Fruiting estimation of the potentially invasive species Amorpha fruticosa L. in the south of the Russian Far East

In the south of Russian Far East Amorpha fruticosa (Fabaceae Lindl.) is used as ornamental plant. It actively blooms and fruits here and successfully spreads by suckers, rarely by seeds. There are another ways of Amorpha fruticosa application in Primorsky Krai – as melliferous and technical plant for reclamation of disturbed lands and formation of protective field belts. These activities requires a great amount of quality seeds and, in turn, investigation of Amorpha fruticosa seed propagation. The study of the morphological characteristics of fruits from 12 different places in the Primorsky Krai showed that the linear characteristics of the fruits have minor differences but length of racemes and seed germination vary greatly. The longest racemes are detected in the city of Bolshoy Kamen (17.8 cm), the shortest ones – in Nekruglovo settlement (12.7 cm). The largest fruit number has racemes from Partizansk city (152). The weight of 100 fruits varies from 1.16 g (Kraskino settlement) to 0.94 g (city of Bolshoy Kamen). Highest germination capacity is observed in plants at Lake Soldatskoe (91%), the smallest in plants from Strugovka settlement and the city of Bolshoy Kamen (43%). Absence of germination of seeds from Vadimovka settlement is probably caused by pest – American seed beetle, Acanthoscelides pallidipennis.

Comparative Studies of Selected Criteria Enabling Optimization of the Extraction of Polar Biologically Active Compounds from Alfalfa with Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

The aim of this research was to provide crucial and useful data about the selection of the optimization criteria of supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of alfalfa at a quarter-technical plant. The correlation between more general output, including total phenolics and flavonoids content, and a more specified composition of polar constituents was extensively studied. In all alfalfa extracts, polar bioactive constituents were analyzed by both spectrometric (general output) and chromatographic (detailed output) analyses. Eight specific phenolic acids and nine flavonoids were determined. The most dominant were salicylic acid (221.41 µg g−1), ferulic acid (119.73 µg g−1), quercetin (2.23 µg g−1), and apigenin (2.60 µg g−1). For all seventeen analyzed compounds, response surface methodology and analysis of variance were used to provide the optimal conditions of supercritical fluid extraction for each individual constituent. The obtained data have shown that eight of those compounds have a similar range of optimal process parameters, being significantly analogous for optimization based on total flavonoid content.

Identifying new criteria for assessing the impact on the ecosystem generated by the establishment of Jerusalem artichoke crops on difficult and floodable soils

Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) is a technical plant that manages to adapt very well to unfriendly environments, even in polluted or poor in nutrients soils and may serve in the near future as an important raw material for the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Furthermore, the plant is growing rapidly, producing large amounts of biomass and offers the possibility to be harvested up to 2 times a year, therefore presents a high potential to be used in the field of biofuel production. The plant's capacity to multiply easily by developing small tubers in the soil, allowing the production of economically advantageous crops, can be considered an advantage for biofuel producers, however this feature might be a drawback for agricultural land owners considering the very invasive behavior. The present paper aim to assess two Jerusalem Artichokes crops established on marginal soils, assessing productivity and the extensive impact on the ecosystem, paying a special attention to plant invasiveness tendencies.

Extraction and Determination of Polar Bioactive Compounds from Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) Using Supercritical Techniques

The aim of this research was to select parameters for supercritical extraction with CO2 of Medicago sativa L., considered as functional food, in quarter-technical plant, providing the highest concentration of bioactive polar constituents and simultaneously maintaining the highest efficiency of the process. For the purpose of optimization, mathematical statistics was used. Qualitative analysis of products was performed with supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). The SFC analysis revealed a proper separation of flavonoids and phenolics acids for dedicated TFC and TPC optimal parameters. The obtained results have proved that it is a possibility to extract polar compounds with non-polar solvent under higher values of pressure and temperature and to enrich product with desired group of bioactive compounds with proper optimization. The proposed extraction technique allows to obtain on an industrial scale, using an environmentally friendly solvent, a preparation rich in biologically active nutrients that can be implemented in the cosmetics, pharmaceutical and food industries.

Treatment of tannery wastewater for reuse by physico-chemical processes and a membrane bioreactor

Treatment of wastewater from a tannery in Greater Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) was investigated on a pilot scale. After pre-treatment by the tannery that included batch-coagulation and sedimentation, the wastewater was treated by dissolved air flotation, a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and granular activated carbon (GAC) for polishing the MBR effluent. The average removal efficiency for organic substances in the MBR was 81% while total nitrogen could only be removed by 36%. The performance of the GAC column could be successfully predicted using adsorption parameters determined in laboratory experiments. A larger proportion of the organics in the MBR effluent was only weakly adsorbable, therefore the usable carbon capacity was limited as confirmed by the modelling approach. The results were used to outline the size of a technical plant with a volumetric loading rate of 3 kg COD/(m3*d) for the MBR and a specific carbon demand of about 1.8 kg/m3.

Breeding For Organic Farming : Obtaining And Evaluation Of Flax Somaclonal Families

Plant calli culture could be used as a source of genetic changes (somaclonal variation). There are known several flax varieties, bred on the basis of somaclonal variation, with improved resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, plant height, seed yield and other traits. This method is useful for obtaining the new initial material for flax breeding, including for intensification of breeding for organic farming. Goal of the study was to obtain plants-regenerants from the calli culture of the fibre flax variety ‘Vega 2’ and to evaluate their agronomical traits and resistance to powdery mildew. For obtaining plants-regenerants was used early elaborated protocol of somatic calli cultivation. Agronomically important traits, such as total and technical plant height, number of seed vessels, number of seeds in a seed vessel, and resistance to diseases were evaluated. Most of somaclonal families had higher total and technical plant height in comparison with the initial variety ‘Vega 2’. In the opposite, number of seed vessels and number of seeds in a seed vessel had a tendency to decrease. It was concluded that even changes in not desirable direction may be recognised as an indirect indicator of the rather high level of induced somaclonal variation, which can occurred also in traits, which were not evaluated during this experiment, therefore there is a potential to exploit flax somaclonal variation in applied breeding programs as an additional source of variability.

EVALUATION OF THE LATVIAN FLAX GENETIC RESOURCES AND PERSPECTIVE OF THEIR UTILISATION

Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is one of the oldest fibre and oil crop in Europe, including Latvia. In the middle of the last century growing areas of this crop was reduced dramatically. Nowadays flax attracted a great interest again as a fibre and oil processor, as well as a crop for diversification of agriculture and, in the same time, as a crop for producing high quality fibre for industry, high quantity oil for biofuel and high quality oil for feeding, food, and pharmacy (source of α-linolenic acid, linoleic acid and vitamins). We evaluated all available flax accessions of the Latvian origin and number of their hybrid lines. Agronomically important qualitative and quantitative traits, such as total plant height, technical plant height, number of seed vessels, logging resistance, vegetation period, yield of straws and seeds, 1000 seeds weight, bast fibre, number of seeds in a seed vessel, oil content and rust resistance gene L alleles L2 and L9 were recorded. Results of the field trials of two last years were summarized. Local accessions are useful as a source for breeding to adaptation of flax varieties to the local Latvian conditions. With use of molecular methods flax rust resistance allele L2 and L9 were found in eleven accessions.