Can farmers change micro-climates around their crops as an adaptation to climate change? We present a novel adaptation technique for pistachio growers in California, meant to deal with warm winters. A kaolin clay mud is sprayed on dormant trees, blocking sunlight and lowering tree bud temperatures, preventing adverse yield effects of low chill. Climate predictions for California suggest that wi...

Automated processing and classiication of real-time X-ray images of randomly oriented touching pistachio nuts is discussed. The ultimate objective is the development of a system for automated non-invasive detection of defective product items on a conveyor belt. This approach involves two main steps: preprocessing and classiication. Preprocessing locates individual items and segments ones that t...

The effect of different air temperatures (40, 50, 60 and 70°C), air velocities (1 and 2 m/s) and bed depth (monolayer, 3 and 5 cm) on drying kinetics and lipid quality (peroxide value and free fatty acids) of a variety of Persian Pistachio nuts (Abasali variety) were studied. Additionally, effective diffusivity (D ) was determined eff by using Fick’s second law varied from 7.061×10 to 2.105×10 ...

The essential oils of the fruits and the leaves of pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Fresh unripe pistachio fruits were richer in essential oil (0.5%, w/w) than the leaves (0.1%, w/w). Twenty one compounds were identified in the essential oil of the fruits and the major components were (+)-alpha-pinene (54.6%) and terpinolene (31.2%). The enantiomeric ratio of the majo...

Several agro-industrial wastes (as chestnut and pistachio shells, grass, leaf fruit, vine leaf, and, red and white grape stems) were evaluated to ferulic acid extraction. The chemical analysis of these raw materials shows a high content of xylan in pistachio shells (33%), following the biorefinery concept, this fraction can be used in xylitol manufacture. The lignocellulosic materials were subm...

This paper highlights the capability of artificial neural networks for predicting shelf life of milky white dessert jeweled with pistachio. Linear layer (train) and generalized regression models were developed and compared with each other. Neurons in each hidden layers varied from 1 to 30. Data samples were divided into two sets, i.e., 80% of data samples were used for training and 20% for vali...

Roasting of whole-kernels is an important step in the production of pistachio paste. The effect of hot air roasting temperatures (90-190°C) and times (5-65 min) on the hardness, moisture content and colour attributes (‘L’, ‘a’ and ‘b’ values and yellowness index) of both whole-kernel and ground-state were investigated using response surface methodology (RSM). Increases in roasting temperature a...

Roof rats (Rattus rattus) damage an estimated 5 to 10% of the developing nut crop in Hawaiian macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) orchards. Relevant aspects of roof rat biology in macadamia orchards have and continue to be studied with the ultimate goal of developing an ecologically sound and cost-effective integrated pest management plan. The field component of a two-year study of roof rat popu...

Apple production systems are an important component in the Chinese agricultural sector with 1.99 million ha plantation. The orchards in China could play an important role in the carbon (C) cycle of terrestrial ecosystems and contribute to C sequestration. The carbon sequestration capability in apple orchards was analyzed through identifying a set of potential assessment factors and their weight...

We present a consumer-focused perspective on creating communications regarding potentially contaminated foods. It is illustrated with decisions that might have faced US consumers during the 2009 recalls of peanut and pistachio products. The example shows how knowledge about test results and regulatory processes might be made more useful to consumers.