The Effect of Preharvest Factors on Fruit and Nutritional Quality in Strawberry

Strawberries play an essential role in human nutrition and health, especially as a source of vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. They also have health-promoting compounds that lower the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. The nutritional value of strawberries varies greatly among cultivars. Traditional and molecular breeding techniques can be used to develop varieties with enhanced nutritional quality and improved flavor to meet consumer preferences. Climatic conditions, such as temperature and light intensity, and other preharvest factors, e.g., soil type, fertilization, irrigation, mulching, and other cultural practices, have a significant effect on strawberry fruit quality. Additionally, the extent of postharvest physical and physiological injury and potential fruit loss is affected by preharvest parameters. In this chapter, the effect of preharvest factors on fruit and nutritional quality of strawberry is discussed

Assessment of Antibiotic Residues in Raw and Pasteurized Milk Produced by Different Analytical Methods

Background: Due to lack of attention to the required time of emulating the absorbed doses of drugs from different organs, inappropriate use of antibiotics for disease treatment in animals causes many adverse health effects in consumers. In this study, the antibiotic residues in raw and pasteurized milk were evaluated in Neyshabour city.Methods: Raw and pasteurized milk samples were collected from eight farms and milk collection units and four pasteurized milk production factories in Neyshabour city during the warm and cold seasons. 56 samples of raw milk and 24 samples of pasteurized milk were analyzed using the Copan milk test, Tri-Sensor kit and ELISA detection methods to evaluate presence of the antibiotic residue.Results: Copan milk test and Tri-Sensor kit did not detect the antibiotic residue. ELISA kit was able to detect the presence of gentamicin and streptomycin in milk. 25% of the samples contained gentamicin, while 10% of the samples contained streptomycin. The amount of antibiotic residue in the warm season was higher than cold season. 58.3% of pasteurized milk samples in the warm season had gentamicin.Conclusion: Based on our results, extensive and accurate monitoring of antibiotics in raw and pasteurized milk needs to be performed in the city, especially in warm seasons

Role of Natural Volatiles and Essential Oils in Extending Shelf Life and Controlling Postharvest Microorganisms of Small Fruits

Small fruits are a multi-billion dollar industry in the US, and are economically important in many other countries. However, they are perishable and susceptible to physiological disorders and biological damage. Food safety and fruit quality are the major concerns of the food chain from farm to consumer, especially with increasing regulations in recent years. At present, the industry depends on pesticides and fungicides to control food spoilage organisms. However, due to consumer concerns and increasing demand for safer produce, efforts are being made to identify eco-friendly compounds that can extend the shelf life of small fruits. Most volatiles and essential oils produced by plants are safe for humans and the environment, and lots of research has been conducted to test the in vitro efficacy of single-compound volatiles or multi-compound essential oils on various microorganisms. However, there are not many reports on their in vivo (in storage) and In situ (in the field) applications. In this review, we discuss the efficacy, minimum inhibitory concentrations, and mechanisms of action of volatiles and essential oils that control microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) on small fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and grapes under the three conditions

Extraction Solvents Affect Anthocyanin Yield, Color, and Profile of Strawberries

Anthocyanins are a major group of plant pigments that have antioxidant activities. Pigments play a major role in human health and have attracted a lot of attention globally. Many factors affect anthocyanin yields, such as solvent type, incubation time, solvent-to-sample ratio, sample type, and temperature. The first parameter was tested, and the rest were considered constant in this experiment. A total of nine organic and water-based solvents (methanol and chloroform: methanol, acetone, ethanol, water) and their combinations were compared to extract anthocyanins from freshly-pureed strawberries. Solvents changed anthocyanin yield, color parameters, and profile. The color parameters of a* values lower than 30, L* values higher than 85, hue angle more than 40, and chroma less than 30 indicated some color degradation in strawberry anthocyanins. Therefore, the best solvents for anthocyanin assessment were methanol and methanol: water. The second-best solvent was the pH differential buffers. Other solvents such as ethanol, chloroform: methanol, water, and water-based solvents extracted considerable amounts of anthocyanins; however, they showed some degree of color degradation, evidenced by the color parameters. Acetone did not yield a stable extract which degraded over 48 h of storage at 4 °C. The extraction solvent determined the main anthocyanin of the anthocyanins profile. Pelargonidin was the major anthocyanin in chloroform: methanol solvent, while delphinidin was dominant in all other solvents

System-level MP-SoC Design Space Exploration Using Tree Visualization

Abstract — The complexity of today’s embedded systems forces designers to model and simulate systems and their components to explore the wide range of design choices. Such design space exploration is especially needed during the early design stages, where the design space is at its largest. Due to the exponential design space in real problems, evaluating and comparing every single point in the design space is infeasible. Therefore, heuristic search techniques, such as Evolutionary Algorithms (EA), are often used to search the design space for optimum design points using only a finite number of design-point evaluations. Understanding how the design space was searched by such searching algorithms and providing insight into the “landscape” of the design space, may be of invaluable importance to the designer, To this end, this paper presents a novel interactive visualization application, based on tree visualization, to understand the search dynamics of an evolutionary algorithm and to visualize where the optimum design points are located in the design space. Keywords — Design space exploration, multimedia MP-SoC design, visualization, evolutionary algorithms. I

Pre-operative evaluation of living kidney donors using computerized tomographic angiography (CTA) and conventional angiography: Comparison with intraoperative findings

This study was undertaken to assess the accuracy of computerized tomographic angiography (CTA) for the evaluation of renal vascular anatomy for pre-operative donor assessment in living kidney transplantation and to compare it with conventional angiography. CTA of 70 living donor kidney donors were analyzed by two blinded observers and compared with the intraoperative findings. Similarly, findings of formal angiography of 30 living donor kidney donors were compared with the intraoperative observations. In the CTA group, there were two patients each with two main renal veins discovered during surgery that had not been recorded on CTA. In the second group, there was one patient with unrevealed two main renal veins before surgery. In both groups, accessory renal arteries were diagnosed. Overall, the accuracy for renal main artery anatomy was 100% for both CTA and conventional angiography. Accuracy for renal main vein anatomy was 97.1% and 96.6% for CTA and conventional angiography, respectively. Hence, these two modalities had comparable results for assessment of main renal vasculature anatomy

Agronomic and Post-Harvest Performance of Strawberry Cultivars in High Tunnel and Open-Field Environment in Southeast Virginia

This study evaluated crop yield potential, season extension, and post-harvest parameters of strawberry cultivars grown in open-field and high tunnel, annual hill production systems. Tested cultivars included “Albion,” “Camino Real,” “Chandler,” “Merced,” “Rocco,” “Ruby June,” “San Andreas,” and “Sweet Ann.” Strawberry plugs were transplanted in the first week of October 2019. The harvest period in the high tunnel was January 2020 through June 2020, while the harvest period in the open-field was April 2020 through June 2020. Except for “Albion” (474 g/plant) having low yield, most cultivars had similar total yields in the high tunnel. “Chandler,” “Rocco” and “Sweet Ann” had the greatest total yields in the open-field (~870 to 780 g/plant). “Albion,” “Merced,” “Ruby June,” “San Andreas” and “Sweet Ann” had the greatest fruit weights in each environment. “Camino Real” and “Ruby June” had the firmest fruit in both environments. In addition, “Merced” produced firm fruits under a high tunnel environment. “Rocco,” and “Ruby June,” had the greatest total soluble solids (~8.7 °Brix) and titratable acidity (>1.85%) in the high tunnel. Total soluble solids for most cultivars were similar in open-field environments. Titratable acidity was greatest (>1.68%) for “Albion,” “Chandler,” “Rocco” and “Ruby June” in open-field production. Different cultivars offered slightly different market-desirable traits. Although the high tunnel system extended the season, achieving marketable yield in high tunnel is challenging due to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Principal component analysis indicated that a more moderate plant size may deliver a greater proportion of large, marketable berries

Performance of hazelnut cultivars and selections in southern Ontario

The global demand for hazelnuts is increasing steadily, driven by increasing use by chocolate companies, pharmaceuticals, health products, and others. North America only produces 5% of the world crop, of which 99% is produced in Oregon (OR, USA). Most available cultivars are adapted to areas with mild winters and thus do not perform well in Ontario (ON, Canada). Our objective was to identify genotypes capable of supporting the newly formed hazelnut industry in southern Ontario. In the last several decades, selections have been identified in ON, New York (NY, USA), and Michigan (MI, USA) that may be better adapted in ON than cultivars from Europe and OR. To test our hypothesis that these new selections would outperform cultivars from Europe and OR in southern Ontario, two trials were performed to evaluate yield, nut quality, and winter hardiness. As hypothesized, selections from ON and NY such as ‘Gene’, ‘Alex’, and ‘Slate’ were winter hardy and highest yielding, followed by ‘Butler’ and ‘Gamma’ from OR; however, these selections did not perform well in other assessed parameters such as nut quality and catkin survivability. Possible explanations for the poor performance of the European and OR cultivars include (i) longer time needed to acclimatize and enter production phase relative to selections from ON, NY, and MI, and (ii) cold susceptibility during the initial establishment phase. The need to allocate resources towards survival probably delays the ability of the European and OR cultivars to enter the production phase. In conclusion, hazelnut cultivars brought from regions with a different climate need to be tested for cold hardiness.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Effects of Silver Nanoparticles (SNP) on Gerbera jamesonii cut flowers

Gerbera vase life is most often terminated by stem bending and breaking or petal wilting. Effects of vase solutions containing 1 mg L silver nanoparticles with or without 6% sucrose on gerbera 'deep purple' vase life, relative fresh weight, relative solution uptake, stem bending or breaking, stem end discolouration and ethylene production by petals, stem ends and stem necks were evaluated. The combination of SNP plus 6% sucrose increased vase life by 8 days compared with the deionised water control. Petal wilting and stem break were decreased by SNP plus 6% sucrose compared to the control. SNP plus 6% sucrose treatment enhanced ethylene production by petals, stem ends and stem necks during vase life. However, there were no obvious adverse effects of this increased ethylene on vase life parameters. Overall, results suggest that 1 mg L SNP plus 6% sucrose has commercial potential as a vase solution for cut gerbera flowers. Copyrigh