Use of Waste Vegetable Biomasses Treated by Steam Explosion for the Horticultural Crop Protection

The purpose of this study was to assess the suppressive effect of Waste Vegetable Biomasses （WVBs） treated by the Steam Explosion technique in a continuous plant, against soil-borne plant pathogens. In order to assess their disease suppression, five WVBs （Miscanthus biomass, durum wheat straw, rice straw, corn stalk and wood shaving） and commercial compost were tested in vivo at three different doses （10, 20 and 30% of potting mix） on seven horticultural pathosystems plant/fungus： tomato/Phytophthora nicotianae, cucumber/Pythium ultimum, lettuce/Fusariurn oxysporum f. sp. lactucae, melordFusariurn oxysporum f. sp. melonis, bearffRhizoctonia solani, eggplant/Verticillium dahlie and fennel/Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. The results showed that the corn stalk was more efficient respect to Miscanthus, compost, wheat straw, rice straw and wood shaving in all the patbosystems and at all the doses tested. The corn stalk suppression ranged from 97% in eggplant/F, dahliae to 35% in lettuce/F, oxysporum f. sp. lactucae, and it was significantly higher with respect to the other substrates. In general, the wheat straw, rice straw and wood shaving were statistically found less efficient as suppressive substrate with respect to corn stalk, Miscanthus and compost at the 30% dose in four pathosystems In particular, the wood shaving suppressiveness ranged from 48% in eggplant/V, dahliae to 12% in lettuce/F, oxysporum f. sp. lactucae. The different suppressiveness observed could be attributed to different concentration of the microbial inhibitory substances （furfurals, organic acids and lignosulfonates） produced during the processing of fresh biomass.

Effect of Nitrogen Fertilization on Yield and Quality of Aromatic Rice in North-Western Indo-Gangetic Plains

Most of the aromatic rice cultivars are susceptible to disease, insect-pest attack and are more prone to lodging. Therefore, nitrogen is the key input for increasing the productivity of aromatic rice. Research analyzing the effects of N level on yield and quality characteristics of modem aromatic cultivars in the north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains is not well documented. Therefore, the present study was conducted to optimise the N levels for higher yield and better quality of the modem aromatic rice cultivars. The mean grain yield increased by 22.5% when plots were supplemented with 40 kg/ha of N application as compared to control （unfertilized）. Among cultivars, Punjab Mehak 1 registered highest yield （5.3 t/ha） followed by Pusa Basmati 1121 （4.78 t/ha） and Punjab Basmati 2 （4.66 t/ha） respectively. Interactive effect between N levels and cultivars on grain yield revealed that in Punjab Mehak l, grain yield responded significantly up to 60 kg/ha of N application as compared to Pusa Basmati 1121 and Punjab Basmati 2 where it responded only upto 40 kg/ha of N application. All the quality characteristic found to be improved with N application, whereas amylose content decreased with 60 kg/ha of N application as compared to 20 and 40 kg/ha of N application.

3-D Exact Vibration Analysis of a Generalized Thermoelastic Hollow Sphere with Matrix Frobenius Method

This paper presents exact free vibration analysis of stress free (or rigidly fixed), thermally insulated (or isothermal), transradially isotropic thermoelastic hollow sphere in context of generalized (non-classical) theory of thermoelasticity. The basic governing equations of linear generalized thermoelastic transradially isotropic hollow sphere have been uncoupled and simplified with the help of potential functions by using the Helmholtz decomposition theorem. Upon using it the coupled system of equations reduced to ordinary differential equations in radial coordinate. Matrix Frobenius method of extended series has been used to investigate the motion along the radial coordinate. The secular equations for the existence of possible modes of vibrations in the considered sphere are derived. The special cases of spheroidal (S-mode) and toroidal (T-mode) vibrations of a hollow sphere have also been deduced and discussed. The toroidal motion gets decoupled from the spheroidal one and remains independent of the both, thermal variations and thermal relaxation time. In order to illustrate the analytic results, the numerical solution of the secular equation which governs spheroidal motion (S-modes) is carried out to compute lowest frequencies of vibrational modes in case of classical (CT) and non-classical (LS, GL) theories of thermoelasticity with the help of MATLAB programming for the generalized hollow sphere of helium and magnesium materials. The computer simulated results have been presented graphically showing lowest frequency and dissipation factor. The analysis may find applications in engineering industries where spherical structures are in frequent use.