News Articles

Terra Nova Nurseries received accolades, awards, and distinctions from Aris, Penn State, and University of Georgia trials.

The post Terra Nova Wins Big at Three National Trial Gardens appeared first on Greenhouse Grower.

CARB approved updates to the LCFS, setting targets to reduce the CI of California’s transportation fuel pool by 30% by 2030 and by 90% by 2045.

The post California Air Resources Board Updates LCFS appeared first on BioCycle.

Growing insights into real-world compostable product disintegration are now accessible with the Compostable Field Testing Program’s open-source field testing data. Part I

The post Compostable Product Field Testing Public Dataset appeared first on BioCycle.

Researchers have developed a new bio-inspired approach to building complex 3D microfluidic networks by utilizing plant roots and fungal hyphae as molds. The team grew plants and fungi in nanoparticles of silica, then baked out the plants and solidified the glass. What remains is glass with micrometer-sized networks where the roots used to be.

Researchers have developed a new bio-inspired approach to building complex 3D microfluidic networks by utilizing plant roots and fungal hyphae as molds. The team grew plants and fungi in nanoparticles of silica, then baked out the plants and solidified the glass. What remains is glass with micrometer-sized networks where the roots used to be.

A few years back, a group of weed scientists showed that soil-applied herbicides are less effective against agricultural weeds in the context of our changing climate. Now, the same research group has shown the same is true of post-emergence (POST) herbicides.

Birds visiting garden feeders doesn’t stop them from pollinating wild plants, say South African scientists.

The post Can Feeding Birds Harm Plants? appeared first on Botany One.

Abstract

In aquaculture, accurately counting fish fries is a prerequisite for fish population management and marketing. However, due to the fry overlapping and occlusion issues, the manual counting method is time-consuming, and the counting result might be inaccurate. Therefore, we utilized the computer vision technique to develop a lightweight fish fry counting model to address this issue. First, we constructed a diverse dataset containing images of largemouth bass in varying numbers, captured under different lighting conditions and water depths. Then, we optimized the YOLOv5s model by channel pruning to reduce the model size, while maintaining the detection accuracy. Through extensive experiments, we examined the effect of different pruning rates on the model performance and compared the pruned YOLOv5s model with state-of-the-art detection models through the evaluation criteria like precision, recall, mean average precision (mAP), model size, GFLOPs, and detection speed. In addition, we investigated the impact of environmental factors, such as lighting conditions and water depths, on the detection performance of the pruned YOLOv5s model. The experimental results demonstrated that the YOLOv5s model with a pruning rate of 15% achieved over 90% accuracy and 13 FPS in the dense and complex scenes, which met the practical requirement for the fry counting task. In addition, we also identified that the pruned YOLOv5s model would achieve the optimal performance under the white illumination and shallow water depth setting. In conclusion, this study provided an efficient solution for fish fry counting, and the proposed model was expected to be applied in the real-world application.

Abstract

Nitrite constitutes a significant pollutant that impedes the growth of P. vannamei. Conventional treatments are primarily geared toward decreasing nitrite concentrations from an environmental standpoint. Nevertheless, investigating methodologies to enhance the ability of Pacific white shrimp to withstand nitrite-induced stresses on an individual basis remains an unexplored topic. The present study examines the impact of autophagy on Pacific white shrimp’s response to high nitrite environments through rapamycin injection. The research findings indicate that activating autophagy can effectively enhance the survival rate of Pacific white shrimp under high nitrite conditions. Additionally, total hemocyte count (THC) results in the hemolymph demonstrate that autophagy can alleviate the reduction in blood cell count caused by nitrite stress. The transcriptome results show that upregulation of 718 genes and downregulation of 1071 genes after nitrite stress. The majority of these differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were related to physiological processes, including oxidative stress, energy metabolism, and lysosomes. In addition, there were 911 upregulated genes and 713 downregulated genes upon activation of autophagy. These DEGs are associated with immune responses, specifically involving glutathione metabolism, drug metabolism-cytochrome P450, and metabolism of xenobiotics by cytochrome P450, lysosomes, autophagy, phagosomes, melanization, and MAPK signaling pathways. These pathways can reduce oxidative stress and promote the metabolism of harmful substances in the body, in shrimp, thereby improving their survival rates. These findings provide new insights for research aimed at enhancing nitrite tolerance in Pacific white shrimp.

Abstract

This study explored the effects of β-1,3/1,6-glucan derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell walls on the growth, survival, and physiological responses of post-larvae (PL) of M. rosenbergii. Over a 3-week period, larvae were fed a formulated egg custard diet containing varying amounts of β-glucan. The findings revealed that incorporating β-glucan into the diet had a substantial positive impact. The inclusion of β-glucans significantly enhanced survival (59.14% for the PL fed 0.2% β-glucan versus 46.58% for the control; p < 0.05), promoted growth (13.58 mg wet weight for the PL fed 0.2% β-glucan versus 9.53 mg for the PL fed the control diet; p < 0.05), and accelerated the time to metamorphosis (26.67 days for the PL fed 0.2% β-glucan versus 28.0 days for the PL fed the control diet). As the amount of β-glucan in the diet increased, larval growth performance consistently improved. The group receiving 0.2% β-glucan exhibited the highest performance in terms of wet and dry weight, total length, and mean production of PL. Furthermore, the study assessed the influence of β-glucan supplementation on larval tolerance to hypersaline stress. Although the differences were not statistically significant, the addition of β-glucan resulted in incremental improvements in the ability of larvae to withstand hypersaline conditions. In conclusion, the dietary supplement containing 0.2% β-glucan exhibited the highest performance among the inclusion levels tested. Further investigation is recommended to determine the nutritional and physiological effects of β-glucan supplementation under salinity stress conditions.