International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics

International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Vol. 4 (6), pp. 001-012, June, 2015. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Influence of preharvest and postharvest treatments on stored tomato quality

T. S. Workneh¹*, G. Osthoff² and M. S. Steyn²

¹School of Bioresources Engineering and Environmental Hydrology, Faculty of Engineering, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Private Bag X0l, Scottsville, 3209, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

²Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, University of the Free State, PO Box 9300, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Accepted 22 April, 2015

Abstract

Preharvest ComCat^® treated tomatoes and untreated controls were evaluated for changes in physiological and microbiological quality characteristics during storage at 13°C and room temperature (16.9 to 25.2°C) and a relative humidity of 34 to 76% after 8, 16, 24 and 30 days. The effectiveness of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) in Xtend^® film, disinfection treatments with chlorine or anolyte water and different storage temperatures were also evaluated. The O₂ and CO₂ concentrations remained above 15% and below 6% during storage, respectively. MAP retained ascorbic acid and slightly suppressed growth of microorganism. Storage temperature was the most dominant factor. Faster ripening of tomatoes at room temperature was accompanied by rapid changes in O₂ and CO₂ and faster growth of populations of microorganism. Disinfecting treatments significantly reduced microorganisms. Chlorine disinfection resulted in higher O₂ consumption and CO₂ production than anolyte water. ComCat^® treated tomatoes had lower levels of ascorbic acid and microbial populations, than controls. ComCat^® treatment had a significant effect on O₂ and N₂ concentrations, ascorbic acid, bacteria, moulds and yeasts, and coliform bacteria during storage. During storage at room temperature, the headspace of packages of ComCat^® treated tomatoes had higher O₂, lower CO₂ and lower N₂ contents, which indicated a lower respiration rate, compared to controls. During storage, the ascorbic acid content was better retained in ComCat^® treated tomatoes than in control tomatoes.

Key words: ComCat^®, tomato, preharvest treatment, disinfection, modified atmosphere packaging, oxygen, carbon dioxide.

International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Vol. 4 (5), pp. 001-006, May, 2015. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Socio-economic analysis of beekeeping and the effects of beehive types on honey production

Hasan Vural¹* and Süleyman Karaman²

¹Faculty of Agriculture, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey.

²Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.

Accepted 21 March, 2015

Abstract 

Turkey has considerable potential in beekeeping with her rich flora, proper ecological conditions and existence of colony. However, Turkish beekeeping sector has not yet utilized the rich natural resources sufficiently. Turkey is one of the most important honey producer countries. In Turkey, 200,000 agricultural organizations have activities in apiculture but, only 20,000 of these organizations deal with apiculture as their main source of income. Apiculture sector in Turkey still is faced with some important problems with respect to high chemical use in the hives, marketing and export problems caused by quality of honey, mix harvest and so on. The aim of this research was to analyze apiaries’ technical and economic aspects in Turkey. The total numbers of surveyed apiaries in Bursa province of Turkey were 80 in 2008 production period. Bursa province has high quality honey production and the highest quality pollen production in Turkey. First of all, technical and economic aspects of beekeepers are given under three sub-groups by the number of colonies (50 ≥, 51 - 100, and 101 ≤). One of the principal factors is use for the old types of beehive. In this paper, the effect of old and new type beehive use for the honey production in Turkey was examined. A time series data between 1936 and 2005 was used in analyzing ARD model.

Key words: Beekeeping, socio-economic analyses, time series, ARD model.

Key words: Rumen microbial flora, cellulase, xylanase.

International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Vol. 4 (4), pp. 001-006, April, 2015. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

The identification of white fertile eggs prior to incubation based on machine vision and least square support vector machine

Zhihui Zhu^1,2 and Meihu Ma^1,3*

¹National R&D Center for Egg Processing, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, China.

²College of Engineering, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, China.

³College of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei 430070, China.

Accepted 19 January, 2015

Abstract

The ability to automatically identifying fertile eggs prior to incubation would allow timely removal of the infertile eggs, which could bring high profits to hatcheries with better chick quality and lower pathogen contamination of chicks. A method based on machine vision and least square support vector machine (LS-SVM) for fertile eggs identification prior to incubation was proposed. Digital images were acquired by high-resolution digital cameras with cold light back illumination, and egg shapes (e.g. egg shape index, roundness, elongation, geometric moment) and color mean information of the egg yolk region such as hue (H), intensity (I), saturation (S) from image characters were extracted. LS-SVM algorithm was used to establish fertile egg classification model from infertile eggs. The test results obtained from the 40 testing sets showed that the best classification accuracy was 92.5%. With using a same data set, the performance comparison between LS-SVM classifier with different kernel functions and the other different classifiers was conducted. Compared with other kernels, LS-SVM classifier with radius basis functional (RBF) kernel was found to obtain the best accuracy and provide better accuracy, higher speed compared with support vector machine (SVM) and back-propagation (BP) artificial neural networks classifier.

Key words: Fertile egg, identification, machine vision, least square support vector machine, prior to incubation.

International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Vol. 4 (3), pp. 001-012, March, 2015. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Prediction of quality indices during drying of okra pods in a domestic microwave oven using artificial neural network model

Mohammed A. Al-Sulaiman

Community College, Huraimla, Shaqra University, P. O. Box 300, Huraimla 11962, Saudi Arabia. E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 00966505499100. Fax: 0096615266666.

Accepted 13 October, 2014

Abstract 

The ability of artificial neural networks to model non linear complex systems such as drying is increasing. The aim of this work is to develop an artificial neural network model, to predict quality indices of okra pods after drying in a domestic microwave oven that could be a tool used to predict some product quality. The optimal artificial neural network model was found to be a 3-6-4 structure with sigmoid transfer function. This optimal model was capable of predicting the total color change ( E), browning index, coefficient of rehydration and bulk shrinkage coefficient with R² higher than 0.98 during training phase. It was concluded that the artificial neural network model predicted quality indices better than the multiple linear regression model.

Key words: Artificial neural networks, drying, microwave, prediction, okra, multiple linear regression, quality indices.

International Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics Vol. 4 (3), pp. 001-004, March, 2015. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Effects of hot air and microwave drying on some physical properties of laurel berry

*S.Oztekđn¹, T.Erdem¹ and S.Karaaslan²

¹Department of Agricultural Machinery, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Cukurova,01330 Adana,Turkey.

²Department of Agricultural Machinery, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta,Turkey.

Accepted 20 October, 2014

Abstract

In this study the influence of drying method on physical properties of laurel berry has been investigated. Drying air temperatures for hot air application were selected as 60, 70 and 80°C, respectively. The power levels for microwave application were 180, 360, 540, 720 and 900 W, respectively. The average length, width, thickness, the geometric mean diameter, sphericity index, unit mass, volume, projected area, coefficient of friction, angle of repose, rupture force and moisture content were studied. The fresh sample of average length, width and thickness were 14.26, 12.22 and 10.86 mm, respectively. Microwave drying at the power of 900 W, where length, width and thickness were 14.16, 11.39 and 11.01 mm, respectively. The rupture force of fresh laurel berries were 52.91 and 97.99 N at minor and major axis. By microwave drying at 360 W the minor and major axis values were 59.11 and 84.75 N, respectively.

Key words: Laurel berry, drying, physical properties.