Agricultural and Forestry Science

Purdue University scientists investigating osteoporosis in laying hens have shown that a noninvasive tool can monitor birds’ bone strength and aid in discovering genetic information about bone disease in chickens.

Lack of calcium in chickens’ food and lack of exercise can leave hens with brittle bones, said Patricia “Scotti” Hester, a professor in Purdue’s Department of Animal Sciences. In addition, eggshell production leaches calcium from hens’ bones. Hester and her research team found th

Despite fat in meat being frequently associated with negative connotations for the consumer, it is an indispensable component in order to obtain quality meat. To better understand the metabolism of the fat in calf meat and to enable its possible modulation in future, Martín Alzón Aldave has presented his PhD thesis on the Development and metabolism of veal fat tissue in seven Spanish autochthonous breeds of meat-yielding calves.

Seven autochthonous breeds

Martín Alzón had tw

Researchers of the Bochvara All-Russian Scientific Research Institute for Inorganic Materials, supported by the International Scientific and Technical Center have developed new tilth technology, which allows to get rid of radioactive or poisonous dust, to transform dust-forming slag-heaps into green lawn and even to grow forest in the desert.

The technology is based on the polyelectrolytes developed by chemists of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The polyelectrolytes are polymers, the

Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit photosynthesis in U.S. corn crops in the future by relieving drought stress, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

According to preliminary findings of a new study — being released this week in Hawaii during Plant Biology 2003, the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists — photosynthesis of maize on average increased by 10 percent under projected carbon dioxide conditions in the

Poultry production in the Netherlands has to change for a prosperous future. This is a mutual task of poultry producers, consumers, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and knowledge institutions. The outbreak of avian influenza in the beginning of 2003 in the centre of the Netherlands made the urgency of change quite clear. This is the outcome of an investigation by researchers of Wageningen University and Research Centre. In a report (in dutch) they provide building blocks to facili

Gonzaga Santesteban, lecturer at the Public University of Navarre, concluded his thesis stating that a generalised recommendation on vine irrigation cannot be offered as the factors involved are diverse: the terrain where the vine is planted, the climate on the zone and the quantity of grape involved.

Problems with irrigation policy

Gonzaga Santesteban has investigated “The effect of irrigation on the quality of the grape and the wine in the Tempranillo variety”.

It