Can Retention of Crop Residues on the Field Be Justified on Socioeconomic Grounds? A Case Study from the Mixed Crop-Livestock Production Systems of the Moroccan Drylands
Conservation agriculture (CA) involving zero tillage, crop diversification, and residue retention is considered a panacea for several interrelated problems in agricultural production. However, in the mixed crop-livestock production systems of...
On-farm evaluation of growth and reproductive performances of Washera and Gumuz sheep in northwestern Ethiopia: Basics for setting up breeding objectives/ goals
Growth and reproductive performance traits are traits of economic importance for sheep selection and productivity improvement interventions. This study aimed at comparative evaluation of growth and reproductive performance traits of sheep in...
Resistance to Orobanche crenata Forsk. in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.): exploring some potential altered physiological and biochemical defense mechanisms
Management of broomrape (Orobanche crenata Fosk.) that causes important damages on lentil production becomes a veritable concern in the Mediterranean region. Eighty lentil accessions were evaluated for resistance to O. crenata under field and...
Genetic diversity and GWAS of agronomic traits using an ICARDA lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) Reference Plus collection
Genotyping of lentil plant genetic resources holds the promise to increase the identification and utilization of useful genetic diversity for crop improvement. The International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) lentil...
Institutional and farm-level challenges limiting the diffusion of new varieties from public and CGIAR centers: The case of wheat in Morocco
Low adoption of agricultural technologies slows efforts to increase agricultural productivity and enhance rural livelihoods in developing countries. A large body of literature has sought explanations for the problem, but the focus has been...
Genome-wide association mapping of lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) prebiotic carbohydrates toward improved human health and crop stress tolerance
Lentil, a cool-season food legume, is rich in protein and micronutrients with a range of prebiotic carbohydrates, such as raffinose-family oligosaccharides (RFOs), fructooligosaccharides (FOSs), sugar alcohols (SAs), and resistant starch (RS)...
‘Omics’ approaches in developing combined drought and heat tolerance in food crops
Global climate change will significantly increase the intensity and frequency of hot, dry days. The simultaneous occurrence of drought and heat stress is also likely to increase, influencing various agronomic characteristics, such as biomass and...
Morphological diversity of northeastern fat-tailed and northwestern thin-tailed indigenous sheep breeds of Ethiopia
Characterization of indigenous sheep breeds using morphological traits is essential for designing rational conservation and improvement strategies. This study was conducted to check the morphological diversity of three fattailed and three thin...
Genetic analysis of grain protein content and dough quality traits in elite spring bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) lines through association study
Wheat quality parameters are complex traits predominantly influenced by the genetic background of varieties. A total of 802 spring bread wheat breeding lines were tested at Marchouch station, Morocco in 2018 aimed at mining invaluable QTNs for...
Ethiopian indigenous goats offer insights into past and recent demographic dynamics and local adaptation in sub-Saharan African goats
Knowledge on how adaptive evolution and human socio‐cultural and economic interests shaped livestock genomes particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa remains limited. Ethiopia is in a geographic region that has been critical in the history of African...
