JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of heat and cold treatments on the disinfestation of dry figs from Estahban. Tow types of packing bags (with or without holes), two storage conditions including one at 23^oC and one cold storage condition (10^oC and 2^oC), 9 heat and cold treatment durations (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 20 and 25 hrs) and 13 temperature treatments [23, 45, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 45+(-25), 50+(-25) and 60+(-25) ^oC] were used in these experiments. The results showed that Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella, which is a major pest in dry fig storage, can be satistfactorily controlled by packing figs in plastic bags with a thickness of 0.24 mm after suitable temperature treatment. Cold storage at 2^oC significantly controlled all developmental stages of moths at storage. Temperature treatments at 60^oC for 7hrs or more, at 65^oC for 6hrs or more, and at -25^oC for 15hrs or more were found to be capable of controling pest most satisfactorily without changing fruit external quality.

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‘Golden Delicious’ apples were vacuum infiltrated (250 mm Hg) with 0, 4, and 6% solutions of CaCl₂ followed by heat treatment for 0, 48 and 72 hours at 38^oC. Treated fruits were stored at 0^oC with RH of 85-90% for 2.5 and 5 months, followed by one week of storage at 20C. The results showed that fruits treated with 4 and 6% of CaCl₂ significantly increased calcium content of fruits after 2.5 and 5 months of storage at 0^oC. With increasing calcium content, fruit firmness also increased. There was a positive relationship between fruit firmness and calcium content and regression coefficients after 2.5 and 5 months of storage at 0^oC were 0.77 and 0.83, respectively. Heat treatment for 48 and 72 hours at 38^oC significantly increased fruit firmness. Calcium chloride at 4 and 6%, plus heat treatment, significantly increased fruit firmness of those fruits held for one week at 20^oC after removal from cold storage. In the second experiment, vacuum infiltrated fruits with 4 and 6% solutions of CaCl₂ plus potassium permanganate (0, 10, and 20 g/bag) had no significant effect on fruit firmness, but potassium permanganate alone significantly increased fruit firmness.

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To evaluate the effects of heat treatments on sprouting weight, loss and other charactristics of two potato cultivars (Agria and Diamont) in cold (9±1) and ambient (18±1) storage, a series of experiments were conducted in 2004. In this study, after curing, the tubers of both cultivars were treated with warm air, at 25, 35, 45 and 57^oC for 4, 8 and 12 h and with warm water at 22, 54 and 57 for 15 and 30 min. Treated tubers were packed in net bags and were kept in cold and ambinent storage for 2 and 4 months. The results of the study indicated that warm air at 45^oC for 8 and 24 h and warm water at 57^oC for 15 min. in comparison to control reduced the percentage of tuber sprouting significantly, without internal changes in tubers composition.

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To determine the preheating effect on frozen French - fries quality, four potato cultivars: Agria, Marfona, Auozonia & Auola were selected from Faridan region in Isfahan province & transferred to cold storage at temp.=5+0.5°C and RH=85-90%. At first, some physico – chemical characteristics of potato tubers such as specific gravity and dry matter content were measured by A.O.A.C methods. Also reducing sugar contents were analyzed by “High Performance Liquid Chromatography” (HPLC). The potato strips were blanched in hot water at different condition: 70°C - 4 min, 70 °C 10 min, 95 °C - 2min and then deep - fat fried at temperature 175°C for 2 minutes. Product quality properties such as texture, color and oil absorption were determined by standard methods. The data were analyzed using a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design, and average comparisons were made by by Duncan's multiple range test (p < 0.01). The results showed that blanching at 70 °C for 10 minutes markedly improved the quality parameters. Treatment at 95 °C – 2 min did not have any significant effect on Hunter Lab color parameters compared with 70 °C – 10 min. treatment, but the texture was significantly different. The oil absorption increased in strips blanched at 95 °C for 2 minutes. The samples blanched at 70 °C – 4 min had no significant effect on the product quality. In conculsion, Agria &Auola cultivars were more suitable for manufacturing French - fries than the other two varieties.

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This study was conducted to assess the effect of culturing oyster mushroom (Pleurotus florida) on the nutritive value of wheat straw. In a completely randomized design, chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of untreated and fungal treated wheat straw were measured by the following treatments: 1) untreated wheat straw (UWS) 2) fermented wheat straw before mushroom fruiting (FTWS) and 3) fermented wheat straw after mushroom harvesting (SPWS), with 4 replicates. In addition, the in vivo digestibility and voluntary intake were determined using 4 cows and 4 sheep and nutritive value index was estimated. The crude protein and in vitro digestibility increased whereas organic matter and cell wall components decreased significantly (P<0.05) in FTWS and SPWS. In vivo digestibility and voluntary intake increased in FTWS when fed to sheep or cow (P<0.05) but no significant differences were found between SPWS and UWS. The digestible dry mater and organic mater intake (g/kg W0.75) were significantly higher (P<0.05) in cow than sheep. The significantly (P<0.05) highest amount of nutritive value index was obtained for FTWS fed to cow and the lowest amount was found for SPWS when fed to sheep. It can be concluded that culturing Pleurotus florida on wheat straw can improve its nutritive value before mushroom fruiting .

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In this research, the quality of the effluent from the City of Mashhad wastewater treatment plants was evaluated based on Ayers and Westcot irrigation water quality guideline, and the potential impacts of these effluents on soil and plants were assessed. For this purpose, the effluent from each of the three existing wastewater treatment plants was sampled on a regular basis, for a period of one year, and their parameters of importance in regard to the agricultural use such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC), concentrations of Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, Chloride, Boron, Nitrate (NO3-N), bicarbonate and heavy metals were measured. Based on the obtained results, the agricultural use of the effluents from the wastewater treatment plants has severe restriction in regard to the bicarbonate concentrations (8-12.1 meq/L). Also, in view points of parameters such as EC (1250-1874 µS/cm), Sodium (5.8-8.7 as SAR), Chloride (3.2-6.5 meq/L) and adj RNa (7.8-11.7), the effluents were categorized in the class of waters with low to moderate restrictions. However, the measured values of pH (7.3-8), Boron (0.2-0.8 mg/L), Nitrate Nitrogen (0.5-4.2 mg/L) and heavy metals did not indicate any restrictions for agricultural use. From the results of this research, it can be concluded that the use of effluent as irrigation water requires careful planning, monitoring and management strategies.

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Crisis of quality and quantity of water resources is one of the most important problems in arid and semi-arid areas such as Iran. Wastewater treatment and reuse as a potential source of water can not only compensate for the water scarcity but also can prevent the hazardous pollutants from entering the groundwater and surface water resources. There are various methods to improve water quality, among which method of filtration is an effective and efficient method to remove elements. The most important issue for filter system is the selection of adsorbent materials. In this work, the tire chips were used as adsorbent. Column adsorption tests in a pilot system were conducted in two distinct steps using two types of water, including salt water and industrial effluents. Each test was conducted as a factorial experiment with three factors based on a completely randomized design with three replications. Three factors were studied including particle size (2-5 mm and 3-5 cm), filter thickness (10, 30 and 50 cm) and sorbent contact time with solution. The results showed that adsorption rate increased by increasing the thickness of the filter and sorbent contact time with solution. The best performance of reducing the salinity was observed in the treatment with 50 centimeter thickness and 24 contact hours. The salinity of this treatment was reduced by 20.3 percent (in the test with salt water) and 11.2 percent (in the test with industrial effluents). This filter reduced the heavy metals of lead, zinc and manganese up to 99, 72.1 and 41.4 percent, respectively. Also, the performance of millimeter and centimeter particles did not show a significant difference. Generally, the tire chips showed a proper performance to improve the water quality especially for industrial wastewater.

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In agricultural development many factors such as weather conditions, soil, fertilizer, irrigation timing and amount are involved that are necessary to be considered by the plant growth simulation models. Therefore, in this study, the values of soil water content at different depths of soil profile, dry matter production and grain yield of winter wheat were simulated using AquaCrop and WSM models. The irrigation treatments were rain-fed, 0/5, 0/8, 1 and 1/2 times of full irrigation conducted in Agricultral College of Shiraz University during 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. The models were calibrated using measured data in the first year of experiment and validated by the second year data. The accuracy of soil water simulation was used to refer to the accuracy of simulated evapotranspiration. The accuracy of soil water content at different layers of root depth in the validation period was good for the WSM model (Normalized Root Mean Squer Error, NRMSE= 0/14). But the AquaCrop model showed less accuracy for soil water content (NRMSE=0/26). However, the values of predicted and measured crop evapotranspiration were close together at full irrigation treatment, the accuracy of AquaCop predictions was decreased with inceasing water stress. WSM model has had a good estimation of the dry matter and grain yield simulation with NRMSE of 0/15 and 0/18, respectively. However, they were simulated with less accuracy in the AquaCrop model with NRMSE of 0/19 and 0/39.

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