Morphological, Physiological and Biochemical Impact of Ink Industry Effluent on Germination of Maize (Zea mays), Barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor).

The present study focuses on effects of untreated and treated ink industry wastewater on germination of maize, barley and sorghum. Wastewater had a high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and metal content compared to treated effluent. Germination decreased with increasing COD concentration.

Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is a new natural host of Hop stunt viroid.

Besides hop, Hop stunt viroid (HpSVd) infects many woody species including grapevine, citrus, peach, plum, apricot, almond, pomegranate, mulberry and jujube. Here, we report the first detection of HpSVd in pistachio (Pistacia vera L.).

Cloning and molecular characterization of a new fungal xylanase gene from Sclerotinia sclerotiorum S2.

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum fungus has three endoxylanases induced by wheat bran. In the first part, a partial xylanase sequence gene (90 bp) was isolated by PCR corresponding to catalytic domains (β 5 and β 6 strands of this protein). The high homology of this sequence with xylanase of Botryotinia fuckeliana has permitted in the second part to amplify the XYN1 gene.

Optimization of extracellular xylanase production by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum S2 using factorial design.

The improvement of xylanase production by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum S2 using a liquid fermentation culture was investigated. The optimized process was divided into three basic steps: (i) evaluating xylanase inducers using different agricultural residues such as wheat bran, oat bran, orange peel and barley bran at 1% final concentration, and also filter paper. Among these, wheat bran showed the maximum activity (2.