Insect specimens of adult beetles and larvae of 7–9 and 9–10 mm length, respectively were collected from infested dry cassava at two locations from multiple stores in southern Ethiopia. The specimens were identified as Heterobostrychus brunneus (Murray, 1867) commonly known as boxwood borer and auger beetle. The study presents a current record of H. brunneus in Ethiopia, particularly in the context of infesting food products. Additionally, a wide geographical distribution of the pest was reviewed and presented in ...

Urbanisation is a global trend rapidly transforming the biophysical and socioeconomic structures of metropolitan areas. To better understand (and perhaps control) these processes, more interdisciplinary research must be dedicated to the rural–urban interface. This also calls for a common reference system describing intermediate stages along a rural–urban gradient. The present paper constructs a simple index of urbanisation for villages in the Greater Bangalore Area, using GIS analysis of satellite images, and combining ...

Maize is grown on a large area in Germany and there is a growing concern in society about negative environmental effects related to this. The objective of the study was to test the performance of mixtures of maize and climbing beans as an alternative to monocropped maize under different site and management conditions. The effects of sowing density of maize and beans as well as the sowing time of beans on total dry matter (DM) yield and bean DM contribution to the total yield were investigated. Further, various ...

Anchote (Coccinia abyssinica) is an indigenous tuber crop of the Ethiopian Highlands. It is popular in the western Oromia Region of the country. Apart from food, the crop is also used in traditional medicine. Anchote tubers possess two variations in its tissue colour, red and white. In this study, a small market survey and a nutritional comparison of red and white anchote were conducted. White tissue anchote seems to be more popular, due to its soft texture and ease of cooking. However, the red variant was considered ...

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) is a dioecious, wind-pollinated shrub growing in Eurasia including the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan territory). Contrary to the situation in other countries, in Pakistan this species is heavily underutilized. Moreover, a striking diversity of berry colors and shapes in Pakistan raises the question: which varieties might be more suitable for different national and international markets? Therefore, both morphological and genetic diversity of sea buckthorn ...

3D point cloud analysis of imagery collected by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) has been shown to be a valuable tool for estimation of crop phenotypic traits, such as plant height, in several species. Spatial information about these phenotypic traits can be used to derive information about other important crop characteristics, like fresh biomass yield, which could not be derived directly from the point clouds. Previous approaches have often only considered single date measurements using a single point cloud derived ...

Renewable energies are necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in energy production, and biomass plays a dominant role in the renewable energy sector. Combustion of biomass constitutes an efficient conversion technique, but is hindered by harmful elements which are frequently contained in residual grassland biomass. We investigated the effect of leaching on solid fuel quality with three independent experiments including the following treatments: (1) with or without leaching, (2) with leaching at various water ...

Vast amounts of leaf litter have to be disposed of by city administrations. This biomass has the potential for energy conversion, but contamination with pollutants can adversely affect this usage. We investigated leaf litter samples from the city of Kassel by analyzing their heavy metal and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations. Leaf samples were indeed contaminated with heavy metals and PAHs and contamination was influenced by provenience and collection technique. A simple cleaning system of washing ...

Leaf litter is a growing concern for cities. Due to adherent dirt such biomass is rarely utilized nowadays but may constitute a renewable energy source for communities or private households. Leaf litter from main roads, residential areas and city centres collected by the vacuum technique or the sweeper technique was sampled and analysed for ash content and chemical composition. Ash content of leaf litter collected by the sweeping technique was higher (21.6%–40.1% dry matter, DM) than in material collected by the ...

An accurate estimation of biomass is needed to understand the spatio-temporal changes of forage resources in pasture ecosystems and to support grazing management decisions. A timely evaluation of biomass is challenging, as it requires efficient means such as technical sensing methods to assess numerous data and create continuous maps. In order to calibrate ultrasonic and spectral sensors, a field experiment with heterogeneous pastures continuously stocked by cows at three grazing intensities was conducted. Sensor ...