Carbon and water footprints in Brazilian coffee plantations - the spatial and temporal distribution

The future of many coffee growing regions, such as Brazil, depends on strategies to allow the minimization of the negative impacts of climate change. Still the own contribution of coffee cultivation for global warming is largely unknown. Water and carbon footprints are concepts that indicate the potential negative impact of a specific product, underlining which part of the process is the major responsible for it. In this context, the objective of this study was to quantify and spatialize the water and carbon footprints from coffee crop in different regions of Brazil, and to find the proportional weight of coffee production in the total emission of CO2 and water consumption in the context of Brazilian agriculture. For this end, water and carbon footprints were estimated and spatialized for Brazilian regions along 10 productive seasons (from 2004/2005 to 2014/2015), based on data of plantation area (ha) and coffee production (tons of beans). It is concluded that the estimates of annual carbon and water footprints were 19.791 million t CO2-equivalent and 49,284 million m3 of water, with higher values from the Southeast region. This corresponded to a moderate (ca. 5%) value for the emissions of greenhouse gases, but a relevant water footprint in the context of Brazilian agricultureinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterization of Coffee ringspot virus-Lavras: A model for an emerging threat to coffee production and quality

AbstractThe emergence of viruses in Coffee (Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora), the most widely traded agricultural commodity in the world, is of critical concern. The RNA1 (6552nt) of Coffee ringspot virus is organized into five open reading frames (ORFs) capable of encoding the viral nucleocapsid (ORF1p), phosphoprotein (ORF2p), putative cell-to-cell movement protein (ORF3p), matrix protein (ORF4p) and glycoprotein (ORF5p). Each ORF is separated by a conserved intergenic junction. RNA2 (5945nt), which completes the bipartite genome, encodes a single protein (ORF6p) with homology to RNA-dependent RNA polymerases. Phylogenetic analysis of L protein sequences firmly establishes CoRSV as a member of the recently proposed Dichorhavirus genus. Predictive algorithms, in planta protein expression, and a yeast-based nuclear import assay were used to determine the nucleophillic character of five CoRSV proteins. Finally, the temperature-dependent ability of CoRSV to establish systemic infections in an initially local lesion host was quantified

Low temperature behavior of poultry fat biodiesel:diesel blends

AbstractAs the worldwide consumption of poultry meat rises the use of poultry fat as a feedstock for biodiesel production becomes attractive considering economical and environmental reasons. However, poultry fat biodiesel still faces some restrictions due to its poor flow properties at low temperatures. In this study ethylic and methylic poultry fat biodiesels and their blends with diesel were evaluated in terms of flow properties. Modulated Temperature Differential Scanning Calorimetry (MT-DSC) was used to understand the physical meaning of properties as Cold Filter Plugging Point (CFPP), Pour Point (PP) and Cloud Point (CP), widely used in biodiesel characterization. Based on the MT-DSC studies, it was observed that the first crystallization peak temperature had values similar to CFPP and CP. This way CP was found to be associated with the first solidified material and not with the early formation of the first nuclei, as normally reported. On the other hand, these crystals already lead to the flow decrease, as indicate by the CFPP results. PP values were close to the second crystallization peak temperature, not being related to the complete solidification of the fuel

Ciências sociais e ambientais rural: principais temas e perspectivas analíticas.

Este trabalho tem por finalidade fazer um balanço dos estudos ambientais rurais sob a perspectiva das ciências sociais. Para isso, em primeiro lugar, realiza-se uma análise da trajetória dos movimentos sociais, identificando-se as principais questões ambientais emergentes na ótica dos atores do mundo rural. Num segundo momento, agrupam-se os temas privilegiados pelos pesquisadores para, em seguida, apontar as principais perspectivas analíticas em curso