In this edition
- The leopard moth attacks branches of apple, olive, walnut and pomegranate in Jordan, Arab and Mediterranean countries. The adult insect is white in color dotted with black bluish dots. It appears for about one week in August up to October. Females lay eggs on branches or trunk. The hatched larva digs in the main trunk of apple tree heading upward for six months searching for cellulose, then coming back to pupate in the opening hole. Saw-dust accumulates at the hole and as a pile on the ground under infested tree. It may destroy the tree if not controlled. Infestation of this borer on olive tree differs than on apple due to the hard wood of olive. It has one generation per year or year and half. This borer may be controlled by agricultural practices, physical, chemical, and traps of different types.
- Food waste is one of the largest contributors to global climate change. Growing, processing, and transporting food uses significant resources. If food is wasted, these resources are wasted too. The United Nations (UN) warns that food waste alone causes 10% of greenhouse gases and urges us to change our diet to reverse the situation.
Food waste refers to food removed from the supply chain during distribution, in shops, restaurants, or in our homes. Food waste can be either unavoidable/inedible for example, the stone from a fruit, or avoidable/edible such as bread that was uneaten and went moldy. - The Arabian Desert covers most of the Arab countries, especially the Arabian Peninsula, at about 2.6 million km². These deserts have high temperatures throughout the year during the day, and freezing at night, with an annual precipitation rate of less than 10 millimeters, with some exceptions in some areas of the southeast. However, scientists make a great effort to overcome these difficulties and the research process has begun in the achieving and completing modern scientific techniques to accomplish the goal in some Arab countries bordering the desert, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and this article discusses some promising Agriculture technologies currently employed in the area.
- Arum spp. are perennial herbs belong to the family Araneae. They are native to Asia, Europe and North Africa. The genus Arum contains almost 29 species distributed worldwide. Arum plants are usually found in shaded, moist or mud damp places, on the cave iterance, rocks, and along the wadies sides and running water. Arum plants reproduce sexually by seeds and asexually by rhizomes, corms and bulblets. Plants usually appear and grow during the spring and complete their life cycle by middle of the summer. Plants revegetate yearly and can live for many years as perennials. Arum plants have a long history of uses in food and medications although are extremely poisonous. In medicine, Arum species are used for many ailments. As food plants they are used as leafy vegetables and prepared in different forms especially by poor families in the villages and suburbs. The green fresh plants are unpalatable and highly toxic to man and animals. However, when died or heated during food preparations toxic materials are destroyed, degraded and much of the toxicity is lost. Three Arum species are well known in Jordan flora. People are used to collect the plants for food or use in flok medicine especially as anticancer. However, different cases of toxification by these plants occurred and resulted from their random use by public. Therefore, these Arum plants should not be used in self-medication by any form and their uses must be under strict medical supervision. The plant also has some uses as an ornamental in gardens or is regarded as a wild flower at all growth stages.
- Weather plays a critical role in the onset and development of late blight infection, and accordingly, the appropriate fungicide must be intervened at the right time. In weather conditions favorable to the spread of the disease, we start spraying with a highly systemic fungicide to eliminate spores in the stems of infected plants, flowed by spraying with a locally systemic fungicide to protect the fresh leaves and sealing the treatment with a fungicide with a spore-killing effect to protect the tubers from infection during lifting.
- Ensuring a proper post-ruminal supply of methionine to dairy cows during the per parturient period has garnered interest in recent years due to beneficial effects of methionine in alleviating unfavorable health consequences of negative protein and energy balance around parturition through increasing dry matter intake, eventually improves liver functions, enhance immune response, increase milk production, and induce better health and growth for subsequent heifers.