| 1. |
- Salevid, Pernilla, et al.
(author)
-
Profitability of organic and conventional cow-calf operations under Swedish conditions
- 2012
-
In: Organic Agriculture. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1879-4238 .- 1879-4246. ; 2, s. 205-217
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In order to maintain the high natural values of Swedish semi-natural pasture, suckler cow numbers must increase, but numbers are more likely to decrease due to low profitability, changes to the EU support system and increasing wage levels. This study sought to identify production models for cow-calf operations with sufficient profitability to pay at least stipulated farm workers wage. In the calculations, the income from weaned calves and EU support was reduced by operating costs, excluding labour. The surplus was divided by hours spent on labour, resulting in a return to labour per hour. The calculations were carried out in varying future scenarios where the Common Agricultural Policy is changing. The results showed that organic production models created a higher return to labour than conventional production models. One reason for this is the environmental payment for organic farming. Another reason is that organic production maintains more acreage, equalling higher environmental payments and other EU support per suckler cow. Other more profitable production models included spring calving, heavy cows and winter feed based on silage. Some organic production models gave a return to labour above the stipulated farm workers wage. However, if the single farm payment scheme is phased out and not replaced by an increase in environmental payments, the return to labour will be at best half the stipulated farm workers wage.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ortiz Rios, Rodomiro Octavio
(author)
-
Additive relationships and parent-offspring regression in Musa germplasm with intergeneration genome size polymorphism
- 2012
-
In: Scientia Horticulturae. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-4238 .- 1879-1018. ; 136, s. 69-74
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Parent-offspring regression has often been used for the estimation of breeding value and narrow-sense heritability in experimental populations. particularly for diploid species with regular disomic inheritance. With polysomic inheritance, estimates of heritability based on parent-offspring regression are expected to be systematically biased, particularly when intra- and inter-generation ploidy polymorphisms occur as a result of unusual megasporogenesis. Measuring the discrepancy between true and estimated heritability has important theoretical and practical implications for the genetic improvement of plantain and bananas. In this regard, formulas were developed to describe the relationships between parental and filial generations with different ploidy states and this information was used to estimate heritability for several traits of plantains and bananas. This approach may be extended to other polysomic species with similar meiotic behaviour and ploidy polymorphism. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
- Sehic, Jasna, et al.
(author)
-
Genetic diversity in a collection of European pear (Pyrus communis) cultivars determined with SSR markers chosen by ECPGR
- 2012
-
In: Scientia Horticulturae. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-4238 .- 1879-1018. ; 145, s. 39-45
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are increasingly being used to confirm the identification of accessions in plant collections and/or to quantify their relatedness. However, the possibility to compare SSR data in different databases, is dependent on the use of identical SSR loci. Therefore, a standard set of 17 SSR loci was recently appointed by the European Cooperative Program for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) for the screening of pear accessions. Here, we report the results from using 10 of these loci to fingerprint a total of 86 samples from Swedish pear collections including 49 mandate (heritage) cultivars, and 8 reference genotypes from Brogdale. The ability to compare our data with previously obtained data from fingerprinting the Brogdale collection with the same loci, allowed us to verify the labelling of some cultivars as well as to detect several synonyms and erroneous labellings. Obvious cases of mislabelling affected 14 of the analysed cultivars, i.e., 29%. A principal coordinates (PCO) analysis indicated that a loosely defined group of old Swedish cultivars might have an ancestry that differs from that of the new Swedish cultivars and from most of the foreign cultivars. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
|
|
| 5. |
- Zubair, Muhammad, et al.
(author)
-
Detection of genetic and phytochemical differences between and within populations of Plantago major L. (plantain)
- 2012
-
In: Scientia Horticulturae. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-4238 .- 1879-1018. ; 136, s. 9-16
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Leaves of Plantago major L. (common plantain) have been used for centuries almost all over the world as a wound healing remedy, and for other medicinal purposes. Polyphenols have been proposed to be responsible for many of the medicinal properties attributed to P. major. In this study, plants from 19 subpopulations (offspring families), derived from a total of five populations of P. major collected from different parts of Sweden, were screened for genetic variation with molecular markers, and for contents of major polyphenolic compounds. In addition to plantamajoside, four novel poplyphenolic compounds were identified and quantified. RAPD analysis demonstrated considerable between-population variation and very sparse within-population and within-subpopulation variation, just as expected for inbreeding species. Differentiation among populations was associated with the geographical distances between the sampled populations. Differences between populations and subpopulations in polyphenol contents did not reflect the DNA-marker based pattern, suggesting that the expression of the studied polyphenols was affected by, e.g., epigenetic inheritance Or a very early environmental influence on the newly germinated seedlings, before potting and randomization. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
|
|
