In this study we tested whether legumes can improve the growth and N and S nutrition of rapeseed in an intercropping system and compared the effect of mixtures on legume N-fixation and soil N-resources. Rapeseed was cultivated in low N conditions in monocrops using one (R) or two plants (RR) per pot and in mixtures with lupine, clover or vetch. The R monocrop was the most relevant control, intr...

A pot experiment was conducted to study the effects of arsenic (As) and sulfur (S) interaction on yield and their accumulation and distribution in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.). The results showed that (1) at the same level of S treatment, application of As significantly decreased rapeseed grain and biomass yield; (2) Application of S significantly increased the grain and biomass yield of rapese...

BACKGROUND Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) is an important oil crop in the world, and increasing its oil content is a major breeding goal. The studies on seed structure and characteristics of different oil content rapeseed could help us to understand the biological mechanism of lipid accumulation, and be helpful for rapeseed breeding. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we report on the seed ult...

I in the chain sow diet --> blood serum of sow --> sow milk --> piglet serum was investigated in two experiments with a total of eighty-one sows and their piglets. In experiments conducted during the last trimester of gravidity and the 28 d of lactation, diets with glucosinolates (1.9 mmol/kg diet via 100 g ground rapeseed/kg diet (Expt 1) and 2.1 and 4.2 mmol/kg diet via 75 and 150 g rapeseed ...

Evaluation of abundantly available agro-industrial by-products for their bioactive compounds and biological activities is beneficial in particular for the food and pharmaceutical industries. In this study, rapeseed meal, cottonseed meal and soybean meal were investigated for the presence of bioactive compounds and antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, xanthine oxidase and tyrosinase inhibitory activi...

Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and conventional solid-liquid extraction were applied to extract total antioxidants from two rapeseed varieties. The antioxidant capacities (AC) of winter and spring rapeseed cultivars were determined by four different analytical methods: ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), cupric reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC), 2,2'-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (...

The potential of visible/near infrared spectra as a method of nondestructive discrimination of various rapeseed cultivars was evaluated, discrimination ability of distance discriminant analysis (DDA) and BP neural network (BPNN) for identification of rapeseed cultivars was shown in this article. The spectral curves ranging from 350 to 2500 nm of rapeseed cultivars were obtained by VIS/NIR spect...

This article deals with the study of antiwear and antifriction properties of bitter rapeseed oil and sesame oil and their blends containing numerous amounts of benzoic acid at variable temperatures. The experimental results indicate that bitter rapeseed oil exhibits good antiwear and antifriction properties as compared to sesame oil under the same experimental conditions. The addition of benzoi...

Nitrogen (N) transfer is well documented in legume-cereal intercropping but this is less often reported for legume-Brassica intercrops even though Brassica crops require higher levels of N fertilizers. The present study was carried out to quantify N transfer from legumes (Lupinus albus L., Trifolium incarnatum L. or Vicia sativa L.) to rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) using the split-root (15)N-lab...

Calcium is widely known to have a role as a signaling molecule in many different processes, including stress response and activation of the embryogenic program. However, there are no direct clues about calcium levels during microspore embryogenesis, an experimental process that combines a developmental switch toward embryogenesis and the simultaneous application of different stressing factors. ...