Alejandro Isabel Luna-Maldonado

Total Growth of Tomato Hybrids Under Greenhouse Conditions

Often in intensive production of tomato, the fertilization is applied by the farmers without consider the suitable doses in order to cover nutritional requirements according to crop physiological stages. Thus, appropriate crop management is a strategic demand to maintain or increase tomato production. In spite of many researchers conducted experiments in this subject and data is available about physiological stage requirements for plant nutrition, only few studies have been focused to nutritional parameters. The crop growth curves and nutrient uptake for tomato may determine uptake rate for a particular nutrient eluding possible deficiencies and superfluous fertilizer consumption. The daily rates of nutrient uptake are depending on crop and wheater (Scaife and Bar-Yosef, 1995; Honorato et al., 1993; Magnificent et al., 1979; Miller et al, 1979); however, crop requirements and opportune fertilizer applications, are little known in many of fresh consumption crops. In Mexico, vegetable production is located at desert areas in the north and middle of the country where water shortages have constraints with impact on of water demands the crops of tomato, pepper and cucumber. Thus, the surface for crop production in greenhouses has increased from 350 ha in 1997 (Steta, 1999) to about 5000 ha in 2006 (Fonseca, 2006), because the increasing demand for quality products and the risk of losses on field for crop production.

Oregano powder substitution and shelf life in pork chorizo using Mexican oregano essential oil

Abstract The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of oregano essential oil (MOO) from Mexican oregano, Lippia berlandieri Schauer, as substitute for Mexican oregano powder (MOP) on pork chorizo physicochemical characteristics, texture, antioxidant capacity, aerobic bacteria colony counts, and sensory evaluation under storage conditions over 7 d. The treatments were T1 = chorizo + 0.1% MOP and T2 = chorizo + 0.1% MOO. The pH, redness (a*), yellowness (b*), Chroma, and browning index (BI) were affected by treatments and storage time. T2 presented lower pH (5.27) at d 1 than at d 7 (5.34), as well as a* (23.13 vs. 25.27), b* (14.85 vs. 17.45), Chroma (28.60 vs. 30.79), and BI (103.42 vs. 109.82) were higher at d 7. At d 1, hardness (1392.75 vs. 872.29 g), springiness (0.3675 vs. 0.3351 mm), gumminess (491.45 vs. 284.38 g), and chewiness (180.25 vs. 95.43 g mm) were higher in T1 than T2. Aerobic bacteria counts (T1—4.19 vs. 4.73 log CFU/g and T2—4.37 vs. 4.50 log CFU/g, respectively) increased within each treatment at d 7. Antioxidant capacity was not affected (26.48 and 27.42%). Oregano odor was different at 7 d with T2 having a stronger odor (5.70) than T1 with oregano powder (4.63). Mexican oregano essential oil in the pork chorizo formulation improved pH, color parameters, textural profile, and sensory characteristics.

BIOMASS PRODUCTION AND QUALITY ESTIMATION OF Chlorella vulgaris (CLV2) UNDER LARGE SCALE PRODUCTION CONDITIONS

Present study was conducted for large scale biomass production of Chlorella vulgaris CLV2. Further, level of lipid, crude protein, chlorophyll content were also analysed for this produced biomass. In this study, two carbon sources viz. Carbon dioxide (CO2) or Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and two light sources (sun light or light-emitting diodes LEDs) were used from mass culturing of C. vulgaris CLV2. The study was conducted in 15 L culture containers. Results of study revealed that in case of maximum dry biomass (DB) concentration, no significant difference was reported amongst the NaHCO3 with LED (0.72 ± 0.04 g L -1 ) and sunlight (0.74 ± 0.04 g L -1 ), while in case of crude protein and chlorophyll a+b concentrations a significant difference was reported among these two (49.8% and 22.61 µg mL -1 , respectively) under normal autotrophic growth. Maximum lipid concentration (3.6%) was reported from the treatment containing NaHCO3 and LED. Further it was reported that lipid productivity (17.21 mg L -1 day -1 ) increased with the increasing biomass yield (477.78 mg L -1 day -1 ). Results of study revealed that C. vulgaris CLV2 biomass can be increased by manipulating carbon and light source. The final products can be used as biofuels (biomass, lipids) or human and animal feed supplement (proteins and chlorophyll).

Modeling of Corn Grain Drying by Runge- Kutta Method

Corn grain drying modelling is used to estimate moisture loss along time, and with this information improve the drying process, maximizing energy resources. The numerical method of Runge-Kutta is an alternative for the solution of ordinary differential equations, since obtaining the coefficients of the method is possible to simulate a very real approximation of the actual behaviour of drying process. In this research, the constants of the fourth order Runge-Kutta numerical method were calculated, a determination coefficient with R^2=1 between analytical solution and a numerical method was found. The mean error between the two solutions was 3.13x10 -5 . Uziel Francisco Grajeda-Gonzalez, Hector Flores-Breceda, Juana Aranda-Ruiz, Juan Antonio Vidales-Contreras, Humberto Rodriguez-Fuentes and Alejandro Isabel Luna-Maldonado *

Technological Skills in the Academic Performance of Students

The objective of this research was to analyze the effect of technological competence (teacher, Internet, smart classroom), to obtain academic performance of students of higher level of the Colleges of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon. We applied qualitative and quantitative methods, and simultaneously, a statistical design allowed us to make more reliable calculations. We also used two instruments: surveys and assessment test the research question.

Editorial: Advances and Trends in Development of Plant Factories

The plant factory is a facility that aids the steady production of high-quality vegetables all year round by artificially controlling the cultivation environment (e.g., light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and culture solution), allowing growers to plan production. By controlling the internal environment, plant factories can produce vegetables about two to four times faster than by typical outdoor cultivation. In addition, as multiple cultivation shelves (a multi-shelf system) are used, the mass production of vegetables in a small space is facilitated. This research topic presents some new trends on intelligent measuring systems; environment controlled and optimization; flavonoids; phenylpropanoids, transcriptomes, and bacteria. Among some of the new findings on intelligent measuring systems, Chen et al. developed an automated measurement system to measure and record the plant weight during plant growth in plant factory. They found that plant weights measured by the weight measurement device are highly correlated with the weights estimated by the stereo-vision imaging system. Moriyuki and Fukuda devised a novel high-throughput diagnosis system using the measurement of chlorophyll fluorescence forming an image of 7200 seedlings acquired by a CCD camera and an automatic transferring machine. They used machine learning in order to extract biological indices and predict plant growth. Previously, Hashimoto et al. (2001) applied an intelligent control system consisting of a decision system based on neuronal networks and genetic algorithms to optimize the growth of hydroponic tomato plants during the seedling stage. Hwang et al. (2014) also proposed a plant factory automatic control system to collect crop image information (illuminance, temperature, humidity, EC, pH, and CO2) and provided crop environment control and service suitable for crop growth step (crop shape, size, color, and length). Related to environment controlled and optimization, Zheng et al. explored the effects of different density treatments on potato spatial distribution and yield in spring and fall. They concluded that increased density significantly increased potato yield, but the degree of influence associated with different growing seasons differed slightly. In Japan, there were 165 plant factories with artificial lighting (Kozai et al., 2015). Wang et al. added an air exchanger for cooling in plant production systems with artificial light (PPAL). They found that using air exchanger to introduce outdoor cold air is as an effective way to reduce electric-energy consumption with little effects on plant growth in a PPAL. Besides, the cultivation methods in a plant factory with artificial lighting (PFLA) were studied by Zhang et …

Models of the interconnection of pumps to supply water to branched networks

The basic concepts from a hydraulic and mathematical point of view were introduced to describe the operation of a hydraulic branched network of water distribution. Moreover, each one of the elements (simples and complex) of the system was identified. Classic hydraulic equations were inputted to apply them to branched networks and obtain a standard solution. A set of linear and non-linear equations, through the Newton–Raphson method with the jacobian matrix were required to solve the branched network that interconnects two kinds of very different pumps: a volute type centrifugal pump and another one is submersible pump, both of them installed in a deep well. The system is a branched network with two nodes and five pipe lines, to adequately supply two pressure irrigation systems: a central pivot and a semi-portable sprinkler, where the pumps are located in different places and heights. The solution was obtained by solving a system of two linear equations and three non-linear, simultaneously.