Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences

Length-Weight Relationship, Fulton’s Condition Factor and Sex Ratio of Nile Perch (Lates niloticus, Linnaeus- 1762) in Lake Abaya, Ethiopia

2023-08-02T11:07:04+00:00

The length-weight relationship of fish is an important fishery management tool. The objectives of the study were to determine the length-weight relationship, Fulton’s condition factor and the sex ratio of Lates niloticus in Lake Abaya. Total length (TL), total weight (TW), and sex data were collected from 755 fish samples (377 females and 378 males) for one year (January to December 2021) from the commercial fishery of Lake Abaya. The collected data were summarized by using descriptive statistics and analyzed with the application of Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS software. There was no significant deviation in sex ratio (M: F) from hypothetical 1:1 ratio (χ2= 0.00; P > 0.05). The length-weight relationship was calculated using power function and obtained as TW = 0.0077*TL^3.1176, (R²= 0.8834), TW = 0.0078*TL^3.1372, (R²= 0.8548) and TW =0.0098*TL^3.0723, (R²= 0.8713) forfemales, males and combined sexes, respectively. The regression coefficient “b” was significantly different from the cubic value “3” (P<0.05) and implied that L. niloticus of Lake Abaya follows a positive allometric growth pattern. The one-way ANOVA (P > 0.05) revealed that Fulton’s condition factor between sexes was insignificant but highly significant by month’s interaction (ANOVA, P < 0.05). The t-test also revealed a highly significant difference in a month’s interaction (t-test, P = 0.000) indicating the seasonal variation in the mean monthly condition factor. The average value of Fulton’s condition factor was higher than one and indicates that L. niloticus in Lake Abaya was in good health condition. The present study was focused only on L. niloticus and recommends that similar studies including feeding and reproductive biology should be conducted to determine the status of other fish species in Lake Abaya.

Determinants of adoption of improved panicum forage by agro-pastorals in Dasenech District, Southern Ethiopia

2023-08-02T11:19:41+00:00

Adoption of improved forage remains vital in combating feed shortages and reducing livestock deaths in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Ethiopia. However, it depends on household characteristics, institutional and socioeconomic factors, and the perception of the community. Thus, this study examined the determinants of adoption and intensity of improved panicum forage technologies in the Dasenech district. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select 140 forage-producing agro-pastoral households. A double hurdle model was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that agro-pastoralists' adoption and intensity of adoption of panicum forage production in the Dasenech district is high. However, more than 60% of agro-pastoralists who had adopted and cultivated panicum forage claimed problems in accessing irrigation water, which was associated with high fuel for operating irrigation water pumps. Moreover, the probability of adoption of panicum forage production in the district is influenced by access to irrigation water, forage production experience, cooperative membership, and distance to the training center. The intensity of adoption of panicum forage production was also influenced by the sex of the respondent, credit access, distance to market, production experience, price of seed, and livestock holdings. Working on issues related to the improvement of access to irrigation water, establishing cooperatives of agro-pastoralists, and provision of credit opportunities and market information by respective stakeholders is proposed to enhance the adoption and production of panicum forage in the study area.

Association of some weather factors with fish assemblage in Asejire Lake, South-western Nigeria

2023-08-02T11:32:13+00:00

With the increasing human population, it is important to investigate the condition of Asejire Lake for sustainability. To this end, the effects of some weather factors were investigated on the fish assemblage, so as to provide necessary information to complement the dearth of reports about weather factors on the Lake. The study area was partitioned into three stations (upper, middle and lower) with fortnight collection of water samples, fish sampling and weather parameters for a period of 12 months (November 2017–October 2018). Water samples were measured in situ using appropriate kits for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrates, dissolved oxygen and water temperature. Monofilament gill nets (40 mm and 60 mm) were used for fish sampling and were sorted and identified using appropriate monographs. The mean values across the sampling stations for temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites were 18.36 ± 0.41^oC, 7.30 ± 0.06, 2.37± 0.10 mg/L, 1.25±0.05 mg/L, 1.34 ± 0.33 mg/L and 0.31± 0.03 mg/L, respectively. Across the months, mean values were 17.94 ±0.48^oC, 2.67 ± 0.21 mg/L, 7.22 ± 0.21, 0.23 ± 0.02 mg/L, 0.13 ± 0.02 mg/L and 3.03 ± 0.03 for temperature, DO, pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrates, respectively, with significant values (P < 0.05) among some parameters. A total of 1443 individual fishes (720 in the dry and 723 in the wet season) belonging to 27 species were encountered. March had the highest overall relative abundance of fish (23.77%) with Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus being the most abundant species (39.32%). March (47.64%) and April (32.78%) recorded the highest fish abundance in the dry and wet seasons respectively. Rainfall (540 mm) and temperature (35.50°C) were highest in the month of September. The trend of rainfall and temperature was observed to increase over the months with t-values of 1.77 and 1.64 respectively. A negative relationship was observed between fish abundance with temperature (b1=-1.08) and rainfall (b1=-0.26). It was observed that temperature values increased and rainfall values varied. Therefore, activities must be geared towards environmental management and consciousness of aquatic resources because of sustainability.

Effect of Jatropha curcas seed meal inclusions in the diet of Lohmann Brown Layers on egg production and its quality

2023-08-02T11:42:21+00:00

Most of the protein source feedstuffs for poultry like soybean and soybean meal are expensive. Thus alternative and cheaper non-conventional feedstuffs should be assessed in order to broaden sources of ingredients. Jatropha curcas seed meal is one of the non-conventional feed ingredients that can be used for poultry feed. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of dietary inclusion of treated and untreated Jatropha seed meal on feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg production and egg quality traits. A feeding trial was carried out for eight weeks at Hawassa University, with 250 Lohmann Brown commercial layers (42 weeks old). Chicken were allotted to five treatment diets replicated five times with 10 hens per replication in a completely randomized design. The control treatment (T1) represents the standard poultry feed that contained 42% white maize, 15% wheat bran, 7% noug cake, 25% soybean, 4% bone and meat meal, 4% limestone, 2.5% Premix and 0.5% salt. In the treatments T2 to T5, 5% of soybean seed in T1 was replaced by1.25% untreated and treated Jatropha seed meal where T2, T3, T4 and T5 contained untreated, heat-treated,

NaOH-treated and T5 yeast treated Jatropha seed meal, respectively. There were significant variations in daily feed intake, food conversion rate, hen-day egg production, hen-housed egg production and mortality among treatment groups. Chicken receiving T2 had reduced daily feed intake compared to hens that were fed on all other diets (p<0.05). Chickens reared under T1 had lower values of food conversion rate and mortality than chickens kept on all other diets (p<0.05). There was no significant differences among all treatment groups in egg shape index, egg weight and shell thickness. Substituting 5% soybean with untreated jatropha seed meal influences most of the tested parameters in the present study. On the other hand, the replacement of 5% quantity of soybean with treated jatropha seed meal had no effects on hen-daily egg production, hen-house egg production, Egg shape index, Egg weight, Shell thickness, Albumin height, Yolk height, Yolk weight and Haugh Unit compared to the standard poultry diet (T1). Accordingly, 1.25% heat, NaOH and yeast-treated jatropha seed meal could be used to replace 5% of the soybean seed in the Lohmann Brown layers diet.

In -vitro evaluation of mung bean (Vigna radiata L. Wilczek) genotypes for drought tolerance and productivity

2023-08-02T11:56:18+00:00

Drought stress is the most important factor that limits mung bean production and productivity at large in drought -

prone areas of Ethiopia. It is hence necessary to identify and verify drought-tolerant and productive varieties of major crops grown in drought areas of the country like mung bean. The present study was conducted to evaluate mung bean genotypes for drought tolerance under in-vitro conditions and to assess the performance of the in-vitro developed regenerants under greenhouse conditions. The in-vitro experiment was thus arranged in a factorial experiment using a completely randomized design with three replications. Three mung bean genotypes, NLLP-MGC-06/G6 (tolerant), VC6368

(46-40-4)/G34 (moderate), and NLLP-MGC-02/G2 (sensitive) and five polyethylene glycol (PEG) levels (0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0%) were used. The analysis of variance exhibited significant differences among the genotypes for all the studied parameters except the number of roots per shoot. There were significant differences observed among PEG levels for all the studied parameters. Significant genotypes x PEG interactions were observed for all the studied traits except total roots per culture and survival percentage. Increasing polyethylene glycol concentration from 0% to 2.0% in the medium caused a gradual increase in root length from 0.49 cm at 0% PEG to 1.17 cm at 2.0% PEG, respectively. This revealed an adaptive mechanism to the decreased moisture content in the root zones of plants and enhanced increased root length to reach deeper water in the soil. Regenerant from the treatment combinations of G34 (0) exhibited the highest values for the number of primary branches per plant (4.00). Grain yield for the in-vitro regenerated plants evaluated at greenhouse conditions ranged from 552.52 kg ha^-1at the treatment combination of G2 (1) to 996.23 kg ha^-1 at the treatment combinations of G6 (0). Most of the regenerants obtained from NLLP-MGC-06/G6 and VC6368 (46-40-4)/G34 showed the best performance under the greenhouse for drought-tolerance under the in-vitro condition, suggesting that the accumulated performance of the tested regenerants under in-vitro conditions was realized under greenhouse conditions. It also indicated that in-vitro culture is an important tool to identify and verify drought-tolerant genotypes and improve desirable agronomical traits. Further study is indeed required to understand the mechanism of drought tolerance for in-vitro-selected somaclones.

Diurnal activity patterns of five distinct bird species in agricultural landscapes of Central Rajasthan during their non-breeding period in India

2023-08-02T12:08:30+00:00

The daily time activity budget explains how any species distribute their daily time for regular activities. The most typical behaviors observed in birds include foraging, feeding, roosting, flying, singing, building a nest, incubating eggs, and raising young. The temporal budgets of five bird species from three distinct feeding guilds were examined. The research area in central Rajasthan, India an ecotone of Arid and Semi-arid zones. Five bird species were examined for their behavior during the research period, with each bird being observed at least 40 (N=200) times during their non-breeding phase. The study includes the Red Collard Dove, White Eared Bulbul, Black Winged Kit, Long Tailed Shrike, and Yellow Throated Sparrow. The examination was carried out using the Scan sampling method. The data was aggregated using the un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA), and the Bray-Curtis method was used to evaluate species similarities based on time allocation in the same environment. The rates of transition between behaviors were investigated in order to understand which activity the animal does following a certain activity. Likelihood values vary from 0 to 1 were used where 0 indicated that the bird is unlikely to undertake the activity after completing any specific activity and 1 indicated that the bird has the highest probability to perform the activity after finishing any specific activity. In the behavioral research, the Yellow-throated Sparrow, Red Collard Dove, and White Eared Bulbul had the highest similarity because they devote about comparable time to similar behaviors. The results showed that the Long-Tailed Shrike and the Black-Winged Kite have very similar habits and time allocation for different tasks. When flying, the Black Winged Kite has a 0.900 chance of entering screening, and the lowest observed likelihood of flying following other behaviors such as preening is 0.100. Long-tailed Shrikes were more likely to switch from roosting to other behaviors like calling and preening, and from other activities to screening the area for food. The White-Eared Bulbul eats on insects and grains, while Red Collared Doves fly more after scanning. The Long-tailed Shrike and the Black-Winged Kite spend more time examining agricultural fields. The Red Collard Dove is among the potential pests for farmers in the study area. Long-tailed Shrike needs time to hunt, kill, and consume prey that is nearly half their body size.

Length-weight relationship, Fulton’s condition factor and sex ratio of Bagrusdocmak (Forsskål, 1775) in Lake Chamo, Ethiopia

2023-08-02T12:18:07+00:00

The objectives of the study were to determine the length-weight relationship, Fulton’s condition factor, and sex ratio of Bagrus docmak in Lake Chamo. Total length (TL), total weight (TW), and sex data were collected from 469 fish samples (268 females and 201 males) for one year (January to December 2021) from the commercial fishery of Lake Chamo. The collected data were summarized by using descriptive statistics (graphs and tables) and analyzed with the application of Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS software. The length-weight relationship was calculated using the power function and obtained as TW = 0.0087*TL^3.0272, (R²= 0.8959), TW= 0.0052*TL^3.1412, (R²= 0.9281) and TW = 0.0063*TL^3.0998, (R²=0.9152) for females, males and combined sexes, respectively. The regression coefficient “b” was significantly different from the cubic value “3” (P <0.05), implying that B. docmak of Lake Chamo followed a positive allometric growth pattern. There was a significant deviation in the sex ratio of male to female (1:1.33) from the hypothetical 1:1 ratio (χ2= 4.79; P <0.05). The average Fulton’s condition factor for females, males, and combined sexes was 1.01, 0.97, and 0.99, respectively. The one-way ANOVA (P > 0.05) revealed that Fulton’s condition factor between sexes was insignificant. But it was significantly different in the months of interaction (ANOVA, P < 0.05). The t-test also revealed a highly significant difference in a month’s interaction (t-test, P = 0.000) indicating the seasonal variation in the mean monthly condition factor. The condition factor indicated that the health condition of B. docmak was not as good. Heavy fishing pressure and different agricultural practices were taking place around the lake which might disturb and break the chain of food availability in addition to other biotic and abiotic factors. Further investigations on water quality parameters and other biological aspects such as feeding habits and reproductive biology of B. docmak shall be undertaken for the management of the fish stocks in the lake.