Life Sciences

In Mafeteng Urban, there are Informal traders of vegetables and fruits who sell products at various public places. The paper describes informal marketing of vegetables and fruits, and highlights the challenges facing the sector. The study uses multiple techniques of data collection including observations and interviews. Descriptive analysis was employed in the study. The results indicate that traders use a price value system of size and numbers. The informal fruits and vegetable sector provides services, employment and income to the people.

Property rights are social institutions that define and delimit the range of privileges granted to individuals of specific resources, such as land and water. They are the authority to determine different forms of control over resources thus determining the use, benefits and costs resulting from resource use. That is, they clearly specify who can use the resources, who can capture the benefits from the resources, and who should incur costs of any socially harmful impact resulting from the use of a resource.

The breeding of pest and disease resistant varieties is one of many strategies of improving kenaf production, but it is vital to identify cultivars with resistance prior to breeding for resistant varieties. In 2013, ten kenaf accessions were screened for resistance to Meloidogyne incognita in a potted experiment laid out in completely randomized design pending field trials. Seeds of kenaf accessions were sown into polypots filled with 10 kg of steam-sterilized soil. Each kenaf seedling was inoculated with 10,000 eggs of M. incognita at three weeks after sowing.

Yellow rust caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici is a damaging wheat disease in many countries including Pakistan. Monitoring of pathogen virulences over time and space provides information for the host resistance improvement and deployment.

Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) is polyphagous pest of many agricultural and nonagricultural plants. It sucks the cell sap from leaves, flowers, fruits and tender stems and affects the growth of crop plants adversely. It also creates sooty mould on crop leaves which affect photosynthesis, growth and yield of the crops. A. biguttula biguttula attacked Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) and Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) throughout the year.

Ants are important components of ecosystem and acts as biological indicators. The present study was undertaken to assess ant diversity of Kolhapur city. We collected 20 species of ants belonging to genera Camponotus, Monomorium, Crematogaster, Dolichoderus, Formica, Doryllus from Kolhapur city. Their occurrence and economic importance have been reported.

RNA-seq high-throughput sequencing technology is rapidly becoming the standard method for measuring RNA expression levels. We previously evaluated the performance of different grape microarray design strategies based on custom microarray platforms assuming RNA-seq gene expression data as a reference. We subsequently evaluated sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and positive predictive value (PPV) parameters of these microarray design strategies in detecting significantly differential expressed genes (DEGs) in gene expression differential analysis.

This study about the impact of credit and productivity improvement was aimed to discover the changes in farm household production, income and expenditure in dryland and wetland agro ecosystem zones. The study was conducted in Kupang Regency and Timor Tengah Selatan (TTS) Regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Province, Indonesia. This province was chosen because it is one of the poorer provinces in Indonesia. Data were collected using the structured interview technique from 178 farm households; 128 households in the dryland zone and 50 households in the wetland zone.

The futures market can reduce volatility in the spot prices of the commodities and provide effective hedging of the price risk. The turnover of the commodity futures market has grown in a short span of time. The futures market can become an effective instrument of risk management and price discovery for the benefit of the producers, investors, consumers and companies. The competent authorities have over-looked the mechanism of checks and balances which can redistribute income from the small players to the big speculative financial market entities.

A study was conducted on relative pollination efficiency of Apis species on hybrid seed production plots of Brassica napus. Observations on foraging behaviour of four honey bee species (Apis mellifera, A.dorsata, A.cerana and A.florea) visiting parental lines of B. napus, revealed that all foragers (100 per cent) of A.mellifera and A.dorsata were top workers  and came in contact with reproductive parts of flowers of both lines. Percentage of such bees was lower in case of A. cerana and the lowermost as far as A.florea was concerned.