ALBERT

Description: Cotton constitutes a significant commercial crop and a widely traded commodity around the world. The accurate prediction of its yield quantity could lead to high economic benefits for farmers as well as for the rural national economy. In this research, we propose a multiple-input neural network model for the prediction of cotton’s production. The proposed model utilizes as inputs three different kinds of data (soil data, cultivation management data, and yield management data) which are treated and handled independently. The significant advantages of the selected architecture are that it is able to efficiently exploit mixed data, which usually requires being processed separately, reduces overfitting, and provides more flexibility and adaptivity for low computational cost compared to a classical fully-connected neural network. An empirical study was performed utilizing data from three consecutive years from cotton farms in Central Greece (Thessaly) in which the prediction performance of the proposed model was evaluated against that of traditional neural network-based and state-of-the-art models. The numerical experiments revealed the superiority of the proposed approach.

Description: Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) is a multipurpose crop; its oil has numerous applications worldwide and the last decade demonstrated a growing international demand. The aim of this work was to investigate the level of castor bean tolerance to drought and its possession of a water stress resistance mechanism by applying three different water regimes in a glasshouse pot experiment conducted for two years. The treatments applied were 70% (T70-control), 55% (T55) and 40% (T40) of the available soil moisture. The results showed that the growth parameters height, trunk diameter, and fresh and dry weights of leaves and stems were not affected by the moderate water scarcity (T55), while they were significantly decreased by T40. Significant decrease in leaf number was observed in both T55 (17%) and T40 (27%) plants, with a delay of 4 weeks in the lower treated plants. Leaf area was decreased by 54% and 20% in T55 and T40 respectively, indicating that its reduction was mainly due to a reduction of leaf size than of leaf number. The leaf water potential was increased negatively with increasing stress, showing a water loss and decrease of turgidity in cells. Stomatal resistance was significantly higher at the higher water scarcity and this response indicates a water stress resistance mechanism. This result was also confirmed by the regression analysis performed between stomatal resistance and leaf water potential. In conclusion, castor bean showed a tolerance ability under water stress conditions and its early physiological reaction allows its acclimatization to drought conditions.

Description: Lupinus mutabilis Sweet is an Andean protein crop with agro-economic potential. However, it is characterized by low yields and phenotypic plasticity related to environmental conditions when cultivated in different locations in Europe. Current research objective was to evaluate L. mutabilis agro-morphological performance in two locations in Greece and to record its pollinators, since these can contribute to optimization of crop performance. For this purpose, eight Andean lupin accessions, one white and one blue lupin commercial varieties were evaluated for 71 agro-morphological traits in a Randomized Complete Block design with three replications. Combined Analysis over Location presented a significant accession-location interaction for traits of economic interest such as seed crude protein and 100 seed weight. Seed crude protein was higher in L. mutabilis accessions (up to 43.8 g 100 g−1 seed) than white and blue lupins. Andean lupin yielded up to 327 kg ha−1 (LIB214) in Kalamata, while its yield was lower than the white lupin in Athens. Using principal component analysis, three groups of accessions were formed, one by each lupin species and three within Andean lupin accessions. Floral traits such as color and size are related to pollinators diversity and preference. Insect pollinators and floral traits interplay among different lupin species was examined. Pollinators visited L. mutabilis flowers belong to the genera Anthophora, Bombus, Megachile and Xylocopa. The results of the present study, indicate that L.mutabilis has agronomic potential and enhances above ground biodiversity, however breeding for higher yields is required.

Description: Andean lupin in Europe has regained interest in recent years due to its high seed protein and oil content and its potential use for food, feed as well as a crop used in biorefineries. A search for suitable germplasm in combination with a determination of appropriate agronomical practices such as planting date are needed for commercial farming in new areas. The current study aims to evaluate the performance of six selected L. mutabilis accessions in a Mediterranean area using two different planting dates for two consecutive experimental years. A split plot design with accessions as subplots and planting dates as main plots was used. Measurements such as days to flowering, plant height, total number of pods and seeds per plant, seed yield and seed crude protein content were taken. All accessions performed better when cultivation started not later than the end of autumn since high temperatures occurred during late spring shortened the growth cycle and reduced yield. Earlier cultivation applied, in the middle of autumn, did not enhance significantly seed yield production. Among the accessions, LIB223 was characterized by the highest seed crude protein content in the early planting treatment, while accessions with prolonged growth cycle (LIB209, LIB214 and LIB223) produced higher seed yield than other accessions and could be further studied as promising breeding material for cultivation under the edaphoclimatic conditions tested.

Description: Among the variants of Greek honey, the most commonly available are pine, fir, thyme, and citrus honey. Samples of the above kinds of honey, identified according to European and Greek legislation, were studied using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and the attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopic techniques. Two chemometric models were developed based on statistically significant volatile compounds (octane; 2-phenylacetaldehyde; 1-nonanol; methyl 2-hydroxybenzoate; 2-(4-methylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl); nonanoic acid) and the 1390–945 and 847–803 cm−1 spectral regions, mainly vibrations of fructose and glucose, combined with the stepwise linear discriminant analysis (stepwise LDA) statistical technique. In total, 85.5% of standard samples, and 82.3% through internal validation and 88.5% through external validation, were identified correctly using the GC-MS-stepwise-LDA chemometric model. The corresponding results for the ATR-FTIR-stepwise-LDA chemometric model were 93.5%, 82.5%, and 84.6%. The double validation (internal, external) enhances the robustness of the proposed chemometric models. The developed models are considered statistically equivalent, but FTIR spectroscopy is simple, rapid, and more economical.