Participatory Approach to Optimizing Cabbage Fertilization System for Improved Yield, Quality and Shelf Life

Cabbage fertilization system was optimized following the participatory approach by factoring in farmers’ practices, conducting optimization trials on farmers’ field, and employing farmer-researcher co-management of on-farm trials. Five different rates of fertilizer application were documented in the survey of farmers in a vegetable-growing area in Central Philippines. They served as basis for the fertilizer treatments (2 organic fertilizer levels using chicken dung or CD and 5 inorganic fertilizer levels using complete fertilizer 14-14-14 and urea 46-0-0) tested in on-farm trials in the dry season (December to May) and wet season (June to November). Other cultural practices were those employed by farmers with some good practices introduced. Optimum fertilization rate was 2.3 tons CD/ha + 112-47-47 (336 kg 14-14-14 and 141 kg 46-0-0 per hectare) for both dry and wet season crops, giving yields of 29.5 and 10.7 tons/ha, respectively, with net profit-cost ratio of 4.41 and 2.14, respectively, or more than 2-3 times higher than that of unfertilized crops. In addition, the heads produced were flatter and more compact and had longer shelf life due to lower weight loss and trimming loss, particularly for dry-season crop, compared to other fertilizer treatments. The participatory approach equipped farmers with first-hand knowledge and skills on how to improve existing cultural practices to generate high quality yields and farm profits

Fruit Quality of Grafted Bitter Melon with Different Sponge Gourd Rootstocks Stored Under Evaporative Cooling Conditions

Evaporative cooling helps maintain quality of produce over a longer period of time. This condition slows metabolic processes and inhibits undesirable changes in quality due to biotic and abiotic factors. The study determined the fruit quality of bitter melon (Momordica charantia L.) grafted with sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica L.) held at evaporative cooling condition (25–27 °C) with a relative humidity ranging from 85% to 96%. Bitter melon var. Galaxy was grafted to different sponge gourd rootstocks before establishment and regular maintenance in the field. Hybrid sponge gourd var. Mutya, open-pollinated variety (var. Esmeralda), and Bureau of Plant Industry bacterial wilt–resistant sponge gourd (BPI BW-resistant var.) were utilized as rootstocks. Nongrafted bitter melon served as the control. Commercially mature fruit samples were then harvested and brought to the laboratory for quality assessment and monitoring. A completely randomized design was used and treatments were replicated thrice. Results revealed that nongrafted bitter melon samples had higher weight loss and lower visual quality rating compared to the grafted sample fruits. Disease incidence and color change were also higher for the nongrafted bitter melon compared to the grafted bitter melon sample fruits suggesting reduced bacterial wilt activity resulting to better quality after storage. Bitter melon grafted into hybrid sponge gourd rootstock (var. Mutya) revealed the longest shelf life of 6 days. The shelf lives of OPV var. Esmeralda (5.57 days) and BPI BW-resistant var. (5.43 days) were comparable with hybrid sponge gourd var. Mutya. However, hybrid sponge gourd var. Mutya had significantly longer shelf life compared to the nongrafted bitter melon (4.33 days). The results could greatly contribute to addressing food security issues, which are often encountered during production

Postharvest Quality of Wood Vinegar–Treated Eggplants under Various Storage Conditions

Wood vinegar (pyroligneous acid or pyrolysis oil) is a liquid produced by means of natural carbonization from available plant refuse. It has been reported to have numerous potential benefits both to agriculture and human health and to enhance harvest and postharvest quality of various fruits and vegetables. In this study, evaluation of the effects of wood vinegar and storage conditions to enhance the postharvest quality of ‘Morena’ eggplant was evaluated. A 2 × 3 factorial experiment was laid out in completely randomized design with six treatments and three replications and each replication having 30 fruit samples. The highly perishable eggplant was treated with wood vinegar (10%) from citrus tree refuse as postharvest dip, while tap water served as control, for 2 minutes before storage at ambient (25–28 °C), refrigerated (7–10 °C), or evaporative cooling box-type (18–21 °C) condition with a relative humidity of 66%, 76%, and 96%, respectively. Samples were stored for a week. Results revealed that eggplants treated with 10% wood vinegar did not differ in terms of percent weight loss, shelf life (days), total soluble solids (°Brix), and titratable acidity (% malic acid) relative to the control. For storage conditions, ambient condition displayed the highest total soluble solids and percent weight loss. Titratable acidity and shelf life were not significantly affected among storage treatments, which ranged from 0.17% to 0.21% and 4.5 to 7.1 days, respectively. Chilling injury was evident on the eggplants in evaporative cooling condition. The preliminary results could serve as basis for further intervention studies to enhance the quality of eggplant

Effects of Packaging Systems on Eggplant Quality during Transport

Eggplants (Solanum melongena) are extremely predisposed to injury during haulage, which considerably diminishes fruit value. The study aimed to develop packaging systems to maintain the market quality of ‘Morena’ eggplant during transport along the market continuum. A 6 × 2 factorial in completely randomized design was laid out using freshly harvested eggplant. Fruits with uniform maturity and size and were damage free were procured from Brgy. Butigan, Baybay, Leyte. Fruits were packed using six types of containers, namely, rattan basket, plastic crate, polyethylene plastic bag, and styrofoam cooler in which both rattan basket and plastic crates were with and without banana leaves as liners. Fruits were arranged together following the conventional practice of product loading by the traders. After transport, fruits from the different containers were stored in ambient (25–30 °C) or refrigerated (8– 10 °C) conditions at a postharvest technology laboratory wherein storage behavior was monitored and evaluated. The results revealed that chemical quality attributes were not significantly affected by the kind of packing materials used. Quantitative physico-chemical attributes were affected by the type of storage condition. Storing the fruits at refrigerated condition prolonged the shelf life up to 8–10 days. The results provide valuable information for establishing a better transport scheme that could be utilized in both domestic and export markets

Evaluation of alternative preservation treatments (water heat treatment, ultrasounds, thermosonication and UV-C radiation) to improve safety and quality of whole tomato

Previously optimised postharvest treatments were compared to conventional chlorinated water treatment in terms of their effects on the overall quality of tomato (‘Zinac’) during storage at 10 °C. The treatments in question were water heat treatment (WHT = 40 °C, 30 min), ultrasounds (US = 45 kHz, 80 %, 30 min), thermosonication (TS =40 °C, 30 min, 45 kHz, 80 %) and ultraviolet irradiation (UV-C: 0.97 kJ m−2). The quality factors evaluated were colour, texture, sensorial analysis, mass loss, antioxidant capacity, total phenolic content, peroxidase and pectin methylesterase enzymatic activities, and microbial load reduction. The results demonstrate that all treatments tested preserve tomato quality to some extent during storage at 10 °C. WHT, TS and UV-C proved to be more efficient on minimising colour and texture changes with the additional advantage of microbial load reduction, leading to a shelf life extension when compared to control trials. However, at the end of storage, with exception of WHT samples, the antioxidant activity and phenolic content of treated samples was lower than for control samples. Moreover, sensorial results were well correlated with instrumental colour experimental data. This study presents alternative postharvest technologies that improve tomato (Zinac) quality during shelf life period and minimise the negative impact of conventional chlorinated water on human safety, health and environment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations

Search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons in final states with two same-sign or three leptons with the ATLAS detector

A search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons is reported. The search targets a final state with exactly two leptons with same-sign electric charge or at least three leptons without any charge requirement. The analysed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Multiple signal regions are defined, targeting several SUSY simplified models yielding the desired final states. A single control region is used to constrain the normalisation of the WZ + jets background. No significant excess of events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. The results are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models featuring R-parity conservation or R-parity violation, yielding exclusion limits surpassing those from previous searches. In models considering gluino (squark) pair production, gluino (squark) masses up to 2.2 (1.7) TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level

Performance and calibration of quark/gluon-jet taggers using 140 fb⁻¹ of pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The identification of jets originating from quarks and gluons, often referred to as quark/gluon tagging, plays an important role in various analyses performed at the Large Hadron Collider, as Standard Model measurements and searches for new particles decaying to quarks often rely on suppressing a large gluon-induced background. This paper describes the measurement of the efficiencies of quark/gluon taggers developed within the ATLAS Collaboration, using √s=13 TeV proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1 collected by the ATLAS experiment. Two taggers with high performances in rejecting jets from gluon over jets from quarks are studied: one tagger is based on requirements on the number of inner-detector tracks associated with the jet, and the other combines several jet substructure observables using a boosted decision tree. A method is established to determine the quark/gluon fraction in data, by using quark/gluon-enriched subsamples defined by the jet pseudorapidity. Differences in tagging efficiency between data and simulation are provided for jets with transverse momentum between 500 GeV and 2 TeV and for multiple tagger working points

Electron and photon energy calibration with the ATLAS detector using LHC Run 2 data

This paper presents the electron and photon energy calibration obtained with the ATLAS detector using 140 fb-1 of LHC proton-proton collision data recorded at √(s) = 13 TeV between 2015 and 2018. Methods for the measurement of electron and photon energies are outlined, along with the current knowledge of the passive material in front of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter. The energy calibration steps are discussed in detail, with emphasis on the improvements introduced in this paper. The absolute energy scale is set using a large sample of Z-boson decays into electron-positron pairs, and its residual dependence on the electron energy is used for the first time to further constrain systematic uncertainties. The achieved calibration uncertainties are typically 0.05% for electrons from resonant Z-boson decays, 0.4% at ET ∼ 10 GeV, and 0.3% at ET ∼ 1 TeV; for photons at ET ∼ 60 GeV, they are 0.2% on average. This is more than twice as precise as the previous calibration. The new energy calibration is validated using J/ψ → ee and radiative Z-boson decays

Combination of searches for heavy spin-1 resonances using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A combination of searches for new heavy spin-1 resonances decaying into different pairings of W, Z, or Higgs bosons, as well as directly into leptons or quarks, is presented. The data sample used corresponds to 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at = 13 TeV collected during 2015–2018 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Analyses selecting quark pairs (qq, bb, , and tb) or third-generation leptons (τν and ττ) are included in this kind of combination for the first time. A simplified model predicting a spin-1 heavy vector-boson triplet is used. Cross-section limits are set at the 95% confidence level and are compared with predictions for the benchmark model. These limits are also expressed in terms of constraints on couplings of the heavy vector-boson triplet to quarks, leptons, and the Higgs boson. The complementarity of the various analyses increases the sensitivity to new physics, and the resulting constraints are stronger than those from any individual analysis considered. The data exclude a heavy vector-boson triplet with mass below 5.8 TeV in a weakly coupled scenario, below 4.4 TeV in a strongly coupled scenario, and up to 1.5 TeV in the case of production via vector-boson fusion