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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2017

Abstract

Genetic resources of pea (Pisum sativum) may represent valuable traits for inclusion in breeding programs, but may also be valuable directly due to good adaptation to local agro-climatic conditions, or have market potential as heirloom foods. Grain legume production in Norway is limited compared to many other European countries, but increased acreage is desired and expected for several reasons. A short growing season and the specific agro-climatic conditions makes choice of genotypes important for reliable grain and protein yields. During three years, several evaluation field trials with pea genetic resources were carried out in Southern Norway, assessing morphological and phenological traits, seed yields and protein levels. The trials included pea accessions from Norway(1), Sweden(6), Finland(1), Latvia(8), Estonia(9) and Portugal(1), as well as commercial cultivars(6). The genotypes differed widely in grain yield, time and duration of flowering, maturity, plant height, and resistance to lodging. Seed protein levels ranged from 24.0 to 32.7%. Protein levels for these pea genotypes under Norwegian field conditions appear to be higher than in comparable trials in countries at lower latitudes. The research was supported by the EU FP7 project Eurolegume and NordGen (Nordic Genetic Resource Center).

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Abstract

Infrared and 13C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies and benzene polycarboxylic acids (BPCA) analysis were used to characterize the structural changes occurring during slow pyrolysis of corncob and Miscanthus at different temperatures from 235 °C to 800 °C. In the case of corncob, a char sample obtained from flash carbonization was also investigated. Spectroscopic techniques gave detailed information on the transformations of the different biomass components, whereas BPCA analysis allowed the amount of aromatic structures present in the different chars and the degree of aromatic condensation to be determined. The results showed that above 500 °C both corncob and Miscanthus give polyaromatic solid residues with similar degree of aromatic condensation but with differences in the structure. On the other hand, at lower temperatures, char composition was observed to depend on the different cellulose/hemicellulose/lignin ratios in the feedstocks. Flash carbonization was found to mainly affect the degree of aromatic condensation.

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Abstract

We investigate consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for local and organic foods using a nonhypothetical choice experiment. Past studies have observed that beliefs and attitudes affect consumers’ preferences for local and organic productions claims. However, in psychology, personality is an important factor in explaining individuals’ attitudes and behavior, since personality traits are stable features which capture how individuals think, feel, and behave. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the interaction between personality traits and consumers’ preferences for both local and organic food products. We used applesauce as the product in question, and we implemented the MIDI (Midlife Development Inventory) scale to capture respondents’ personalities. We focused on the “Big Five” personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. We find that personality traits can be sources of heterogeneity in consumers’ preferences for locally produced, but not for organic applesauce.

Abstract

Area-efficient constructed systems for stormwater management and bioretention may involve large fluc-tuations in subsurface water levels. Such fluctuations challenge vegetation by forcing roots to exploredeeper layers to access water during dry periods. In a controlled experiment, we studied growth pat-terns and the ability of Phragmites australis roots to track subsurface water level fluctuations of differingamplitude and frequency in substrates with contrasting water-holding capacity. We found that P. aus-tralis was able to adjust its rooting pattern to considerable subsurface water level fluctuations (to wellbelow 120 cm), but that substrate characteristics can restrict its ability to adjust to larger fluctuations.Fluctuation amplitude was the driving factor for plant growth and biomass allocation responses, whilesubstrate characteristics and fluctuation frequency were less important. When not exposed to large waterlevel fluctuations, P. australis grew larger shoots and only explored intermediate rooting depths. Therewas a negative relationship between root and rhizome biomass, showing a resource-based trade-off andshort-term costs of adjusting rooting patterns to large water level fluctuations. These results indicatethat P. australis is suited for systems with considerable subsurface water fluctuations, but constraints onits flexibility need to be investigated.

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Abstract

Flowering is one of the most important factors in plant fertility. Fruit set in fruits is directly influenced by the beginning, sequence, flow, duration and abundance of flowering. The objective of this study was to evaluate the variability of flowering in 41 ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) clones, and to recommend earlyflowering genotypes for growing in warmer locations where late spring frosts are rare, and some late-flowering clones for sites more susceptible for spring frost. Results from the three years period (2004-06), showed that ‘Oblačinska’ sour cherry clones flowered in a fixed sequence each year. Average for clone VII/2N, which flowered the earliest, was April 8 and petal fall took place by April 21, whereas clone III/1 bloomed last on April 14 and petal fall took place on April 25. Statistical analysis showed that almost all sub-phases of flowering were under the significant influence of both ecological and genetic factors. Besides, ecologic factors had the highest impact to the variability of beginning of flowering (79.8%), full bloom (76.8%), petal fall (80.2%) and duration of flowering (85.56%). Clones III/1, III/13, V/6 and V/2 were considered as late flowering, whereas clones VII/2N, VI/27, VI/28 and IX/P were early flowering, taking place five days earlier then previous group.