A serological comparison of complement fixation reactions using Brucella abortus and B. melitensis antigens in B. abortus infected cattle

Brucella abortus and B. melitensis antigens were used in parallel on the National Standard Brucella abortus antiserum and on field sera coming from cattle where practically exclusively B. abortus biotypes 1 and 2 have been isolated over the last 11 years. With the National Standard serum the titres to B. melitensis were consistently lower than those to B. abortus antigen. Most were 1 dilution (twofold) lower. Although a similar trend was seen with the field sera, there were 7/346 sera which had twofold or higher titres to B. melitensis antigen. Although this may be due to the vagaries of the test it also warrants closer investigation of the animals concerned to see whether M-antigen predominant Brucella biotypes are possibly present. The use of the dual antigens could identify herds which are infected only with A-antigen predominant brucellae but would not be reliable for classifying individual animals.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.mn201

Carcass characteristics and meat quality of sheep fed buffelgrass silage to replace corn silage

The aim of the study was to evaluate the carcass characteristics, proximate composition, and sensorial attributes of meat from sheep fed diets in which buffelgrass silage replaced corn silage. Thirty-two intact male crossbred Santa Inês sheep with an average live weight of 20.09 ± 2.0 kg were housed in individual stalls and allotted at random to four treatments in which corn silage was replaced by buffelgrass silage at the levels of 0 (control), 33.3%, 66.6%, and 100%. After an adaption period of 10 days, the sheep were fed for an additional 61 days. Feed was offered ad libitum and corn silage comprised 60% of the diet for the control group. Carcass characteristics, non-carcass components and meat quality were evaluated. Hot carcass yield, cold carcass yield, true carcass yield, trimmings, fat weight, and mesenteric and omental fat weight were highest for the control group (P <0.05). Loin eye area had a quadratic response (P =0.02), with the largest areas being observed in animals fed the diet containing 66.6% buffelgrass silage. Liver weight (P <0.01), luminosity of the meat (P <0.05), and cooking loss (P <0.05) likewise had nonlinear responses to the concentration of buffelgrass silage in the diet. The treatments did not have significant negative influence on the nutritional and organoleptic characteristics of the meat

Plântulas de soja 'Tracajá' expostas ao ozônio sob condições controladas

The objective of this work was to assess initial growth, biomass production, gas exchange and antioxidative defenses of soybean 'Tracajá' seedlings, cultivated in the Amazonian region, exposed to ozone under controlled conditions. Seeds germinated in pots were placed in two chambers, one with filtered air (AF) and other with filtered air plus 30 ppb of ozone (AF + O 3). At 10 and 20 days after sowing, gas exchange, growth and biomass were measured; at 20 days after sowing, antioxidative defenses (ascorbic acid and superoxide dismutase) were analyzed. Net photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, height, leaf area and biomass were 16, 27, 11, 22, 29 and 18% smaller, respectively, in AF + O3 at 10 days after sowing. At 20 days after sowing, besides this parameters, root length, stem diameter and root:shoot ratio were 10, 15 and 12% smaller, respectively, although ascorbic acid concentrations and superoxide dismutase activity increased. Soybean 'Tracajá' seedlings have low tolerance to concentration of 30 ppb of ozone