小杂粮市场竞争力分析及产业开发研究

小杂粮营养丰富，医食同源，极具产业化开发潜力。通过对小杂粮的生产成本和效益、品质优势、价格优势及市场前景等方面的研究和分析，表明其具有较强的市场竞争力。种植分散、生产水平低；商品质量差；加工工艺落后，出口市场狭窄；产业化体系不健全是小杂粮产业开发的主要制约因素，并据此提出建设优质小杂粮生产基地、实施品牌战略、改进加工工艺、健全小杂粮市场营销体系，拓宽市场等对策措施。     

心土培肥犁改良瘠薄土壤的效果

研究根据心土培肥的改土技术要求研制出心土培肥犁,并分别在瘠薄黑土和碳酸盐草甸黑钙土上开展大面积机械改土试验,明确自主研发的心土培肥犁改土后对土壤理化性质影响及对作物产量的效果,为其广泛应用到低产土壤改良提供机械及技术支持。试验设深松、心土培肥和常规对照耕作,采用大田对比方法。研究结果表明:心土培肥和深松在不同类型土壤上对土壤理、化性质,对作物产量及产量性状影响后效不完全一致;心土培肥降低土壤抗剪强度后效明显,碳酸盐草甸黑钙土>10～30 cm土层土壤抗剪强度比对照降低6.65~12.16 kPa,黑土比对照降低8.20~11.31 kPa,碳酸盐草甸黑钙土改土后效果明显,黑土改土后效长,心土培肥改土效果优于深松;土壤容质量和硬度趋势同上;心土培肥提高土壤透气系数为2.78~14.28倍,饱和导水率为2.38~11.62倍;深松和心土培肥可提高下层土水分消耗比例,>30~60 cm土层耗水量为心土培肥区> 深松区>对照区,心土培肥耗水量比照高10%;心土培肥处理可提高土壤磷含量和供磷强度,>20～30 cm和>30~40 cm土层土壤供磷强度比对照分别提高4.19~5.17倍和4.96~17倍,碳酸盐草甸黑钙土高于黑土;心土培肥可提高玉米产量,碳酸盐草甸黑钙土上心土培肥增产幅度为6.82%~18.01%,黑土增产幅度为6.45%~11.18%,平均增产效果碳酸盐草甸黑钙土>薄层黑土,但黑土持续增产效果好。     

淮北平原浅层地下水埋深影响旱作物生长的试验

为确定旱作物在生育期内利用浅层地下水的规律,减少旱作物的灌溉频次和灌溉量,提高农业节水效率,在淮北平原五道沟水文水资源实验站进行了浅层地下水埋深对旱作物生长影响试验,对比分析了淮北平原两种典型土壤（砂礓黑土和黄潮土）种植小麦和大豆两种旱作物时利用浅层地下水的程度的规律,从而确定这两种土壤在小麦和大豆生长期的地下水适宜埋深。结果表明,旱作物的生长过程与利用浅层潜水位关系复杂,且不同土壤类型、不同作物存在最佳的地下水埋深。     

实时LAMP法快速检测食用植物油中的转基因成分CaMV-35S

环介导等温扩增技术(Loop-mediated isothermal amplification,LAMP)是一项新的DNA扩增技术,近年来已被成功应用于转基因作物中外源基因的检测分析。本文针对花椰菜花叶病毒35 S启动子(CaMV-35S)设计引物以及有效提取目标DNA后,首次建立了食用植物油中CaMV-35S启动子的LAMP检测方法。通过在DNA提取过程中加入正己烷乳化和加入共沉淀剂,获得了可以进行LAMP扩增的DNA片段,采用LAMP实时浊度法和染色法对扩增产物进行比较分析。着重对FIP/BIP引物、甜菜碱和Mg2+浓度等反应参数进行了优化。结果表明,LAMP方法能够在56 min内特异性地检测到CaMV-35S启动子,检测灵敏度比常规PCR高10倍,而且不需要特别的仪器设备,扩增产物可通过观察实时浊度曲线或通过SYBR Green I染色后借助肉眼对检测结果进行判断。该方法快速高效、操作简便、灵敏度高、检测结果准确,适合食用植物油中转基因成分的快速检测。     

Metabolomics of Genetically Modified Crops

Metabolomic-based approaches are increasingly applied to analyse genetically modified organisms (GMOs) making it possible to obtain broader and deeper information on the composition of GMOs compared to that obtained from traditional analytical approaches. The combination in metabolomics of advanced analytical methods and bioinformatics tools provides wide chemical compositional data that contributes to corroborate (or not) the substantial equivalence and occurrence of unintended changes resulting from genetic transformation. This review provides insight into recent progress in metabolomics studies on transgenic crops focusing mainly in papers published in the last decade.     

Spatial scale and social impacts of biofuel production

The prospect of biofuels going ‘mainstream’ has drawn more attention to the social impacts of the production and use of transport biofuels. Since 2007, many media stories have appeared about alleged negative impacts of biofuels, notably the price of food going up or land-grab by plantation developers. These stories stand in stark contrast with the rosy picture painted by some academics involved in the technical development of bioethanol or biodiesel. This paper explores the questions when and why negative social impacts are likely to occur and under what circumstances more positive impacts might be expected. These impacts are discussed for three geographically defined biofuel supply chains; north-north, south-north and south-south. These three systems differ in the spatial scale of production and consumption and with that comes a different distribution of environmental, social and economic impacts. In the case of domestic production and consumption in developed countries, the social impacts are relatively minor and can be mitigated by social policies. Large scale, export-oriented production systems in developing countries could theoretically yield positive social impacts, but this would require on the one hand the tailored design of ‘pro-poor’ social innovations and interventions on the ground and on the other hand a certification of the supply chain feeding into consumer demand for ‘ethical’ fuel. The latent existence of this demand might be significant but recent NGO campaigns have severely undermined the ethical credentials of biofuels. It would require a persistent and collaborative effort to restore the brand value of ‘green’ fuel, an effort which will require better legislation and radically improved monitoring and enforcement practices in countries where the very absence of these has led to, and is still causing, the large scale destruction of habitats that are carbon sinks of global importance. The significant levels of government funding for biofuels stand in strong contrast with the problematic environmental and social governance of international biofuels supply chains. Notwithstanding the ‘must tackle climate change’ rhetoric by policy makers and in policy documents, this suggests that biofuels policy may be primarily driven by other concerns, especially regarding energy security. We argue that policies that are designed for a rather narrowly defined purpose of ‘security of supply’, cannot be realistically expected to yield high social or environmental benefits, and certainly not abroad.     

Current and future financial competitiveness of electricity and heat from energy crops: A case study from Ireland

It has been demonstrated that Miscanthus and willow energy-crop cultivation could be economically competitive with current agricultural land uses at a farm-gate biomass price ranging from €70 to €130 t⁻¹ dry matter [Styles, D., Thorne, F., Jones, M.B., in review. Energy crops in Ireland: An economic comparison of willow and Miscanthus production with conventional farming systems. Biomass and Bioenergy, May 2006]. This paper uses the same farm-gate prices to calculate the economic competitiveness of energy crop electricity and heat production, using a net-present-value (NPV) approach (20-year period, 5% discount rate). Direct and gasified co-firing of willow wood with coal would result in electricity generation 30% or 37% more expensive than coal generation, at current coal and CO₂ allowance prices and a farm-gate biomass cost of €100 t⁻¹. ‘Break-even’ CO₂ allowance prices are €33 and €37 t⁻¹, respectively. However, co-firing of Miscanthus with peat is close to economic competitiveness, and would require a CO₂ allowance price of €16 t⁻¹ to break-even (against a current price of €12 t⁻¹). NPV analyses indicate that wood heat is significantly cheaper than oil, gas or electric heat, excluding existing wood-boiler installation subsidies. Discounted annual savings range from €143 compared with gas to €722 compared with electric heating at the domestic scale and from €3454 to €11,222 at the commercial scale. Inclusion of available subsidies improves the comparative economics of domestic wood heat substantially. The economic advantage of wood heat is robust to variation in fuel prices, discount rates and heat loads. The greatest obstacles to energy-crop utilisation include: (i) a reluctance to consider long-term economics; (ii) possible competition from cheaper sources of biomass; (iii) the need for a spatially coordinated supply and utilisation network.     

Energy generation from biomass and waste in the Netherlands: A brief overview and perspective

For a number of years, the interest in energy generation on the basis of biomass and waste has been increasing. A brief overview is given of biomass waste availability in the Netherlands. In recent years several new projects related to energy generation from biomass and waste are initiated in the Netherlands. The results and status of some major projects are outlined in this paper. In the short term only biomass waste (available at low and even negative prices) can play an important role. Establishment of a carbon tax will increase the feasibility of energy crops for energy generation.     

Improvement of a grass-clover silage-fed biogas process by the addition of cobalt

Batch assays were performed with samples from a silage-fed mesophilic biogas process accumulating acetate to examine if the addition of single trace elements (iron, nickel, cobalt and molybdenum) or a mixture of trace elements could improve the process. The results from the batch assays led to the addition of cobalt to reach a concentration of 0.2 mg L⁻¹. This made it possible to increase the organic loading rate (OLR) above that in a parallel process not receiving any extra cobalt. Problems with low gas production and decreasing pH were overcome by the daily supply of this single element in small amounts. Acetate conversion to methane was improved, which was confirmed by increased specific methanogenic activity (SMA) with acetate as a substrate. As a consequence, an OLR of 7.0 g VS L⁻¹ day⁻¹ was achieved at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 20 days with an equivalent increase in methane production. Without cobalt addition, an OLR of 5.0 g VS L⁻¹ day⁻¹ with an HRT of 20 days was reached after 70 weeks operation.