Abstract: Illegal logging, felling and timber trade have continued to increase over the past two decades, leading to a decline in forest biodiversity and the extinction of some wood species. Pterocarpus indicus Willd., listed in the National Standards of the People’s Republic of China for Hongmu (GB/T 18107-2017), is widely used in production of high-end furniture, decorative flooring and musical instruments due to its high-quality timber. For molecular species identification, the quality and quantity of DNA extracted from wood samples should first be ensured. However, extracting DNA from dried, aged timber heartwood is difficult, as heartwood contains little fragmented DNA, along with lots of phenolic compounds known to impede sequence amplification. In order to protect P. indicus from over-exploitation and to achieve accurate species-level identification, we established a particular extraction method for obtaining amplifiable DNA from heartwood samples and the real-time PCR assay for species discrimination of P. indicus in this study. The quantity and quality of DNA extracted from dry heartwood samples using the modified CTAB method were 2.40-37.70 ng/μL and 1.55-2.12 demonstrated by OD260/280, respectively. Primer set P9, targeting P. indicus specific microsatellite Pin2-20 sequence, was amplifiable in newly established real-time PCR. Through analysis, this real time PCR was shown to be specific and sensitive with a detection limit around 0.17 ng/μL. Hopefully, this study will contribute to heartwood DNA extraction and species identification of timber logs for forensic discrimination, law enforcement and natural resource conservation.Abstract: Illegal logging, felling and timber trade have continued to increase over the past two decades, leading to a decline in forest biodiversity and the extinction of some wood species. Pterocarpus indicus Willd., listed in the National Standards of the People’s Republic of China for Hongmu (GB/T 18107-2017), is widely used in production of high-end fur...Show More
Abstract: Potato is an important food security crop in the world spacially for Africa, specifically Ethiopia which ranked 9th in potato production in Africa. Bale Zone South Eastern Ethiopia is known for potato production both in irrigation and rainfed. Howevere, the productivity of the crop is low due to many factors among which lack of improved potato varieties which were high yeilder and tolerance to potato disease is major. This study was conducted to evaluate potato genotypes for high-yielding, stability and resistance to late blight. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications at three locations (Sinana, Goba and Dinsho districts) for three years. The highest total tuber yield was recorded from genotypes CIP-392640-524 (45.75t/ha-1) followed by CIP-395114.5 (40.01t/ha-1) while the lowest total tuber yield was obtained from local checks (25.27t/ha-1). Result from stability papameters indicated the stability of tested genotypes over the tested environment. The yield performance of genotypes (CIP-392640-524) across environments and yield advantage of genotype over standard checks (Moti) 11.45% with less disease (late blight reaction) and the result from AMMI analysis of variance and stability parameter also indicated the stability of genotype over tested environments. This suggested that the genotypes are promoted to a variety of verification trials for Bale highlands and similar agro-ecologies.Abstract: Potato is an important food security crop in the world spacially for Africa, specifically Ethiopia which ranked 9th in potato production in Africa. Bale Zone South Eastern Ethiopia is known for potato production both in irrigation and rainfed. Howevere, the productivity of the crop is low due to many factors among which lack of improved potato vari...Show More
