Control de la Fusariosis vascular en clavel en el suroeste de España mediante la biodesinfección del suelo.

El presente trabajo presenta una evaluación de las alternativas no químicas al 1,3 dicloropropeno + cloropicrina (AGROC) usado para el control de la fusariosis vascular en clavel en campos experimentales del suroeste de España. Esta enfermedad ha sido un factor limitante en todas las regiones del mediterráneo para poder mantener el cultivo durante 2 años. Tiempo éste necesario para obtener un rendimiento económico aceptable. La desinfección del suelo está basada en el compostado de la materia orgánica, que combinada o no con la solarización, es agrupada bajo la denominación de biodesinfección. Los tratamientos evaluados fueron: compost de alperujo con o sin solarización (31días), compost de residuos post-cosecha de clavel y crisantemo con y sin solarización, compost de residuos post-cosecha de clavel y crisantemo + gallinaza con y sin solarización. La gravedad de la enfermedad y la producción de flores se evaluaron semanalmente durante los 2 años que duró el experimento. Los resultados mostraron que la biodesinfección del suelo utilizando compost de clavel y crisantemo + gallinaza + solarización confiere una aceptable protección contra la fusariosis vascular durante los 2 años que dura el cultivo. La producción fue significativamente mayor que en cualquier otro de los tratamientos. Los resultados además sugieren que la adición de la gallinaza y el uso del polietileno estándar de alta densidad (HDPE) de forma conjunta fueron el factor clave en el éxito de la desinfección. No hubo efecto de la solarización sola, posiblemente debido a la época en la cual se aplic

Riego de tomate bajo invernadero con agua marina desalinizada y reutilización de drenajes

Poster presentado al XXXVII Congreso Nacional de Riegos, celebrado en Don Benito del 4 al 6 de Junio de 2019 y organizada por la Asociación Española de Riegos y Drenajes y la Universidad de ExtremaduraEvaluación agronómica y fisiológica del cultivo de tomate en hidropónico y en suelo enarenado, regado con AMD y mezclada con aguas salobres de diferente salinidad.Programa LIFE+ de la Unión Europea: Proyecto LIFE16-ENV-ES-00034

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations

Análisis aerodinámico de diversas mallas anti-insectos utilizadas en invernaderos

Insect-proof screens constitute a physical means of protecting crops and their use has become widespread in recent years. There is no doubt as to their efficiency in controlling insects, but they do have a negative influence on greenhouse ventilation as they obstruct air-flow. It is therefore necessary not only to evaluate their efficiency as a means of protecting crops, but also to estimate the degree to which they obstruct airflow. To this end the present work analyses the aerodynamic characteristics of these screens, carrying out experiments with two devices which force a flow of air through them, thus providing data of the pressure drop as a function of air velocity. The analysis of these data has provided simple ratios of the permeability and the inertial factor as a single function of porosity.Las mallas anti-insectos constituyen el método físico de protección de cultivos que más se ha extendido en los últimos años en los invernaderos. Su eficacia en el control de insectos es incuestionable, pero tienen una influencia negativa en la ventilación del invernadero, ya que representan un obstáculo que dificulta el paso de aire. Por tanto, además de evaluar la eficacia de las mallas como método de protección, es necesario estimar la resistencia que ofrecen al flujo de aire. Con este último objetivo, en este trabajo se realiza un estudio de las características aerodinámicas de diversas mallas de protección contra insectos. Para ello, se han realizado ensayos en dos dispositivos que fuerzan el paso de una corriente de aire a través de las mallas, obteniendo datos de la caída de presión en función de la velocidad. El análisis de estos datos ha permitido obtener relaciones simples de la permeabilidad y del factor inercial como una función única de la porosidad

Comparison of finite element and finite volume methods for simulation of natural ventilation in greenhouses

International audienceThis article aims to contribute to the discussion on the efficiency of two different discretization methods used as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers for the simulation of natural ventilation in greenhouses. The focus is not on a general use of CFD, but rather on its specific application to simulate airflow in naturally ventilated greenhouses. After a short review of the basic model and its extensions, we compare the accuracy and computational efficiency of two simulation codes based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Finite Volume Method (FVM) for two-dimensional incompressible turbulent flow in naturally ventilated greenhouses. FVM software (ANSYS/FLUENT v 6.3.) is the most frequently used CFD code in ventilation research, but few papers using FEM software (ANSYS/FLOTRAN v. 11.0) have been published. CFD simulations have been compared to experimental data for 12 cases corresponding to three greenhouse types. The experimental greenhouses were chosen to represent a large range of ventilation situations: buoyancy effect in a mono-span greenhouse with adiabatic walls, buoyancy and wind effect in a multi-span greenhouse and ventilation in an Almería-type greenhouse under conditions of large temperature gradient and high wind speeds. The data from simulations and field experiments were compared using different parameters to analyze the effectiveness of experimental data in the validations of CFD models. The possibility of repeating simulations with different discretization methods and commercial software has been tested, as well as the type of experimental data needed to ensure correct validation of CFD models for use in greenhouse ventilation studies. To this end, temperature distribution measurements are preferable to set-point measurements and the use of visualization techniques (laser sheets) or the measurement of velocity vectors (anemometer) are more indicative than ventilation rates. The computational capacity of these approaches has also been analyzed, comparing their performance in terms of the overall database space necessary to store the numerical models and the necessary CPU time to compute one step of the convergence process. On average, the FEM required twice as much computing time per cell and step as FVM, and the amount of required memory storage was approximately 10 times greater for the FEM

Low Tunnels inside Mediterranean Greenhouses: Effects on Air/Soil Temperature and Humidity

The main objective of this work was to analyze the microclimate generated inside a low tunnel (floating row cover) installed in an Almería-type greenhouse. Low tunnels are commonly used in the open field to protect plants against insect attack and to improve the production of muskmelon and strawberry. Floating row covers can also be used inside greenhouses during the first few weeks after the transplantation of muskmelon and watermelon crops in spring-summer cycles. This work was carried out during the first weeks of a watermelon culture (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.) growing with a polyethylene row cover inside an Almería-type greenhouse (2115 m2). Air temperature and humidity, plant temperature and soil temperature and humidity were measured in the greenhouse inside and outside the row covers. During the three days of measurement, all greenhouse vent openings were closed. The use of the low tunnels increased average air temperature around plants from 24.0 ± 9.0 °C to 26.9 ± 9.7 °C. A maximum difference in air temperature of about 5.9 °C was observed at noon. The average daily temperature of the crop was 28.2 ± 11.8 °C inside the row cover and 24.6 ± 8.9 °C without it. Similarly, the absolute humidity of air was clearly higher inside the low tunnel (0.0201 ± 0.0098 g/g) than around the plant rows without floating cover (0.0131 ± 0.0048 g/g). The soil temperature was also higher inside the low tunnel compared to the area without this second plastic cover. The effect of the tunnel decreased with depth, with average temperature differences of 1.2 ± 0.5 °C on the soil surface and 0.6 ± 0.5 °C at 20 cm depth

Isolation of haloarchaea that grow at low salinities

Archaea, the third domain of life, were long thought to be limited to environmental extremes. However, the discovery of archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequences in water, sediment and soil samples has called into question the notion of Archaea as obligate extremophiles. Until now none of these novel Archaea has been brought into culture, a critical step for discovering their ecological roles. We have cultivated three novel halophilic Archaea (haloarchaea) genotypes from sediments in which the pore-water salinity was close to that of seawater. All previously reported haloarchaeal isolates are obligate extreme halophiles requiring at least 9% w/v NaCl for growth and are typically the dominant heterotrophic organisms in salt and soda lakes, salt deposits and salterns. Two of these three newly isolated genotypes have lower requirements for salt than previously cultured haloarchaea and are capable of slow growth at seawater salinity (2.5% w/v NaCl). Our data reveal the existence of Archaea that can grow in non-extreme conditions and of a diverse community of haloarchaea existing in coastal salt marsh sediments. Our findings suggest that the ecological range of these physiologically versatile prokaryotes is much wider than previously supposed