Variations in yield and gluten proteins in durum wheat varieties under late-season foliar versus soil application of nitrogen fertilizer in a northern Mediterranean environment.

Background: With the increasing demand for high-quality foodstuffs and concern for environmental sustainability, late-season nitrogen (N) foliar fertilization of common wheat is now an important and widespread practice. This study investigated the effects of late-season foliar versus soil N fertilization on yield and protein content of four varieties of durum wheat, Aureo, Ariosto, Biensur and Liberdur, in a three-year field trial in northern Italy.

Results: Variations in low-molecular-weight glutenins (LMW-GS), high-molecular-weight glutenins (HMW-GS) and gliadins were assessed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).

Essential amino acids: master regulators of nutrition and environmental footprint?

The environmental footprint of animal food production is considered several-fold greater than that of crops cultivation. Therefore, the choice between animal and vegetarian diets may have a relevant environmental impact. In such comparisons however, an often neglected issue is the nutritional value of foods.

Estimation of cotyledon isoflavone abundance by a grey luminance-based model in variously hilum-coloured soybean varieties.

Background: The nutraceutical uses of soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) have received increasing attention in recent years, due to the therapeutic effects of high seed isoflavone concentrations against heart disease, cancer and menopausal symptoms.

Assisted phytoremediation of mixed metal(loid)-polluted pyrite waste: effects of foliar and substrate IBA application on fodder radish.

Exogenous application of plant-growth promoting substances may potentially improve phytoremediation of metal-polluted substrates by increasing shoot and root growth. In a pot-based study, fodder radish (Raphanus sativus L. var.

In situ phytoremediation of arsenic- and metal-polluted pyrite waste with field crops: effects of soil management.

Sunflower, alfalfa, fodder radish and Italian ryegrass were cultivated in severely As-Cd-Co-Cu-Pb-Zn-contaminated pyrite waste discharged in the past and capped with 0.15m of unpolluted soil at Torviscosa (Italy). Plant growth and trace element uptake were compared under ploughing and subsoiling tillages (0.

Phytoremediation trials on metal- and arsenic-contaminated pyrite wastes (Torviscosa, Italy).

At a site in Udine, Italy, a 0.7m layer of As, Co, Cu, Pb and Zn contaminated wastes derived from mineral roasting for sulphur extraction had been covered with an unpolluted 0.15m layer of gravelly soil.