Prickly pear (Opuntia sp.) is both a benefit and hindrance to the livestock industry in the southwestern U.S. It competes with herbaceous forage but is sometimes used as emergency feed during drought. Spineless prickly pear (0. fiscus-indica Engelm. and 0. rufida Engelm.) has been planted in some regions of the southwest but little is known about its nutritional value. Our objectives were to de...

Conventional methods of pear breeding, largely based on intra- and inter-specific hybridization, are difficult because pear is highly heterozygous, polygenic and has a long juvenile period. Genetic improvements of pear cultivars are possible through induction of mutations and gene transfer by genetic engineering. A general prerequisite for these approaches is to establish an efficient plant reg...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the best level of inclusion of cactus pear in the ensiling of elephant grass Brazil seeds (BRS) capiaçu (Pennisetum purpureum), its effects on fermentative characteristics; and nutritional value. Experimental treatments consisted of BRS capiaçu grass silage with five levels of inclusion of cactus pear (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% inclusion as fresh ...

We have used new generation sequencing (NGS) technologies to identify single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers from three European pear (Pyrus communis L.) cultivars and subsequently developed a subset of 1096 pear SNPs into high throughput markers by combining them with the set of 7692 apple SNPs on the IRSC apple Infinium® II 8K array. We then evaluated this apple and pear Infinium® II 9K...

Pear black spot (PBS) disease, which is caused by Alternaria alternata (Aa), is one of the most serious diseases affecting sand pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai) cultivation worldwide. To investigate the defense mechanisms of sand pear in response to Aa, the transcriptome of a sand pear germplasm with differential resistance to Aa was analyzed using Illumina paired-end sequencing. Four libraries der...

Avocado plant (Persea americana), a plant belonging to the family of Lauraceae and genus, persea bears fruit known as avocado pear or alligator pear that contains the avocado pear seed. Reported uses of avocado pear seed include use in the management of hypertension, diabetes, cancer and inflammation [7-9]. The fruit is known as ube oyibo (loosely translated to ‘foreign pear’) in Ojoto and neig...

This study focused on conservation biological control of pear psylla, Cacopsylla pyricola, in the Pacific Northwest, USA. We hypothesized that insecticides applied against the primary insect pest, codling moth Cydia pomonella, negatively impact natural enemies of pear psylla, thus causing outbreaks of this secondary pest. Hence, the objective of this study was to understand how codling moth man...

Avocado plant (Persea americana), a plant belonging to the family of Lauraceae and genus, persea bears fruit known as avocado pear or alligator pear that contains the avocado pear seed. Reported uses of avocado pear seed include use in the management of hypertension, diabetes, cancer and inflammation [7-9]. The fruit is known as ube oyibo (loosely translated to ‘foreign pear’) in Ojoto and neig...

Prickly pear juice has received renewed attention with regard to the effects of processing and preservation on its sensory qualities (colour, taste, flavour, aroma, astringency, visual browning and overall acceptability). Juice was prepared by homogenizing fruit and treating the pulp with pectinase (Aspergillus niger). Juice treatments applied were sugar addition, acidification, heat-treatment,...