The effect of irrigation method on the quality and shelf-life of strawberry fruit in organic production

The irrigation method did not affect either the shelf-life or the quality of fruit. In organic strawberry production grey mould is a major problem. Strawberry varieties differ from each other in disease susceptibility and the quality and shelf-life of the fruit is affected more by their properties and weather conditions than by the irrigation method

Screening strawberry plant resistance to Phytophthora cactorum with two techniques

P. cactorum infects runner plants in the NFT system fairly quickly, the first symptoms becoming visible in three to five days in susceptible cultivars. Most of the tested cultivars showed the same level of resistance in both tests

Handmade films and artist-run labs. The chemical sites of film’s counterculture

This article addresses handmade films and especially artist-run labs as sites of hands-on film culture that reactivate moments and materials from media history. Drawing on existing research, discourses and discussions with contemporary experimental filmmakers affiliated with labs or practicing their work in relation to film lab infrastructure, we focus on these sites of creation, preservation and circulation of technical knowledge about analog film. But instead of reinforcing the binary of analog vs. digital, we argue that the various material practices from self-made apparatuses to photochemistry and film emulsions are ways of understanding the multiple materials and layered histories that define post-digital culture of film. This focus links our discussion with some themes in media archaeology (experimental media archaeology as a practice) and to current discussions about labs as arts and humanities infrastructure for collective project and practice-based methods

'Suvetar' and 'Valotar' - new strawberry cultivars

The strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) cultivars ‘Suvetar’ and ‘Valotar’ have been released from the breeding programme of MTT Agrifood Research Finland. Both new cultivars overwintered as well as the control cultivars ‘Jonsok’ and ‘Polka’. ‘Suvetar’ overwintered even better than ‘Polka’. ‘Suvetar’ was produced from the cross ‘Polka’ × ‘Emily’. It scored better than the control cultivars for sensory assessed skin resistance. Measured fruit firmness of ‘Suvetar’ was not significantly different from that of ‘Polka’, but was better than ‘Jonsok’. ‘Valotar’ originates from a cross between ‘Jewel’ and ‘Senga Sengana’. Its measured fruit firmness was better than that of ‘Jonsok’ and ‘Polka’. Considering sensory assessments, the good firmness seems to be largely due to good skin resistance. The fresh flavour, yield, fruit size and fruit appearance of ‘Suvetar’ and ‘Valotar’, together with improved fruit firmness, make both the new varieties suitable for the fresh fruit market

A Slow, Contemporary Violence: Damaged Environments of Technological Culture

The contemporary moment is comprised of many overlapping speeds, rhythms, and periods of time. A central theme of Jussi Parikka’s book concerns slowness instead of acceleration: a different sort of a temporal horizon in order to understand some of the environmental temporalities that media and technological arts are involved in. This is approached through art and design practices that unfold this multiplicity of time, closely entwined with contemporary concerns in aesthetic theory, to understand and engage with the planetary time scales of slow environmental violence. The third volume of the Contemporary Condition series continues the investigation into contemporaneity as a defining condition of our historical present. The series aims to question the formation of subjectivity and concept of temporality in the world now. It begins from the assumption that art, with its ability to investigate the present and make meaning from it, can lead to an understanding of wider developments within culture and society. Addressing a perceived gap in existing literature on the subject, the series focuses on three broad strands: the issue of temporality, the role of contemporary media and computational technologies, and how artistic practice makes epistemic claims

The effect of different mulches on yield, fruit quality and strawberry mite in organically grown strawberry

An organic strawberry field experiment was started in 2000 at MTT Ecological Production in Mikkeli to study the influence of mulching materials on the growth, yield, microbiological fruit quality and strawberry mite. Mulching materials are black plastic, flax fibre mat, green mass, barley straw, buckwheat husk as well as pine and birch woodchips

Colletotrichum acutatum: survival in plant debris and infection on alternate hosts

The survival of Colletotrichum acutatum in infected plant material was studied in two trials: one in 2002-2003 and another in 2003-2005 with artificially infected strawberry leaves, crowns and berries

Cultural Techniques of Cognitive Capitalism: Metaprogramming and the Labour of Code

This article addresses cultural techniques of cognitive capitalism. The author argues that to understand the full implications of the notion of cognitive capitalism we need to address the media and cultural techniques which conditions its range and applications. The article offers an expanded understanding of the labour of code and programming through a case study of 'metaprogramming', a software related organisation practice that offered a way to think of software creativity and programming in organisations. The ideas from the 1970s that are discussed offer a different way to approach creativity and collaborative and post-Fordist capitalism. The author brings together different theoretical perspectives, including German media theory and Yann Moulier Boutang’s thesis about cognitive capitalism. The wider argument is that we should pay more attention to the media archaeological conditions of practices of labour and value appropriation of contemporary technological capitalism as well as the cultural techniques which include 'ontological and aesthetic operations' that produce cultural, material situations

Deep times of planetary trouble

This introduction to the special section on mediated geologies contextualizes the articles that follow within recent discussions concerning cultural politics of the environment, ecological contexts of contemporary media, and debates concerning the Anthropocene. The special section approaches the topics from the angle of media studies and argues for new ways to understand media culture as read through a materials focus: from waste to building materials and from temperature control to more conceptual developments concerning new materialism. The introduction discusses these ideas as extensions of material media theory and addresses how they can complement already existing ideas in the field

Building the dream online: Does participation in luxury brand's social media affect brand experience, brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty?

The global market for luxury goods has witnessed a phenomenal growth over the past decades. Along with the increasing demand that stems from increased purchasing power, emerging markets, and new wider consumer groups, traditional luxury brands have faced a fierce competition caused by new forms of luxury such as masstige and luxurious fashion. Likewise, the rapid growth of social networks and social media has fundamentally transformed the business environment, and the whole society. Digital networks have facilitated companies and consumers to build online consumption communities, which supports the recent shift of marketing focus on relationships and co-creation of value. Consequently, luxury brands have started to use social media for advertising and relationship marketing. Due to the dynamic and interactive digital environment the importance of brand stories has become even more apparent. While brand communities and online communities are widely studied, luxury brands and social media based brand communities (SMBBCs) have not received yet much academic attention. This study takes the approach of SMBBCs to investigate the influence of consumers' participation in luxury brand's social media on brand experience, and on key dependent variables in consumer behavior research: brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of social media, and to contribute to the research on social media brand communities and brand-consumer relationships, as well as luxury brands. The study proposes a theoretical framework that combines two empirically developed constructs: brand experience, and brand affect/trust-brand loyalty constructs, and tests the model within a social media based luxury brand community context. The data were collected as an online survey from various social media, which resulted in 333 valid responses from consumers who follow a luxury brand's social media. The study is quantitative by nature, and uses structural equation modeling (SEM) as the main method of analysis. To further examine the influence of participation on the focal construct, brand experience, analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also conducted. The results support the reasoning that participation in luxury brand's social media affect consumer behavior. Social media following influences brand experience that accumulates in the long run, but participation affects also rapidly consumers new to the brand. Further, active participation and passive participation appear to have equal influence on brand experience. The findings reveal the chain of effects from brand related stimuli to brand affect, brand trust, and brand loyalty, and confirm the importance of affect in building brand loyalty