Use in plant breeding of acute, chronic or fractionated doses of X-rays or fast neutrons as illustrated with leaves of Saintpaulia

The parameters used were survival of irradiated leaves of S. ionantha , production of adventitious plantlets at the base of the petiole and mutation frequency.The differences between unfiltered X-rays from a 250/25 deep therapy apparatus and fast neutrons from a degraded fissions spectrum was slight and sometimes negligible. A striking dose rate effect was observed, especially with X-rays. In fractionation experiments a protective mechanism was induced in the leaves by pre-irradiation with either type of radiation. This mechanism reached a maximum after 8-12 h. Then the extent of the protection was equivalent to 3 krad X-rays or 1.5 krad fast neutrons after a single pre-treatment with the optimum initial dose of 500 rad, X-rays or fast neutrons. A 10-15 fold irradiation with this dose, separated by 8-h intervals, induced a protection of 6-7 krad X-rays or 3-4 krad fast neutrons.Several of the treatments result in a higher number of mutants per 100 irradiated leaves compared with the optimum acute dose of 3 krad X-rays or 1.5 krad fast neutrons

IoT Enabled Smart Fertilization and Irrigation Aid for Agricultural Purposes

Soil is of great importance to agriculture, especially the moisture and nutrients in the soil are the essential ingredients for growing plants and crops. Therefore, benefits and importance of a soil moisture and nutrient monitoring system in modern agriculture and gardening is undeniable. It can also be an interesting feature of an intelligent home or smart agriculture system using the internet of things (IoT) technology. This paper presents an IoT application in Arduino platform aiming to monitor the change in soil moisture and Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) (NPK) value for an indoor plant using moisture sensors and optical transducers. Other functionalities and important features of this prototype include online data display infographic as user feedback, level-based nutrient classification for enabling proper type of fertilizer selection, hardware and e-mail notification of moisture and nutrients' easily accessible and user-friendly smartphone app