Spritzungen ist die Dünnungsarbeit im Juli kaum verringert, aber die Chance auf Blütenknospen für das nächste Jahr verbessert. Über Nebenwirkungen von dieser Anwendung von Schwefelkalk ist noch zu melden: keine Blattbeschädigung, keine Berostung und 0,4 Samen weniger pro Frucht

Alternativen für Kupfer gegen Schorf auf Jonagold

Copper is currently the strongest fungicide available to organic fruit growers. Unfortunately it is not environmentally safe and it has a bad image with the consumer. As a result, there is pressure to abandon copper altogether. In 1999 the Fruit Research Station FPO and the Louis Bolk Institute carried out a spray trial to assess the potential of various alternatives

Calcium hydroxide against apple canker (Nectria galligena)

Anwendung von 3x 50 kg/ha ungenutzte Lagerkalk (Kalziumhydroxid) in Blattfallperiode verringert die Anzahl von krebsbefallenen Zweigen im darauf folgenden Juni mit maximal 40%. Nicht oder weniger effektiv zeigte sich Baumanstrich, benutzte Lagerkalk, Landbaukalk, Schachtelhalm Tee, Mikroorganismen oder Wasserglas

Prevalence and risk factors of dry eye in 79,866 participants of the population-based Lifelines cohort study in the Netherlands

Purpose: To investigate the prevalence of dry eye among all adult age categories and to discover independent risk factors by investigating a wide range of etiological categories. Methods: A cross-sectional association study including 79,866 voluntary participants aged 20-94 years of the population-based Lifelines Cohort Study in the Netherlands. Results: Overall, 9.1% of participants had dry eye disease as measured by the Women's Health Study dry eye questionnaire. Prevalence of dry eye symptoms were particularly prevalent in 20-30 years olds. Dry eye was associated with comorbidities in almost all body systems, including musculoskeletal, gastro-intestinal, ophthalmic, autoimmune, psychiatric, pain, functional, dermatological and atopic disorders. Numerous independent risk factors were discovered or confirmed, with strong associations for female sex, contact lens use, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, eye surgery including cataract and laser refractive surgery, keratoconus, osteoarthritis, connective tissue diseases, atherosclerosis, Graves' disease, autistic disorder, depression, 'burnout', Crohn's disease, sarcoid, lichen planus, rosacea, liver cirrhosis, sleep apnea, sinusitis, thyroid function, and air pollution (NO2). High blood pressure and high BMI were strongly associated with less dry eye, as was current smoking, while ex-smokers had more dry eye. No clear link between dry eye and lipid or blood glucose levels was found. Conclusions: This study on dry eye confirmed but also refuted many risk factors from smaller epidemiological studies, and discovered numerous new risk factors in multiple etiological categories. The finding that dry eye symptoms are particularly common in young adults is concerning, and warrants further study

Microstructural Visual Pathway White Matter Alterations in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma:A Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging Study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: DTI studies of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma have demonstrated that glaucomatous degeneration is not confined to the retina but involves the entire visual pathway. Due to the lack of direct biologic interpretation of DTI parameters, the structural nature of this degeneration is still poorly understood. We used neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) to characterize the microstructural changes in the pregeniculate optic tracts and the postgeniculate optic radiations of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma, to better understand the mechanisms underlying these changes.& nbsp;MATERIALS AND METHODS: T1- and multishell diffusion-weighted scans were obtained from 23 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma and 29 controls. NODDI parametric maps were produced from the diffusion-weighted scans, and probabilistic tractography was used to track the optic tracts and optic radiations. NODDI parameters were computed for the tracked pathways, and the measures were compared between both groups. The retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and visual field loss were assessed for the patients with glaucoma.& nbsp;RESULTS: The optic tracts of the patients with glaucoma showed a higher orientation dispersion index and a lower neurite density index compared with the controls (

Visual Field Reconstruction Using fMRI-Based Techniques

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy and reliability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-based techniques to assess the integrity of the visual field (VF). Methods: We combined 3T fMRI and neurocomputational models, that is, conventional population receptive field (pRF) mapping and a new advanced pRF framework "microprobing" (MP), to reconstruct the VF representations of different cortical areas. To demonstrate their scope, both approaches were applied in healthy participants with simulated scotomas and participants with glaucoma. For the latter group we compared the VFs obtained with standard automated perimetry (SAP) and via fMRI. Results: Using SS, we found that the fMRI-based techniques can detect absolute defects in VFs that are larger than 3°, in single participants, based on 12 minutes of fMRI scan time. Moreover, we found that the MP approach results in a less biased estimation of the preserved VF. In participants with glaucoma, we found that fMRI-based VF reconstruction detected VF defects with a correspondence to SAP that was decent, reflected by the positive correlation between fMRI-based sampling density and SAP-based contrast sensitivity loss (SAP) r2 = 0.44, P = 0.0002. This correlation was higher for MP compared to that for the conventional pRF analysis. Conclusions: The fMRI-based reconstruction of the VF enables the evaluation of vision loss and provides useful details on the properties of the visual cortex. Translational Relevance: The fMRI-based VF reconstruction provides an objective alternative to detect VF defects. It may either complement SAP or could provide VF information in patients unable to perform SAP

Medication use and dry eye symptoms:A large, hypothesis-free , population-based study in the Netherlands

Purpose: To date, population-based studies reporting associations between dry eye disease and medications were hypothesis-driven, did not take into account underlying comorbidities, and did not investigate individual drugs. The purpose of this study was to clarify the association of dry eye symptoms with medication classes and in-dividual drugs, using a hypothesis-free approach. Methods: 79,606 participants (age 20-97 years, 59.2% female) from the population-based Lifelines cohort in the Netherlands were cross-sectionally assessed for dry eye symptoms using the Womens' Health Study dry eye questionnaire. All medications used were coded with the ATC classification system. Logistic regression was used to assess the risk of the 59 most-used therapeutic/pharmacological subgroups and the 99 most-used individual drugs (all n > 200) on dry eye symptoms, correcting for age, sex, body mass index, and 48 comorbidities associated with dry eye. Results: Thirty-eight (64%) medication subgroups and fifty-two (53%) individual drugs were associated with dry eye symptoms (P < 0.05), after correction for age and sex only. A multivariable model correcting for comor-bidities revealed highly significant associations between dry eye symptoms and drugs for peptic ulcer (partic-ularly proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)), antiglaucoma and anticholinergic medications. Conclusions: This study underlines that medication use is highly informative of risk of dry eye symptoms. Correction for underlying comorbidities is critical to avoid confounding effects. This study confirms suggested associations between medications and dry eye symptoms at a population level and shows several new associa-tions. The novel link between PPIs and dry eye symptoms deserves particular attention given how commonly they are prescribed