Increasing Productivity and Recovering Nutritional, Organoleptic, and Nutraceutical Qualities of Major Vegetable Crops for Better Dietetics.

The intensive use of chemical fertilizers for vegetable cultivation to achieve higher productivity causes soil degradation, resulting in an alarming decline (25-50%) in nutritional quality and a reduction in a wide variety of nutritionally essential minerals and nutraceutical compounds in high-yielding vegetable crops over the last few decades. To restore the physio-chemical and biological qualities of soil as well as the nutritional and nutraceutical qualities of fresh produce, there is a growing desire to investigate the remedial impacts of organic sources of nutrition. This study specifically focused on the impact of six different ratios of chemical fertilizers and organic sources with microbial inoculation on vegetable productivity, nutrition quality, and soil health parameters.

Interlaboratory test for stable carbon isotope analysis of dissolved inorganic carbon in geothermal fluids.

Rationale: Stable carbon isotope ratios have many applications in natural sciences. In the first worldwide interlaboratory proficiency test, the discrepancies in measured δ C values of natural waters were up to σ = ±3‰. Therefore, we continued the investigation on the analytical data quality assurance of individual laboratories and internal consistency among laboratories worldwide.

Inter-laboratory test for oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope analyses of geothermal fluids: Assessment of reservoir fluid compositions.

Rationale: Knowledge of the accuracy and precision for oxygen (δ O values) and hydrogen (δ H values) stable isotope analyses of geothermal fluid samples is important to understand geothermal reservoir processes, such as partial boiling-condensation and encroachment of cold and reinjected waters. The challenging aspects of the analytical techniques for this specific matrix include memory effects and higher scatter of delta values with increasing total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations, deterioration of Pt-catalysts by dissolved/gaseous H S for hydrogen isotope equilibration measurements and isotope salt effects that offset isotope ratios determined by gas equilibration techniques.

Methods: An inter-laboratory comparison exercise for the determination of the δ O and δ H values of nine geothermal fluid samples was conducted among eleven laboratories from eight countries (CeMIEGeo2017).

Stable carbon isotope analysis of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in natural waters--results from a worldwide proficiency test.

Rationale: Stable carbon isotope ratios of dissolved inorganic (DIC) and organic carbon (DOC) are of particular interest in aquatic geochemistry. The precision for this type of analysis is typically reported in the range of 0.1‰ to 0.