Pellet Production from Pruning and Alternative Forest Biomass: A Review of the Most Recent Research Findings.

Typically, coniferous sawdust from debarked stems is used to make pellets. Given the high lignin content, which ensures strong binding and high calorific values, this feedstock provides the best quality available. However, finding alternative feedstocks for pellet production is crucial if small-scale pellet production is to be developed and used to support the economy and energy independence of rural communities.

spp.: An Overview of the Bioactive Profile and Food Applications of This Versatile Crop Adapted to Arid Lands.

spp. are crops well adapted to adverse environments and have great economic potential. Their constituents, including fruits, cladodes, and flowers, have a high nutritional value and are rich in value-added compounds.

Factors Influencing Italian Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Eggs Enriched with Omega-3-Fatty Acids.

This paper focused on eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids with the aim of understanding if functional eggs were of interest to Italian consumers, and analyzing which characteristics of table egg quality, consumers' attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics affect the consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids. We performed an online survey on 312 Italian consumers. The analysis was based on the Tobit regression model.

Pruning harvesting with modular towed chipper: Little effect of the machine setting and configuration on performance despite strong impact on wood chip quality.

Pruning residues can have a high quality as feedstock for energy purposes and are largely available in Europe. However, it is still an untapped resource. Such scarce use is due to the need to optimize their supply chain in term of collection machines and the associate cost of collection.

as an Ingredient in New Functional Pasta: Consumer Preferences in Italy.

is a source of minerals and vitamins and has recently been used as ingredient to make a new functional variety of pasta. Italy was the first country in the world to produce pasta and is also the second largest producer of Opuntia in the world. According to an Italian sample, this study considers the main factors that could influence consumers when choosing functional pasta (featuring Opuntia) and characterizes distinct hypothetical consumer segments in terms of their food habits, pasta choices, and perceptions toward functional pasta featuring Opuntia.

Technology alternatives for tapping the pruning residue resource.

Four commercial harvesters were compared with respect to recovery of pruning residues for energy conversion. These harvesters were tested side-by-side on 17 test fields, totaling 15 ha. The test fields consisted of vineyards and apple and pear orchards.

Nitrogen concentration estimation in tomato leaves by VIS-NIR non-destructive spectroscopy.

Nitrogen concentration in plants is normally determined by expensive and time consuming chemical analyses. As an alternative, chlorophyll meter readings and N-NO(3) concentration determination in petiole sap were proposed, but these assays are not always satisfactory. Spectral reflectance values of tomato leaves obtained by visible-near infrared spectrophotometry are reported to be a powerful tool for the diagnosis of plant nutritional status.