Important roles for biotic agents in integrated weed management include preventing seed production and weed emergence from the seed bank. Seed-attacking microorganisms have been described for a limited number of economically important weeds and serve as examples illustrating the potential for reducing weed seed production. Innundative releases of seed-feeding insects have also successfully redu...

BACKGROUND Lactuca sativa (garden lettuce) is a popular salad herb. It has been in use in folk medicine since ancient times as both an appetite stimulant and as an aid to sleep. L. sativa seed oil (Sedan(®)) has demonstrated a pronounced sedative effect and potentiated the hypnotic effect of barbiturates in animal models. It also exhibited significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities....

Solid-state fermentation was carried out using jackfruit seed powder as substrate for the production of pigments using a fungal culture of Monascus purpureus. Due to the buffering nature of jackfruit seed powder, colour of pigments produced was stable over a wide range of initial pH of the substrate. Jackfruit seed powder with a particle size between 0.4 and 0.6 mm without any additional carbon...

The present study was based on primary data collected from 100 farmers in Gulbarga district of Karnataka, India, during the agricultural year 2013-2014. Study shows that average land holding size of pigeonpea seed farmers was higher in comparison to grain farmers and district average. The study illustrates a ratio of 32 : 68 towards fixed and variable costs in pigeonpea certified seed productio...

Seeds are a fundamental component of the plant life cycle, as they store the genetic information necessary for the next generation of plants to disperse, establish, develop and eventually reproduce to maintain the species. However, these mysterious genetic capsules contain many secrets that have yet to be revealed. For instance, the mechanism(s) by which certain seeds undergo extreme desiccatio...

High seed quality is a critical component for realising yield potential. Forsmallholder cowpea farmers in northern Nigeria the informal seed system is amajor supplier of genetically high-quality seed, but the physiological quality offarmers’ produced seed remains unknown. The project “Promoting SustainableAgriculture in Borno State” (PROSAB) trained and supported farmers in seedproduction in Bo...

Successful crop production depends initially on the availability of high-quality seed. By 2050 global climate change will have influenced crop yields, but will these changes affect seed quality? The present review examines the effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature during seed production on three seed quality components: seed mass, germination and seed vigour. In response to e...

Context-dependency in species interactions is widespread and can produce concomitant patterns of context-dependent selection. Masting (synchronous production of large seed crops at irregular intervals by a plant population) has been shown to reduce seed predation through satiation (reduction in rates of seed predation with increasing seed cone output) and thus represents an important source of ...