Azarian Journal of Agriculture
Volume:4 Issue: 2, Apr 2017

Symptoms of smut were observed on stems of Ceratocephalus falcatus plants collected from Maragheh, Northwest of Iran, in June 2016. Using morphological and molecular techniques, the fungus was identified as Urocystis eranthidis. To our knowledge, it is the first report of U. eranthidis from Iran and also the first record of the species on C. falcatus.

This contribution investigates factors explaining job acquisition using the agricultural college students’ perceptions. Research sample was composed of 400 college freshman, sophomore, junior and senior students from the population (N≈ 1522), surveyed by random sampling approach, after stratifying by ten academic majors. A self-implemented questionnaire collected the quantitative data. We performed principal component analysis (PCA) using SPSS (version 12), which represented that observed or measuring variables are loaded on four latent variables, individual, educational, financial, and social. Moreover, the derived results from K-mean cluster analysis (KCA) manifested three clusters of cases. Cases fallen into the cluster 1, substantially regard personal factors. Cluster 2 comprise students who remarkably take into account financial factors, whereas, students in cluster 3 believe in social and financial factors. Likewise, all job-acquisition-factor were significantly different based on the levels of gender, economic status and residence. In conclusion, we proposed management implications based on the research findings as well as hints to gaps for more job investigations in future.

The present work was conducted to evaluate the varietal performance of three potato varieties namely- Asterix, Granola and Diamant with different microtubers weights of >500 mg, 250-500 mg and <250 mg on sprout characters. The variety Granola showed longer dormancy period (30.33 days) in the case of less weight microtuber and it was decreasing the rate with increasing of microtuber weight in all varieties. The variety Diamant produced slightly more sprout per microtuber for all weights while the variety Asterix showed higher number of sprout per microtuber by >500 mg. Asterix had significantly longer sprouts (28.43 mm) than other two varieties and the trend of the length of sprout was decreased with the decrease of microtuber weight. The larger microtubers (>500 mg) of the variety Diamant and Asterix tended to have higher values on fresh weight of sprouts and sprout mass per unit of sprout length than Granola variety.

Palms are considered the symbol of desert and they probably originated from Iraq and Iran. Due to its high tolerance in difficult climatic conditions, planting this tree has increased in warm areas all over the world during the recent years. The main regions for producing this fruit are the Middle East and north of Africa. Iran is one of the main date producing countries in the world. There are more than 200 varieties of date in Iran, the most important of which are Estameran, Shahani, Mazafati, Barhee, and Piaram. The palm tree is a multipurpose plant and various parts of the tree are used as food, medicine, and in industry. Despite high production of date in Iran, a large amount of this product is wasted due to lack of packaging and processing.

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of different weed management practices on weed dynamics, yield and economics of soybean (Glycine max L.var. JS-335) production. Experiment was carried out in randomized block design consisting of thirteen weed management practices replicated thrice (pre-emergence and post- emergence application of herbicides, cultural and mechanical weed management practices). Experimental field was mostly dominated by grassy weeds namely; Sorghum halepense, Cynodon dactylon, Digitaria sanguinallis with broad leaf weeds and sedges. Total weed population and weed dry matter production was significantly highest in weedy check plot. Two hand weeding at 20 and 40 Days after sowing (DAS) with highest weed control efficiency (84.29 %) recorded lowest weed population and weed dry matter accumulation with highest values of growth and yield attributes, seed and stalk yield. Pre-emergence (PE) application of pendimethalin 1.0 kg ha-1 supplemented by hand weeding at 40 DAS was next best treatment to record lower weed population, weed dry matter accumulation and higher seed yield with the weed control efficiency of 80.83 %. Pendimethalin 1.0 kg ha-1 as pre-emergence followed by (fb) quizalofop-p-ethyl 50 g ha-1 at 20 DAS highly efficient for dominating grassy weed; Sorghum halepense produced comparable seed and stalk yield with lower cost of cultivation and recorded highest net return (711.22 $ ha-1) and benefit: cost ratio (1.51) over all other treatments with mean that 1 $ investment can fetch 1.51 $ net return thus proving more economical and profitable weed management practice among all treatments.