Search

A pot culture experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of different mycorrhiza inoculants and phosphate fertiliser application on the growth and nutrient uptake of aerobic rice var. MR1A. The contribution of mycorrhizae has been well acknowledged in sustainable agriculture. Mycorrhizae can influence the key ecosystem process of soil aggregation, act as an acquisition of soil nutrient absorption to improve the plant growth via their hyphae and alter the morphology of a root system by forming more branches and adventitious roots that functionally extend the root system of the plant. The results indicated that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) had increased the efficiency of phosphate fertiliser uptake by the plant. This is due to the ability of MR1A seedlings to form a symbiotic relationship with AMF inoculums. Thus, the information gathered from this study herein will help us to understand the role of AMF towards sustainable agriculture.

Coconut cadang-cadang viroid (CCCVd) causes the lethal cadang-cadang disease of coconut palm in the Philippines. Variants of CCCVd are associated with a foliar orange spotting syndrome of African oil palm, showing over 90% sequence identity to CCCVd from coconut, which are also mechanically transmissible, but still require testing for pathogenicity. Coconut tinangaja viroid causes the lethal tinangaja disease of coconut palm in Guam, has about 64% sequence identity to CCCVd, but differs from cadang-cadang in symptomatology. Neither disease is under control and their epidemiology is poorly understood. Viroid-like RNAs with sequence identity to CCCVd have been detected by molecular hybridization in palms and other monocotyledonous plants in many South East Asian and South Pacific countries. Their role in palm viroid epidemiology requires thorough investigation.

A 246-nt variant of Coconut cadang-cadang viroid (CCCVd) has been identified and described from oil palms with orange spotting symptoms in Malaysia. Compared with the 246-nt form of CCCVd from coconut, the oil palm variant substituted C(31)→U in the pathogenicity domain and G(70)→C in the central conserved domain. This is the first sequence reported for a 246-nt variant of CCCVd in oil palms expressing orange spotting symptoms.

Golden apple snail is an invasive freshwater snail species that originates from South America. This snail is considered a threat to paddy rice which has caused great attention all over the world. In Malaysia, synthetic molluscicides have been used to control the golden apple snail without much success. Hence, it is imperative to find a practical method and effectively respond to golden apple snail invasions as early and efficiently as possible. This study was initiated to control the snails by inhibiting the egg hatchling through spot spraying the egg clutches using synthetic molluscicides. The eggs of the golden apple snail belonging to 1 day-old were sprayed with metaldehyde (5 %) and niclosamide (81.4 %) at five different concentrations. Then, the hatching rates of eggs within 20 days after treatment were evaluated. The analysis of variance test showed that the molluscicides significantly affected on hatchability of golden apple snail eggs (p < 0.05). The results demonstrated that increasing the concentration of the molluscicides were decreasing the hatchability of snail eggs, where the lower hatchability was found at 6.87 and 0.36 mg/ml for metaldehyde (5 %) and niclosamide (81.4 %), respectively. Since the treatment is confined to snail egg clutches, the amount of molluscicides used is relatively small and makes the control method become economically feasible to use.