Economic valuation of cactus pear production in semi-arid regions of Tunisia
Arid and semi-arid lands are considered unsuitable for crop production because they require substantial amounts of water and additional nutrients. However, certain species can perform well and enhance the livelihoods of poor farmers. In the semi...
Impact of awareness campaign for enhancing adoption of new cactus pear accessions in Jordan
Cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill.) fruits are increasingly in demand by consumers in Jordan and across the Mediterranean region. For many decades, the only cactus pear fruit available in local markets were the yellow-orange fruits...
Performance of Cluster Bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) under Varying Levels of Irrigation and Nitrogen
Background: Clusterbean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.) is important commercial crop which belongs to family Leguminosae and has capacity to fix the atmospheric nitrogen. The nitrogen fixed by the legume crop is not enough to meet the demand of...
Does Maturity Change the Chemical-Bromatological Makeup of Cladodes in Spineless Forage Cactus?
In Kutch (Gujarat District, India), there is a growing concern about the lack of good quality forage owing to the arid climate and poor soil health. Opuntia ficus-indica has been increasingly recognized as a drought-resilient forage in arid...
Identification and Quantification of Actual Evapotranspiration Using Integrated Satellite Data for Sustainable Water Management in Dry Areas
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a significant consumer of irrigation water and precipitation on cropland. Global and regional interest in the sustainable management of limited freshwater supplies to meet the rapidly increasing population and food...
Expression characteristics of piRNAs in ovine luteal phase and follicular phase ovaries
PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), as a novel class of small non-coding RNAs that have been shown to be indispensable in germline integrity and stem cell development. However, the expressed characteristics and regulatory roles of piRNAs during...
Entomopathogenic fungi as biological control agents of Dactylopius opuntiae (Hemiptera: Dactylopiidae) under laboratory and greenhouse conditions
The cactus Opuntia ficus-indica L. is widly cultivated in Morocco and has a very an important economic role as a source of food, livestock feed and not forgetting that it is considered to be an income for people in rural communities. This crop...
Stochastic Inoculum, Biotic Filtering and Species-Specific Seed Transmission Shape the Rare Microbiome of Plants
A plant’s health and productivity is influenced by its associated microbes. Although the common/core microbiome is often thought to be the most influential, significant numbers of rare or uncommon microbes (e.g., specialized endosymbionts) may...
Natural adaptation and human selection of northeast African sheep genomes
African sheep manifest diverse but distinct physio-anatomical traits, which are the outcomes of natural- and human-driven selection. Here, we generated 34.8 million variants from 150 indigenous northeast African sheep genomes sequenced at an...
Barley with improved drought tolerance: Challenges and perspectives
There is a pressing need to improve climate-resilient crops as a consequence of increasingly erratic climatic behavior that threatens global food security. Current scientific efforts aim to elucidate the complex mechanisms behind drought...
