Yield and Quality Parameters of an Interspecific Hybrid \u3cem\u3ePennisetum Purpureum\u3c/em\u3e Schum. (Elephant-Grass) \u3cem\u3eX Pennisetum Glaucum\u3c/em\u3e (L.) R. Br. Stuntz (Pearl Millet)

Elephant-grass is a tropical forage grass used either as a supplement fodder or for direct grazing. It usually shows regular nutritive value (6-13% crude protein, CP, and 55-60% forage digestibility) (Alcantara et al., 1981). Most of the available cultivars produce no viable seeds. On the other hand, pearl millet has high seed yielding potential along with high quality forage (\u3e15% CP and 70% forage digestibility). However, it shows poor forage production, low field persistence under grazing and low regrowth potential after cutting or grazing. During the 90\u27s, an interspecific hybrid between the two species was developed, trying to combine the elephant-grass adaaptability and forage yielding potential with the pearl millet forage quality and seed yielding potential (Schank et al., 1993; Schank, 1996). The new genetic material was able to produce viable seeds in variable amounts (Diz et al., 1995). The main aim of this research was to produce selected populations with high phenotypic uniformities, showing high average forage production and quality

Expected investment of Tocantins farmers, Brazil, to apply integrated crop-livestock system during Embrapa's technology transfer

In this presentation, we report the data of these farmers collected in the beginning of the project to analyze their current conditions and expectations regarding the implementation of the new integrated system

New Pigeon Pea (\u3cem\u3eCajanus Cajan\u3c/em\u3e) Hybrids With Desirable Forage Traits

Pigeon pea is a tropical forage legume usually sown in mixed pastures with tropical forage grasses. Most of the available cultivars shows erect and tall plants with poor tillering potential, breakable thick stems, low leaf/stem ratios (fresh/dry matter) and low persistence under animal grazing. It shows a high dry matter production, due to low leaf/stem ratios (Barnes & Addo, 1997). Pigeon pea shows good crude protein levels/dry matter (ranging from 14-23%) and regular in vitro digestibility indexes (52-58%) (Karachi & Matata, 1996); animal consumption is affected by high tannin levels of young leaves. Being a self-pollinated species, the variability for forage traits occurs among cultivars available at germplasm banks. No significant variation is observed for any forage character within a given population. Effective selection and releasing of new genetic materials bearing desirable morpho-agronomic and forage traits is mostly dependent on increases of genetic variation, which may be accomplished through artificial crossings between selected parentals. This research work was aimed at the synthesis of new pigeon pea hybrids, hopefully bearing new desirable forage characters

Percolation Threshold, Fisher Exponent, and Shortest Path Exponent for 4 and 5 Dimensions

We develop a method of constructing percolation clusters that allows us to build very large clusters using very little computer memory by limiting the maximum number of sites for which we maintain state information to a number of the order of the number of sites in the largest chemical shell of the cluster being created. The memory required to grow a cluster of mass s is of the order of $s^\theta$ bytes where $\theta$ ranges from 0.4 for 2-dimensional lattices to 0.5 for 6- (or higher)-dimensional lattices. We use this method to estimate $d_{\scriptsize min}$, the exponent relating the minimum path $\ell$ to the Euclidean distance r, for 4D and 5D hypercubic lattices. Analyzing both site and bond percolation, we find $d_{\scriptsize min}=1.607\pm 0.005$ (4D) and $d_{\scriptsize min}=1.812\pm 0.006$ (5D). In order to determine $d_{\scriptsize min}$ to high precision, and without bias, it was necessary to first find precise values for the percolation threshold, $p_c$: $p_c=0.196889\pm 0.000003$ (4D) and $p_c=0.14081\pm 0.00001$ (5D) for site and $p_c=0.160130\pm 0.000003$ (4D) and $p_c=0.118174\pm 0.000004$ (5D) for bond percolation. We also calculate the Fisher exponent, $\tau$, determined in the course of calculating the values of $p_c$: $\tau=2.313\pm 0.003$ (4D) and $\tau=2.412\pm 0.004$ (5D)

Master Operators Govern Multifractality in Percolation

Using renormalization group methods we study multifractality in percolation at the instance of noisy random resistor networks. We introduce the concept of master operators. The multifractal moments of the current distribution (which are proportional to the noise cumulants $C_R^{(l)} (x, x^\prime)$ of the resistance between two sites x and $x^\prime$ located on the same cluster) are related to such master operators. The scaling behavior of the multifractal moments is governed exclusively by the master operators, even though a myriad of servant operators is involved in the renormalization procedure. We calculate the family of multifractal exponents ${\psi_l}$ for the scaling behavior of the noise cumulants, $C_R^{(l)} (x, x^\prime) \sim | x - x^\prime |^{\psi_l /\nu}$, where $\nu$ is the correlation length exponent for percolation, to two-loop order.Comment: 6 page

Logarithmic Corrections in Dynamic Isotropic Percolation

Based on the field theoretic formulation of the general epidemic process we study logarithmic corrections to scaling in dynamic isotropic percolation at the upper critical dimension d=6. Employing renormalization group methods we determine these corrections for some of the most interesting time dependent observables in dynamic percolation at the critical point up to and including the next to leading correction. For clusters emanating from a local seed at the origin we calculate the number of active sites, the survival probability as well as the radius of gyration.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, version to appear in Phys. Rev.