Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2008
Abstract
The area of wood protection is in a period of change. New wood protection systems have been developed while their mode of action remains insufficiently understood. The development of molecular methods provides potential tools to investigate the interaction between modified wood and decay fungi. One small step to tackle some of the unsolved questions about the mode of action of modified wood is taken in this study. A specific and quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR) assay was now established for identifying and quantifying early stages of fungal colonisation in modified wood and for profiling growth dynamics of the white-rot fungus Trametes versicolor through different stages of decay. QRT-PCR of colonisation of three different wood modification systems (acetylation, furfurylation, thermal modification), two reference treatments (Cu-HDO, CCA) and Scots pine sapwood as control was performed. Incubation time was 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 weeks...
Authors
Tore Einar Sveistrup Vera Marcelino Bent C. BraskerudAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Jihong Liu Clarke Carl Jonas Jorge Spetz Sissel Haugslien Shaochen Xing Merete Dees Roar Moe Dag-Ragnar BlystadAbstract
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation for poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. Ex Klotzsch) is reported here for the first time. Internode stem explants of poinsettia cv. Millenium were transformed by Agrobacterium tumefaciens, strain LBA 4404, harbouring virus-derived hairpin (hp) RNA gene constructs to induce RNA silencing-mediated resistance to Poinsettia mosaic virus (PnMV). Prior to transformation, an efficient somatic embryogenesis system was developed for poinsettia cv. Millenium in which about 75% of the explants produced somatic embryos. In 5 experiments utilizing 868 explants, 18 independent transgenic lines were generated. An average transformation frequency of 2.1% (range 1.2-3.5%) was revealed. Stable integration of transgenes into the poinsettia nuclear genome was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analysis. Both single- and multiple-copy transgene integration into the poinsettia genome were found among transformants. Transgenic poinsettia plants showing resistance to mechanical inoculation of PnMV were detected by double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA). Northern blot analysis of low molecular weight RNA revealed that transgene-derived small interfering (si) RNA molecules were detected among the poinsettia transformants prior to inoculation. The Agrobacterium-mediated transformation methodology developed in the current study should facilitate improvement of this ornamental plant with enhanced disease resistance, quality improvement and desirable colour alteration. Because poinsettia is a non-food, non-feed plant and is not propagated through sexual reproduction, this is likely to be more acceptable even in areas where genetically modified crops are currently not cultivated.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Abdelhameed Elameen Siri Fjellheim Arild Larsen Odd Arne Rognli Leif Sundheim Susan Msolla Esther Masumba Kiddo Mtunda Sonja KlemsdalAbstract
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) is the fifth most important crop in the developing countries after rice, wheat, maize and cassava. The amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) method was used to study the genetic diversity and relationships of sweet potato accessions in the germplasm collection of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro and Sugarcane Research Institute, Kibaha, Tanzania. AFLP analysis of 97 sweet potato accessions using ten primer combinations gave a total of 202 clear polymorphic bands. Each one of the 97 sweet potato accessions could be distinguished based on these primer combinations. Estimates of genetic similarities were obtained by the Dice coefficient, and a final dendrogram was constructed with the un-weight pair-group method using arithmetic average. AFLP-based genetic similarity varied from 0.388 to 0.941, with a mean of 0.709. Cluster analysis using genetic similarity divided the accessions into two main groups suggesting that there are genetic relationships among the accessions. Principal Coordinate analysis confirmed the pattern of the cluster analysis. Analysis of molecular variance revealed greater variation within regions (96.19%) than among regions (3.81%). The results from the AFLP analysis revealed a relatively low genetic diversity among the germplasm accessions and the genetic distances between regions were low. A maximally diverse subset of 13 accessions capturing 97% of the molecular markers diversity was identified. We were able to detect duplicates accessions in the germplasm collection using the highly polymorphic markers obtained by AFLP, which were found to be an efficient tool to characterize the genetic diversity and relationships of sweet potato accessions in the germplasm collection in Tanzania.
Authors
Ståle Størdal Gudbrand Lien Sjur BaardsenAbstract
A sample selection framework that simultaneously takes into account the two-step decision-making of forest owners (first whether or not to harvest, second the level of harvesting) is applied on representative cross-sectional data for forest properties and owners in Norway. Forest management plans, property size, forested area and income from agriculture are found to increase both the propensity to harvest and the harvesting levels. Income from engagement in other outfield-related productions and debt burden increase the propensity to harvest only, while increased age impact negatively on the harvesting decision. Wage income affects both propensities to harvest and harvesting levels negatively. The results suggest that other on-property productions may stimulate harvesting decisions, while off-property income impact harvesting decisions and levels negatively. (C) 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Abstract
New restrictions draw governments, industry and research towards new and environmental benign wood protective agents. These agents often come from a natural source, and are also a waste product. One of these is chitosan. Chitosan is a derivative from chitin, mainly found in the exoskeleton of crustacean. Some research has been conducted on chitosan and wood. Chitosan has earlier proven good antifungal effectiveness, but to achieve a good protection, a 5 % concentration is needed, which makes the end product quite expensive. In recent research, a way to make chitosan treated wood hydrophobic has been invented. The objective of the research presented in this paper, is to describe the effectiveness of the following compounds: Chitosan, chitosan/copper, chitosan/boron and chitosan/Scanimp (a commercial wood preservative). Results show that chitosan works well alone, but has a fixation problem. Chitosan and boron give good fixation, and reduced amounts of chitosan and together give good protection against wood destroying fungi. The fire protection agents are promising, but needs higher concentration and/or better fixation to give a sufficient protection against wood destroying fungi
Abstract
The inhibitory effect of methanol bark extracts from six deciduous and three coniferous European tree species were bioassayed against eight fungi from the different damage categories, brown rot, white rot, canker and blue-stain. This is the first report providing data on the antifungal activity of several Europaen tree species against fungi within these damage categories. Generally the decay fungi were more inhibited by the bark extracts than the blue-stain fungi, while the lowest inhibition was found among the cancer fungi. The main pattern found between the fungal groups in relation to the bark extracts in this study is believed to be caused by the route of ingress. Acer platanoides bark extract proved to be the most effcient bark extract tested, significantly reducing the growth rate of all tested fungi. Betula pubescens bark extract generally gave the weakest reduction in growth rate. In this study, the conifer bark extracts were in general more active against the canker and blue stain ascomycete fungi than the deciduous trees extracts.