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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.

2024

Abstract

Interest for organic products and concerns regarding sustainable practices raise an important question for farmers: should they run their farms conventionally or organically? We address this question by means of a mathematical programming model, which aims to optimize gross margin of cattle farms. We implement the model using data from Norway, including government support stipulations and a number of other features. A computational study allows us to assess the economic performance of organic farming compared to conventional farming systems. We derive some insights into the conditions when organic outperforms conventional systems, and vice versa. These hold significant relevance not only to farmers, but also to farm advisors and policy makers.

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Abstract

Wheat dwarf virus (WDV, genus Mastrevirus, family Geminiviridae) is one of the causal agents of wheat viral disease, which severely impacts wheat production in most wheat-growing regions in the world. Currently, there is little information about natural resistance against WDV in common wheat germplasms. CRISPR/Cas9 technology is being utilized to manufacture transgenic plants resistant to different diseases. In the present study, we used the CRISPR/Cas9 system targeting overlapping regions of coat protein (CP) and movement protein (MP) (referred to as CP/MP) or large intergenic region (LIR) in the wheat variety ‘Fielder’ to develop resistance against WDV. WDV-inoculated T1 progenies expressing Cas9 and sgRNA for CP/MP and LIR showed complete resistance against WDV and no accumulation of viral DNA compared with control plants. Mutation analysis revealed that the CP/MP and LIR targeting sites have small indels in the corresponding Cas9-positive plants. Additionally, virus inhibition and indel mutations occurred in T2 homozygous lines. Together, our work gives efficient results of the engineering of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated WDV resistance in common wheat plants, and the specific sgRNAs identified in this study can be extended to utilize the CRISPR/Cas9 system to confer resistance to WDV in other cereal crops such as barley, oats, and rye.

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Abstract

Precompression stress, compression index, and swelling index are used for characterizing the compressive behavior of soils, and are essential soil properties for establishing decision support tools to reduce the risk of soil compaction. Because measurements are time-consuming, soil compressive properties are often derived through pedotransfer functions. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive database of soil compressive properties with additional information on basic soil properties, site characteristics, and methodological aspects sourced from peer-reviewed literature, and to develop random forest models for predicting precompression stress using various subsets of the database. Our analysis illustrates that soil compressive properties data primarily originate from a limited number of countries. There is a predominance of precompression stress data, while little data on compression index or recompression index are available. Most precompression stress data were derived from the topsoils of conventionally tilled arable fields, which is not compatible with knowledge that subsoil compaction is a serious problem. The data compilation unveiled considerable variations in soil compression test procedures and methods for calculating precompression stress across different studies, and a concentration of data at soil moisture conditions at or above field capacity. The random forest models exhibited unsatisfactory predictive performance although they performed better than previously developed models. Models showed slight improvement in predictive power when the underlying data were restricted to a specific precompression stress calculation method. Although our database offers broader coverage of precompression stress data than previous studies, the lack of standardization in methodological procedures complicates the development of predictive models based on combined datasets. Methodological standardization and/or functions to translate results between methodologies are needed to ensure consistency and enable data comparison, to develop robust models for precompression stress predictions. Moreover, data across a wider range of soil moisture conditions are needed to characterize soil mechanical properties as a function of soil moisture, similar to soil hydraulic functions, and to develop models to predict the parameters of such soil mechanical functions.

Abstract

Microbial source tracking (MST) has been recognised as an effective tool for determining the origins and sources of faecal contamination in various terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Thus, it has been widely applied in environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys to define specific animal- and human-associated faecal eDNA. In this context, identification of and differentiation between anthropogenic and zoogenic faecal pollution origins and sources are pivotal for the evaluation of waterborne microbial contamination transport and the associated human, animal, and environmental health risks. These concerns are particularly pertinent to diverse nature-based solutions (NBS) that are being applied specifically to secure water safety and human and ecosystem well-being, for example, constructed wetlands (CWs) for water and wastewater treatment. The research in this area has undergone a constant evolution, and there is a solid foundation of publications available across the world. Hence, there is an early opportunity to synthesise valuable information and relevant knowledge on this specific topic, which will greatly benefit future work by improving NBS design and performance. By selecting 15 representative research reports published over 20 years, we review the current state of MST technology applied for faecal-associated contamination measures in NBS/CWs throughout the world.