Understanding the methane (CH4) emissions that are produced by enteric fermentation is one of the main problems to be solved for livestock, due to their GHG effects. These emissions are affected by the quantity and quality of their diets, thus, it is key to accurately define the intake and fiber content (NDF) of these forage diets. On the other hand, different emission prediction equations have been developed; however, there are scarce and uncertain results regarding their evaluation of the emissions that have been observed in forage diets.

Breeding programs generate vast amount of data which are often scattered in separate files. This hinders the application of modern breeding tools such as multi-environment analyses and genomic selection. This research work describes the process of consolidating 23 years of phenotypic, pedigree, and genomic records from the Uruguayan national rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding program, and the features and structure of the resulting database.

Breeding programs generate vast amounts of data which are often scattered in separate files. This hinders the application of modern breeding tools such as multi-environment analyses and genomic selection. This dataset is the result of consolidating 23 years of phenotypic, pedigree, and genomic records from the Uruguayan national rice breeding program. All the available data from 1997 to 2020 corresponding to field trials, blast nurseries, laboratory analyses of milling and cooking quality, pedigree information, and genomic information for selected advanced breeding lines are gathered.

The emerald ash borer (EAB) is an exotic forest pest that has killed millions of ash trees in the United States and Canada, resulting in an ecological disaster and billions of dollars in economic losses of urban landscape and forest trees. The beetle was first detected in Michigan in 2002 and has spread through much of the Eastern and Midwestern U.S., reaching Minnesota in 2009. Since then, it has spread across the state and poses a great risk to the more than 1 billion ash trees in Minnesota.

Rotational rice systems, involving pastures, other crops and/or livestock, are common in temperate South America, exemplified by the rice-pasture-livestock system of Uruguay which combines very high rice yields with tight nitrogen (N) balances. The generally good nutrient use efficiency in these systems provides a template for nutrient management in other mixed farming systems, if the underlying processes can be sufficiently well quantified and understood.

Biological nitrogen fixation contributes greatly to the sustainability of agroecosystems. However, more information is needed about the impact that agricultural intensification, a frequent practice nowadays, would have on diazotrophic communities associated with plants. This work addresses the influence of intensifying rice cropping systems on the abundance, diversity, and structure of diazotrophic communities associated with rice roots (rhizospheric and endophytic bacteria) from a field experiment.

The emerald ash borer is causing dramatic losses following its introduction into North America, with hundreds of millions of ash trees killed. Attacked trees lose wood integrity rapidly after infestation and are prone to failure. The aim of this study was to investigate the wood degrading potential of Basidiomycota fungi previously found associated with EAB galleries. Laboratory soil and agar microcosm experiments showed that many of the white-rot fungi isolated were aggressive wood degraders.

It is unclear to what extent and on which variables does supplementing beef cattle on native grasslands affect sward structure, specifically on the dynamics of its grazing horizons.

BACKGROUND:To enhance and extend the knowledge about the global historical and phylogenetic relationships between Merino and Merino-derived breeds, 19 populations were genotyped with the OvineSNP50 BeadChip specifically for this study, while an additional 23 populations from the publicly available genotypes were retrieved.

Bovine Coronavirus (BCoV) is a major pathogen associated with neonatal calf diarrhea. Standard practice dictates that to prevent BCoV diarrhea, dams should be immunized in the last stage of pregnancy to increase BCoV-specific antibody (Ab) titers in serum and colostrum. For the prevention to be effective, calves need to suck maternal colostrum within the first six to twelve hours of life before gut closure to ensure a good level of passive immunity.