International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology

285-293

Authors: N. Hewavitharana, S.D.P. Kannangara, S.P. Senanayake

Trichoderma spp. are fast growing fungi, widely used as bio-control agents for controlling soil borne diseases of plants, as well as growth promoters. The present investigation was carried out to isolate and identified fast growing Trichoderma spp. and mass production using low cost widely available solid and liquid carrier materials. Several fungal spp. were isolated and colony and microscopic characterization were observed in order to identify Trichoderma to generic levels following identification keys. Fast growing Trichoderma spp. were confirmed up to species level following ITS-PCR and sequencing. Identified five Trichoderma spp. were inoculated in solid (coir dust, saw dust and parboiled rice) and liquid (coconut water and rice washed water) carrier materials separately under sterile conditions. Viability and stability of each Trichoderma spp. was tested for 180 days at 40 days intervals by calculating the colony forming units per milliliter (CFU/ml). Twelve Trichoderma isolates were identified up to generic level and five Trichoderma isolates were identified as fast growing species based on their growth rates. Following molecular characterization, identities of these five Trichoderma spp. were confirmed as T. viride, T. asperellum, T. virens, T. longibrachiatum and T. harzianum. Trichoderma spp. incubated in solid carrier materials showed higher (106 CFU/ml) values than the liquid carrier materials (104 CFU/ml) after 180th days and it was significantly different. The highest stabilization potential was recorded for parboiled rice (5 x 106 – 8 x 106 CFU/ml) from day 20th to180th for all five Trichoderma spp. Locally available solid and liquid substrates can be used for the mass multiplication of selected Trichoderma spp. to maintain the viability and virulence for long term commercial availability.

302-307

Authors: Sudip Neupane, Kamala Gharti

Aquaculture plays an important role to increase farm income and hence alleviate widespread poverty in the country. Fish is considered as the principal source of animal protein. The research was conducted to assess the status of adoption of improved fish production technologies available in the Rupandehi, Nepal. The research was designed to ascertain the socio-demographic characteristics of the farmers, determine available technologies on fish production, determine awareness and adoption of the available technologies and identify the major problems faced by farmers in using improved fish production technologies. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select 100 respondents for the study. Data were analyzed using frequency count, percentages, standard deviation and indexing. The result shows that average age of the respondents was 39.8 years. Eighty percent respondents had post-secondary school certificate. Major sources of information of fish farming were trainings and information and communication technologies. Average pond size of respondents was 0.8 ha. Most of the respondents were aware of the technologies and adopted them. Indexing showed that High cost of fish feed was ranked as the major problem followed by high cost of fingerlings and inadequate capital in using improved fish production technology.

313-318

Authors: Dev Kumar Saphi, Dil Raj Yadav, Rajib Kumar Yadav, Rajendra Yadav

Dry direct seeded rice is an alternative to the farmers in the context of climate change and inputs scarcity especially labor. However, weeds are the major problem in dry direct seeded conditions competing with the different resources provided to the crop. Hence, field experiments were conducted for two consecutive years 2015 and 2016 in the experimental field of Rice Research Program, Hardinath, Dhanusha to identify the appropriate herbicides for DSR. The experiment was laid out in a split plot design and treatments were replicated thrice. Three varieties of rice namely Ciherang Sub-1, IET 16775 and Sukhkhadhan-3 were treated as main plot factors while five levels of weed control methods (Oxadiargyl @ 100 g a.i./ha as pre-emergence followed by Fenoxaprop @ 90 g a.i./ha with safener, Pendimethalin @ 1000 g a.i./ha as pre-emergence followed by Bispyribac sodium @ 25 g a.i/ha at three weeks after seeding, Pendimethalin @ 1000 g a.i./ha as pre-emergence followed by Pyrazosulfuron ethyl @ 25 g a.i.ha + Bispyribac sodium @ 25 g a.i./ha at three weeks after seeding, hand weeding and weedy check) were treated as sub-plot factors. The statistical analysis showed that the effect of weed control methods on yield and yield attributing parameters of the tested rice varieties was significant. Out of the tested treatments hand weeding yielded significantly higher grain yield (5.4 t/ha) followed by herbicides Pendimithalin fb Pyrazosulfuron ethyl + Bispyribac sodium; which reduced the weed density and was comparable with hand weeding. The interaction effect of weed control methods and varieties was found non-significant. Pendimithalin fb Pyrazosulfuron ethyl + Bispyribac sodium was found to control broad spectrum of weeds and also reduced the human labour drudgery and increasing the rice yield than the other herbicides in direct seeded rice.

327-331

Authors: Dipesh Shahi, Rajiv Sapkota

The use of different dyes and pigments is increasing with the increase in industrialization leading to the high production of effluent. The effluent contaminated with dyes and dye-stuff has harmful effects on public health and the environment. Thus, the treatment of effluent is essential. Biological approaches are gaining much interest due to their cost-effective and eco-friendly nature over various physicochemical methods for the treatment of dye-contaminated wastewater. This study highlights on the biodegradation of congo red and malachite green by using leaf and root extracts of Parthenium hysterophorus. The extract and the dye were mixed in the ratio of 1:2 and incubated at 40ºC for 90 minutes. Decolorization assay was performed using UV visible spectrophotometer which indicated that decolorization was due to degradation of dyes into non-colored metabolites. The leaves extract exhibited higher decolorizing activity than roots extract. The maximum decolorization for leaves extract was 55.8% (congo red) and 51.6% (malachite green). Furthermore, phytotoxicity test was carried out to determine the effect of dyes and their degradation metabolites on seed germination and seedling growth of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L). The germination percentage and seedling growth were more in degradation metabolites than untreated dyes, indicating less toxic nature of degradation metabolites. Hence, it can be inferred that P. hysterophorus extracts can be used to treat dye wastewater and treated wastewater can be used for irrigation.

339-343

Authors: Tulasi Prasad Paudel, Bishwas Poudel, Damodar Neupane

Caponization is a surgical technique that alters the sexual maturation of male chickens and improves quality characteristics of carcass and meat. The present experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of caponization on body weight, carcass composition and meat quality of dual purpose chicken. A total of 48 dual-purpose breeds of Chicken, namely New Hampshire (NH) and Black Australorp (BA) were examined in a 2 × 2 factorial design each treatment having twelve birds till the age of 32 weeks. The results showed that the growth rate up until the age of 20 are not significant statistically which became significant afterwards (p<0.01). Likewise, some desirable changes in body morphology, carcass quality (p<0.05) and dressing out recovery were also observed. The hedonic ranking test also inferred that the meat from capons are liked by consumers highly significantly (p<0.01). The results of this study indicate that the caponized chicken can be used as a valuable material for production of high quality meat. Based on the overall results patterns and indication of this study, a more detailed study to minutely study the fatty acid, amino acid and mineral profile along with evaluation of the proper age at which caponization can bring about the most desirable changes should be lined up.

351-358

Authors: Dikshit Poudel, Suryamani Dhungana, Kalyani Mishra Tripathi, Krishna Kaphle, Shrawan Kumar Sah

Food insecurity, sadly still remains a concern with Nepal. The remote settlement of communities, harsh terrains, inequity in income generation have left millions of Nepalese experiencing some level of food insecurity mostly among marginalized population in both urban and rural settings. A pilot study was conducted within ninety households of four different locations with the purpose to assess various dimensions of food and nutritional security of the landless people living in undocumented land by purposive selection of Chitwan District of Nepal. Semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain primary data and secondary data was obtained from Bharatpur Municipality and Madi Agriculture Service Centre, Chitwan. Analysis revealed 57.77% household expressed themselves as food secured in terms of their production and source of income while 42.23% were food insecure. The most food insecure ethnic group was Janajatis (indigenous) (34.21%) followed by Dalits and Brahmins (15.78%). Similarly, 79.99% (36.66% male, 43.33% female) respondents were under-nutrition and 20.01% (5.56% male and 14.45% female) were nutritionally secured from calculation using Harris-Benedict principle based on net calories they obtained from their daily meal. Females were more insecure in terms of population size, education, skill, nutrition and diseases followed by males. Of those interviewed, 57.77% households lack production activity and were also food insufficient. Main source of income was off-farm work (40%) followed by remittance (35.56%). Various natural calamities were also the reason behind being landless in case of some households and they reportedly migrated from elsewhere. Still, peoples are involved in foraging and traditional farming activities with low output. Addressing agricultural production, nutrition awareness, climate change monitoring, livelihoods strengthening and disaster preparedness to ensure access to food is urgent need even in urban areas like Chitwan. Dependence on food import, shying from production activities, traditional food sources has to be addressed for Nepal’s struggle against food insecurity.

366-372

Authors: R.V. Mahato, R.K. Singh, A. M. Dutta, K. Ichihara, M. Lamsal

Introduction: Reference interval (RIs) is the range of values provided by laboratory scientists in a convenient and practical form to support clinician in interpreting observed values for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of a disease. Laboratories in Nepal uses RIs, provided in the kit inserts by the manufacturers or from the scientific literature, established for western/European population. It is well known that population across the globe differs physiologically, genetically; race, ethnically, lifestyle, food habits and diet which have great impact on the reference values. Thus, it is inappropriate to use RIs that do not represent the local population. This approach highlights for establishing reference values in Nepalese population using the IFCC-CRIDL guidelines published in (C28-A3). Objectives: The objective of this study is to analyze blood lipids concentration in apparently healthy Nepalese population to set up reference values for total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), High Density Lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) and Low Density Lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and compare with the internationally recommended values. Methods: Reference individuals selected from healthy volunteers according to the IFCC/C-RIDL protocol in (C28 –A3). Volunteers were requested to avoid excessive physical exertion/exercise/excessive eating and drinking and fast overnight for 10-12 hour. Blood samples were collected from 120 subjects from each five centers of the country between 7:00-10:00 am, serum were separated and refrigerated at -20 in a cryo-vials. Finally, 617 samples were transported to Yamaguchi University, Graduate School of Medicine, Ube, Japan for analysis in dry Ice and 30 parameters were measured by fully automated biochemistry analyzer, Beckman Coulter (BC480) in the clinical laboratory. Results: A reference interval for each parameter was calculated from the 95% reference intervals ranging from 2.5% and 97.5% percentiles and, arithmetic mean + 2 SD were also calculated. The 95% reference range for total cholesterol (2.53-6.14), triglyceride was(0.42-3.32),for HDL Cholesterol was (0.28-1.46), for LDL was(1.05-4.00) and for VLDL was (0.054-0.92) for Nepalese population. Conclusion: Nepalese clinicians can take into consideration of reference lipid values of this study for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of disease.

379-385

Authors: Saira Iram, Syed Amir Gilani, Zain-ul Hassan, Mehreen Fatima, Raham Bacha, Sajid Shaheen Malik

Prediction of gestational age based on sonographic fetal parameters is perhaps the cornerstone in modern obstetrics. The transverse cerebellar diameter serves as a reliable predictor of GA in the fetus and is a standard against which abnormalities in other fetal parameters can be compared. A variety of sonographic fetal biometric parameters can be used to assess gestational age in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. The TCD is an additional biometric parameter against which aberrations in other fetal parameters can be compared. Objective: To assess the predictability of GA calculated by fetal TCD measured in 2nd & 3rd trimester of pregnancy on ultrasound. Methods: This was an cross-sectional study with a sample size 371 healthy, pregnant females with a normal fetus included aged 18 to 40 years, conducted in Gilani ultrasound center ferozpur road lahore. A standard 2nd and 3rd trimester ultrasound examination was done. In addition to the standard biometric parameters, the transcerebellar diameter was also measured. The collected data was subjected to statistical analysis. Results: Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient method was applied at a significance level of 1% (α = 0.01).using statistical software SPSS version 23.0. It was observed that BPD and TCD had a statistically significant, strong, linear correlation (r=0.976), GA of FL (r=0.978), LMP (r=0.976) P value (0.000) were considered significant. Conclusion: The TCD is a reliable parameter for the determination of GA in the 2nd & 3rd trimesters of pregnancy.