Over the decades, agri-food security has become one of the most critical concerns in the world. Sustainable agri-food production technologies have been reliable in mitigating poverty caused by high demands for food. Recently, the applications of agri-food system technologies have been meaningfully changing the worldwide scene due to both external strengths and internal forces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough a substantial body of evidence suggests that large and old trees have reduced metabolic levels, the search for the causes behind this observation has proved elusive. The strong coupling between age and size, commonly encountered in the field, precludes the isolation of the potential causes. We used standard propagation techniques (grafting and air-layering) to decouple the effects of size from those of age in affecting leaf structure, biochemistry and physiology of two broadleaved trees, Acer pseudoplatanus (a diffuse-porous species) and Fraxinus excelsior (a ring-porous species).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrought has serious effects on forests, especially semi-arid and arid forests, around the world. Zagros Forest in Iran has been severely affected by drought, which has led to the decline of the most common tree species, Persian oak (Quercus brantii). The objective of this study was to determine the effects of drought on the anatomical structure of Persian oak.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding the productivity and physiological status of an organ (rhizome) function can lead into a sustainable production of sympodial bamboo. Nutrient elements and ash content (AC) are among the indicators to indicate the productivity and physiological status of an individual bamboo organ. The present study aimed to (a) determine the concentration of macronutrient elements of 's rhizomes at four different ages collected at three study sites, and (b) investigate their relationship with AC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the more general global increase in viral diseases, has led researchers to look to the plant kingdom as a potential source for antiviral compounds. Since ancient times, herbal medicines have been extensively applied in the treatment and prevention of various infectious diseases in different traditional systems. The purpose of this review is to highlight the potential antiviral activity of plant compounds as effective and reliable agents against viral infections, especially by viruses from the coronavirus group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanotechnology is a promising tool that has opened the doors of improvement to the quality of human's lives through its potential in numerous technological aspects. Green chemistry of nanoscale materials (1-100 nm) is as an effective and sustainable strategy to manufacture homogeneous nanoparticles (NPs) with unique properties, thus making the synthesis of green NPs, especially metal nanoparticles (MNPs), the scientist's core theme. Researchers have tested different organisms to manufacture MNPs and the results of experiments confirmed that plants tend to be the ideal candidate amongst all entities and are suitable to synthesize a wide variety of MNPs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVarious classification methods have been applied for low resolution of the entire Earth's surface from recorded satellite images, but insufficient study has determined which method, for which satellite data, is economically viable for tropical forest land use mapping. This study employed Iterative Self Organizing Data Analysis Techniques (ISODATA) and K-Means classification techniques to classified Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Surface Reflectance satellite image into forests, oil palm groves, rubber plantations, mixed horticulture, mixed oil palm and rubber and mixed forest and rubber. Even though frequent cloud cover has been a challenge for mapping tropical forests, our MODIS land use classification map found that 2008 ISODATA-1 performed well with overall accuracy of 94%, with the highest Producer's Accuracy of Forest with 86%, and were consistent with MODIS Land Cover 2008 (MOD12Q1), respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForest growth is an important factor both economically and ecologically, and it follows a predictable trend with age. Generally, growth accelerates as canopies develop in young forests and declines substantially soon after maximum leaf area is attained. The causes of this decline are multiple and may be linked to age- or size-related processes, or both.
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