Browsing by department "Maataloustieteiden laitos"

Finland is the northernmost cultivation area in the world and the selection of forage grass species is mostly limited by long winters and short growing seasons. Forage grasses are usually grown as mixtures of species and produced intensively for silage. The grass species most commonly used in mixtures are timothy (Phleum pratense L.) and meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis L.) which are both winter hardy species. As the climate changes in the future, more southern and more productive species like perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) and festulolium (Festuca sp. x Lolium sp.) may become more usable. The duration of snow cover has been predicted to shorten to 46 days in southern Finland by year 2050 (compared with 98 days at present). The autumns, when plants develop their tolerance against winter stresses, are also predicted to become warmer in the future. Changes in winter weather may also increase the frequency of problems such as plant exposure to freezing temperatures, associated with decreased snow cover and ice encasement due to fluctuating winter temperatures. This study presents the results of experiments carried out in Helsinki (Finland) between years 2009–2013. The experiments were done to assess the freezing tolerances and vernalisation of forage grasses and cereals hardened under field conditions. The vernalisation of plants was detected in all species as a decrease in days to heading during the vernalisation period. Perennial ryegrass and meadow fescue started flowering after the vernalisation was fulfilled during December-January. Winter cereals had already vernalised already in November. Hardening periods started at their earliest in the beginning of October. However, a deeper freezing tolerance developed during December in 2009–2010 and 2011–2012. During the winters of 2009–2010 and 2011–2012 hardening periods were long and hardening-induced temperature sums were the highest. During these winters the freezing tolerances were better in all species than during the other two winters.

The EC regulations for organic farming (OF), No. 834/2007 and 889/2008, apply in all EU countries but still, different rules are being implemented. Every country in the EU has its own certification bodies and certification systems, and the interpretation of the EC regulations for organic farming is done nationally. The purpose of this research is to fill a gap in the understanding how rules of organic farming differ between three countries in Europe: Finland, Sweden and Austria. In particular, this study aims to examine the role of the national interpretations of the EC regulations for OF at different stages in the food supply chain. The main interest lies in why these differences in interpretation occur, and what interpretations are made at what stage in the system. The methods chosen for answering the research questions is a literature review, a survey with qualitative interviews for gathering relevant topics from the field and finally a comparison of the EC regulations for OF and the national legislations and guidelines in Finland, Sweden and Austria for these topics. This study shows that there are many topics in OF where the EC regulations for OF leave room for variable interpretations and hence, it is unclear to the implementing authorities in the member states how to interpret these. The most significant result is that some of the differences in interpretation lead to the organic farmers being unequal across the countries. Even for statements with clear reasoning and precise instructions there can be significant differences in interpretation between the countries. Based on the results of this research I can state that the farmers in OF would benefit from a more harmonized landscape of OF rules on EU-level, as this would lower the inequality between farmers in OF in the different countries. One mean of doing this would be to reduce the number of statements of qualitative character.

This study investigates the effects of oil palm smallholding, wealth, and ecosystem services produced by oil palm dominated agroecosystem in the villages of Tanjung Bering and Betung in Sumatra, Indonesia in 2008. The cultivation of oil palm has many environmental and socio-economic impacts. In particular, indigenous peoples are vulnerable stakeholders between the expanding oil palm plantations. Oil palm industry has sought to find sustainable models for palm oil production: the inclusion of indigenous peoples to oil palm development is an essential part of this. The purpose of the study is to chart the situation and to investigate the impact of the oil palm smallholding for the well-being of local indigenous people, and to provide information for the sustainable decision-making. The study is based on household interviews in the area of the Petalangan ethnic group. The interviews were added to a relational database, which was used to provide variables on ecosystem services, economy and well-being for statistical analysis. Statistical analysis was carried out mainly by cross-tabulating the mentioned variables with wealth and the oil palm smallholding status, significance has been defined with the Pearson’s khii-test. Interpretation and analysis of the results has been made in the framework of ecosystem services by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Oil palm smallholding highly significantly increased households’ income, and wealth increased highly significantly household’s well-being. The fragmented oil palm dominated agroecosystem was still providing ecosystem services to households. The wealth reduced households’ dependency on most ecosystem services as well as substituted many of them. It is concluded based on this study that in the oil palm dominated agroecosystem, oil palm smallholding and higher income affects very favourable to the households’ well-being, and vice versa non-oil-palm-smallholding and poverty predicts ill-being.

The aim of this master’s thesis was to investigate the potential of reducing enteric methane production from dairy cows by replacing barley grain with oat grain on a grass silage-based diet. The effects of grain species on in vitro methane production, digestibility, pH and volatile fatty acid (VFA) production pattern were investigated and a regression analysis was performed to entangle possible methane mitigating mechanisms of oats. The study was conducted in the laboratory at the Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden in the autumn of 2016. An in vitro gas production system was applied, consisting of 16 diets with two replicates, four blanks and three runs, each with a three-day incubation time. The feed material consisted of eight varieties of barley, eight varieties of oats and timothy silage incubated at a grain/silage ratio of 1:1 on a dry matter basis. Rumen fluid was collected from two cannulated Nordic Red dairy cows after morning feeding. Gas sampling was performed at 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 32 and 48 hours of incubation, meanwhile VFA-sampling, pH-measurements and sampling of incubation residues were performed at 48 hours. Methane production was estimated as predicted in vivo methane production and stoichiometrically predicted methane production. The in vitro digestibility was determined as true dry matter digestibility (TDMD). Content of indigestible neutral detergent fiber (iNDF) was determined by applying a 12-day in situ incubation in two Ayrshire dairy cows. Oats had a higher content of crude protein, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), iNDF and fat compared to barley, whereas barley had a higher content of starch. Replacing barley with oats decreased predicted in vivo methane production by 9% and stoichiometrically predicted methane production by 11%. Variety within grain was not found to have any significant effect on methane production. True DM digestibility and total VFA production were lower in oat-based diets compared to barley-based diets. No significant differences were observed between the diets considering VFA molar proportions. The pH was lower in barley-based diets compared to oat-based diets. True DM digestibility was the best predictor of methane production. Among grain composition parameters, iNDF content was the best predictor of methane production, followed by NDF. Crude fat content also predicted methane production relatively well. Based on the results of this experiment, it can be concluded that replacing barley grain with oat grain in the diet of dairy cows has a potential to lower methane production predicted in vitro. Furthermore, the methane mitigating effect observed in this experiment is at least partly due to the higher fat content and lower digestibility of oats compared to barley.

The application of the split root fertigation (SRF) on strawberry cv. Elsanta (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) was tested in a greenhouse. Responses of strawberry plants under SRF treatments were evaluated by investigating plant water use, plant vegetative growth, berry yield, and berry quality. In this experiment. Strawberry plants had their roots separated evenly into two parts and grown in containers with two compartments in peat. In the traditional fertigation (TF), the control in the experiment, irrigation water with equal electrical conductivity (EC) (1.4 mS/cm) was applied to both root compartments. Three levels of SRF treatments with low, medium, and high mean EC in irrigation water were designed for the experiment. In these SRF treatments, half of roots received the irrigation solutions with lower EC value of 0.7 mS/cm, the other half of roots received irrigation solutions with EC values of 1.4 mS/cm (SRF1), 2.8 mS/cm (SRF2), and 4.2 mS/cm (SRF3). For plant growth, leaf number, petiole length, runner number and dry weight, plant dry weight, leaf nutrient contents, and flowering date were examined. For yield and berry quality, total fresh yield, total berry number, average berry fresh and dry weight, shelf life, contents of total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acid (TA), total phenolics, and ascorbic acid were measured. For plant water use, substrate water content (?) and EC, leakage amount and EC were recorded; water use efficiency (WUE) and water uptake percentage were calculated to investigate the water use. Compared to TF, plants under SRF treatments showed differences in some parameters. Plants grown under SRF2 had highest total leaf area, although no differences in total plant dry weight were observed; leaf Mg was improved by SRF treatments, leaf N increased by SRF with high EC (SRF3), and leaf B and Mn decreased in SRF with low EC (SRF1). More lateral roots were found of plants under SRF treatment. Plant flowering was accelerated in the medium SRF treatment. For fruit quality, berry size was reduced in SRF3, which was in consistent with the response of strawberry grown under salinity stress. TSS/TA decreased in SRF3. In all SRF treatments, more water was taken up from root compartment with the lower EC value. However, the total water uptake amount had no differences. As a conclusion, SRF treatments affected the plant water uptake distribution, plant vegetative growth, yield and yield quality in some parameters, but results were not consistent in this experiment. Treatments with more EC combinations in a wider range are recommended for further studies.

Andean lupin (Lupinus mutabilis Sweet) is a potential oilseed crop, with a very high protein content (40–45%) and 15–20% oil content. It is valued as an alternative protein source for both human and animal consumption, and like several other lupin species, has a potential role in phytoremediation. Previous experience in central and southern Europe has shown the crop to have low and unstable yields with high sensitivity to heat and drought during the grain–filling stage. The species may therefore be more suitable for cool–temperate climates, as it comes from similar altitudes and latitudes as potato. Therefore, an experiment was set out to quantify the responses of Andean lupin to heat stress, using both gradually and suddenly rising temperatures during grain filling. In preliminary tests 60 accessions from 4 germplasm banks were screened for time to flowering and daylength sensitivity. For this experiment, 3 accessions were chosen, 478435, 457972, 457977, with vegetative phase durations of 44, 53, 64 days from sowing to first flower, respectively. Forty two plants of each accession were sown and reduced to 30 on the basis of uniformity. Plants were grown in a glasshouse with 22 °C, 18 h days and 18 °C, 6 h nights until about 25 days after flowering. Ten plants of each accession were subjected to one of the following treatments: control (continuing in the same glasshouse conditions), sudden heat stress (transferred to a growth chamber and subjected to 38 °C from 11:00 to 15:00) or gradual heat stress (transferred to a growth chamber and subjected to temperature increases of 4 °C day temperature and 2 °C night temperature, with the final two days at 38 °C from 11:00 to 15:00). The plants were returned to the glasshouse and when mature, the seeds were harvested and pooled into 3 replicates per accession and treatment for quality analysis. Seed protein, oil, soluble sugar, ash and moisture content were determined. Data were calculated on the basis of percentage of overall seed mass and also on a milligrams per seed basis in order to reflect the seed physiology at grain–filling stage. Sudden heat stress had greater effects on seed composition than gradual heat stress. When compared with control, sudden heat stress resulted in more loss of every component than gradual heat stress, on a per–seed basis, in all 3 accessions and the responses of the accessions to the sudden stress were not statistically different. Under sudden heat stress, mean seed weight declined by 70%, protein content by 70%, oil content by 85%, ash content by 50%, and soluble sugar content by 75%. The accessions responded differently, however, to the gradual heat stress. Accession 478435 experienced significantly greater reduction in seed weight, protein and ash content than accessions 457972 and 457977. Oil content per seed and soluble sugar content per seed were also lower in 478435 than in the other two cultivars, but the difference was not significant. On the flour basis, sudden heat stress increased ash content and decreased oil content and soluble sugar content significantly in all accessions. Accession 478435 had highest value in ash content at significant level. Under gradual stress, protein and ash content were increased while oil mass and soluble sugar mass were decreased. 478435 had significantly higher protein mass and ash mass in flour with respectively 57% and 5.1%, 457977 had significantly higher soluble sugar content with 112 mg/g. The results showed that heat stress can have a significant effect on the quantity and quality of seed yield in Andean lupin. While all tested accessions were severely susceptible to sudden heat stress, gradual stress identified differences between accessions, with one being much more susceptible than the other two. The most susceptible accession was the earliest to flower. Gradual heat stress allows better resolution than sudden heat stress when screening germplasm for heat tolerance.

Metabolic disorders are known to predispose dairy cows to periparturient diseases. Main components of metabolic disorder are insulin resistance and severe negative energy balance which are responsible for the reduced fertility in addition of increased risk of disease in dairy cows. The mobilization of adipose tissue in response to energy deficiency is associated with metabolic and endocrine changes during early lactation. Reduced insulin sensitivity in peripheral tissues could potentially change the relative rates of lipolysis and lipogenesis. This study focused on expression of lipogenesis and lipolysis associated genes around parturition. Samples and data sets for this study were obtained from the feeding experiments conducted from September 2010 to April 2011 in Viikki Experimental Farm at the University of Helsinki. Sixteen multiparous Ayrshire cows were divided into two groups based on energy level and fibre content of their feed: (1) grass silage group (control) and (2) silage-roughage mixture group (experiment). During experimental period average energy intake (MJ/day) in silage group was 35% higher than in silage-roughage mixture group. Subcutaneous adipose tissue samples were collected a week before, one day and a week after parturition from cows. Total RNA was extracted from tissue samples quality and quantity of total RNA was analysed using electrophoresis and spectrophotometer. Complementary DNA (cDNA) was prepared from the total RNA for quantitative PCR (qPCR). QPCR was conducted to quantitate expression of the following genes: adiponectin (ADIPOQ), leptin (LEP), peroksisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR-?), adiponectin receptor-1 (AR1), adiponectin receptor-2 (AR2), lipoprotein lipase (LPL), stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) and hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL). Two genes, AR2 and LEP, were downregulated in group 1. Reduced expression of AR2 in group 1 may relate to an increased insulin resistance. The glucose metabolism was reduced further leading to reduced insulin sensitivity. Lower expression of LEP after parturition indicates usage of energy for milk production. The upregulation of SCD in group 1 before and after calving as well as after calving in group 2 may be a result of the uptake of fatty acids by the mammary tissues. The expression of ADIPOQ, AR1, LPL, PPAR, and HSL did not show any significant changes.

Garden strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) is one of the most important soft fruit crops in Finland. Every year, over ten thousand tonnes of strawberries are produced, but in many cases they are affected by grey mould disease (Botrytis cinerea Pers.). Grey mould disease is absolutely devastating for strawberry, as it can affect up to 80% of the yield. Although chemical fungicides are widely used in controlling the pathogen, there are increasing concerns about its safety and environmental impacts. The use of disease resistant cultivars and biological control agents (BCAs) are two of the alternative methods in controlling grey mould disease. However, the breeding progress of resistant cultivars is limited by the selection methods used, while the BCAs require more characterization. In this study, we evaluated strawberry grey mould resistance by inoculation, and tested the amount of Pseudomonas fluorescens in strawberry after biological control application. Inoculation of strawberry is feasible, efficient and reliable to replace the conventional grey mould evaluation method. Foliage application of P. fluorescens did not significantly change the endophyte content of strawberry, proposing that the use of the bacterium is safe from causing any bacterial contamination.

Biowaste is composed of food and garden waste, which can easily be utilized for energy and nutrient recovery. A part of biowaste, however, still goes to landfilling, which cause harmful emissions and leaks to the environment. This pro gradu study was carried out as a part of JaloJäte- project in Etelä- Savo and Satakunta. The purpose of JaloJäte- project was to develop models for biowaste exploitation with corporate social responsibility. The aim of my study was to examine if there was any correlation between the amount of biowaste as dry matter and the revenues of the food companies. My study also gives information on which food sector produces most amounts of biowaste amount as dry matter proportional to the revenues as euros of the food company. The utilization of biowaste is also reported in different food sectors. The method was empirical and the study qualitative. I collected the information for the study by phone and by emails from food companies from the years 2007 to the year 2009. I got 102 interviews from food companies. The results indicate that when the revenues as euros of the food companies grew the biowaste amount as dry matter decreased. According to the study agriculture with fishing and food industry sectors produce more biowaste as dry matter per euro than food stores and restaurants. The biowaste utilization varied in different food chain sectors. The most popular biowaste utilization forms were composting, direct field use and feeding animals. Others more marginal biowaste utilization forms were burning and rotting. Unfortunately a part of biowaste still goes into landfilling. This cannot continue for long, because placing biowaste into landfills will be forbidden from start of the year 2016. Hopefully this will change puplic opinion so that biowaste will be considered more as a useful byproduct than as waste. More researche is needed on biowaste utilization, so more effective and economical recycling forms can be develop.

The aim of this research was to measure energy consumption and energy loss through ventilation in the Viikki research farm, as well as to find possible targets to decrease energy consumption. In order to properly achieve an efficient use of energy it is important to first know how much energy is being used and where. In the literature review I found that the greatest energy consumption comes from ventilation, milking, cooling the milk, warming the water, lightning, taking of the manure and feeding. Previous research has shown that most of the energy is used for feeding and milking. Feeding took 133–650 kWh/year/cow. The energy consumption of milking was 380–570 kWh/year/cow. Milking the cows, cooling the milk and washing up the tank were included in energy consumption of milking. If internal combustion engines are used for feeding the overall energy consumption is higher than when electrical engines are used. To determine energy consumption in the Viikki research farm`s barn, measuring devices were installed. Due to the limited number of devises I concentrated on the sources of the highest energy consumption, as was determined from previous research. The reliability of the results from the chosen targets was acceptable, however, measurement of the total consumption of energy of the entire barn was very challenging and its measurement was eventually abandoned. The barn used for this research is an old renovated stone barn where cows are kept unchained. There are 60 to 70 cows, a couple of heifers and 0 to 30 calves in the barn. The total energy consumption of the barn as measured by the devices is 197 475 kWh/year or 0,267 kWh/kg of milk/year. Most of the energy is used for lightning (56 132 kWh per annum) or 0,076 kWh/kg of milk and 823 kWh/cow per annum. Feeding accounted for 42 000 kWh/year or 0,050 kWh/kg/year. The feeding of one cow required 615 kWh a year of energy. The amount of energy used for one kilo of milk was: milking, 0,047; warming 0,041; manure disposal 0,029; and ventilation 0,018 kWh/year. According to my calculations the amount of energy passing through the ventilation system was 580 000 kWh/year.