BACKGROUND In the European Union proteins for food are largely animal based, consisting of meat and dairy products. Almost all soy but also a larger part of pulses and cereals consumed in the European Union are used for animal nutrition. While livestock is an important source of proteins, it also creates substantial environmental impacts. The food and feed system is closely linked to the planetary and health boundaries and a transformation to healthy diets will require substantial dietary shifts ...

Meteorus pulchricornis (Ichneumonoidea, Braconidae) is an endoparasitoid wasp of lepidopteran caterpillars. Its parasitic success relies on vesicles (named M. pulchricornis Virus-Like Particles or MpVLPs) that are synthesized in the venom gland and injected into the parasitoid host along with the venom during oviposition. In order to define the content and understand the biogenesis of these atypical vesicles, we performed a transcriptome analysis of the venom gland and a proteomic analysis of the ...

The reproduction potential of nine single-species Meloidogyne populations and 16 mixed-species communities, recovered from watermelon rhizospheres in South-West Nigeria, were determined in roots of tomato (cv. Tropimech) in a glasshouse. The host responses of six commercial watermelon cultivars were also assessed under glasshouse conditions to single-species populations of Meloidogyne incognita, M. javanica and M. enterolobii. Reproduction potential of different Meloidogyne populations and the ...

Low nutrient use efficiency in maize as a result of imbalanced nutrition has been reported to drastically reduce yield. We implemented a nutrient omission experiment to assess the effect of nutrient application on maize yield and nutritional balance. Maize ear leaves were analyzed for nutrients, to identify nutrient balance status using the Diagnostic and Recommendation Integrated System (DRIS) approach. Results indicated that omission of N or P resulted in highly imbalanced DRIS indices respectively, ...

Low soil nitrogen (low-N) and stem borer attack are two of the major stresses limiting maize production in West and Central Africa (WCA). Thus, there is need to intensify efforts aimed at identifying inbred lines with resistance and tolerance to these stresses for hybrid development. The objectives of the study were to determine the combining ability of maize inbred lines, classify them into heterotic groups using both conventional and marker-based approaches, compare the efficiency of the different ...

The African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land-use change and are, at the same time, of great relevance for the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients between plants, soils and the atmosphere. However, the consequences of land conversion on biogeochemical cycles are still largely unknown as they are not studied in a landscape context that defines the geomorphic, geochemically and pedological framework in which biological processes take place. Thus, the response of tropical soils to disturbance ...

Aphids cause considerable damage to numerous crops all over the world and insecticides are the main means of controlling them, despite their detrimental impacts on human and environmental health. This study assessed the effectiveness of the parasitoid Aphidius colemani Viereck (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a mixture of predatory ladybird beetles, Hippodamia variegata Goeze, Chilocorus calvus Chiccl, and Cheilomenes propinqua Mulsant (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), and an entomopathogenic strain of ...

The backslopped cassava mash (BCM) produced by pre-fermenting grated cassava for 96 h was mixed with fresh cassava mash from the same variety using different blend ratios and processed to backslopped fermented gari (BFG). Another batch of the same variety was fermented for 24 h, 48 h, 72 h, and 96 h to get spontaneous fermented gari (SFG). Standard methods were used to analyze the chemical composition and sensory properties of the samples. Results showed that the moisture, fat, and CNP contents, ...

Maize is consumed in different traditional diets as a source of macro- and micro-nutrients across Africa. Significant investment has thus been made to develop maize with high provitamin A content to complement other interventions for alleviating vitamin A deficiencies. The current breeding focus on increasing β-carotene levels to develop biofortified maize may affect the synthesis of other beneficial carotenoids. The changes in carotenoid profiles, which are commonly affected by environmental ...

The oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae) is a major pest of fruit and vegetable production systems on several continents. The pest has invaded many countries, causing considerable impact on fruit production systems and commercialization. In this study we determined the relationship between temperature and development, survival and reproductive parameters of B. dorsalis on an artificial diet under laboratory conditions under 7 constant temperatures (10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 33 ...