DRAGON FRUIT

Dragon fruit is still strange in all people ear cause this fruit there are in Israel, Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam, but now it begin to spread out all countries. This fruit can grow in dry area, this fruit plant can grow 20 years after that the plant will dead, and much live in tropical countries. Dragon fruit have high economical price and also have high benefit for human health, the benefit are diabetes balancing, avoid cancer, protect our mouth health, decrease cholesterol in blood, and many more. Generally dragon fruit was eaten by people in fresh fruit as water substitution cause it has high water containing (90,2 percentage) of total fruit weight and it’s so sweet taste because it has high sugar contain ( 1318 bricks ). Every tree was one year at least can result three kilogram and older tree can result 15 kilogram fresh fruit. The price every kilogram of dragon fruit is Rp 27.000 per kilogram (if in American dollar, it’s about USS$ 2,5 ). And if the fruit came to fruit shop, the price can reach Rp 35.000 – Rp 40.000 per kilogram ( If in American dollar, it’s about UU$ 3.5 – 4.0 per kilogram). Therefore, it has so many benefits and easy grow to plant, many farmers are interesting to plant this fruit.

Soil Mechanical Impedance Effect

Changes in gene expression when rice roots of rice plants encounter mechanical impedance have been investigated. A sand core system is used so that mechanical impedance can be varied independently of aeration and water status. Plants of genotypes known to be tolerant or susceptible to mechanical impedance will be grown under control and impeded conditions and changes in gene expression studied in the different tissues using cDNA-AFLP, differential display and subtractive hybridisation techniques. The work will increase understanding of impedance and so improve future physiological screens, as well as providing DNA sequences both for the screening of young plants and for the future production of transgenic crops.
Mechanically strong soil decreases root growth of many crop species. The resulting exploration of a smaller volume of soil can restrict water and nutrient uptake and lead to yield losses. Strong soil can result from compaction associated with tillage operations or from drought, as soil strength increases with decreasing water content. High soil strength leads to root axes becoming thicker as well as shorter and increased ethylene biosynthesis has been implicated in these responses. When the root system is severely mechanically impeded, shoot growth is also reduced, and complete mechanical impedance increases root turgor pressure. However, whether plant responses to mechanical impedance are caused by changes in gene expression has not been studied. The aim of this project is therefore to investigate changes in gene expression when roots encounter mechanical impedance, and in particular to isolate sequences specifically induced in genotypes that grow relatively well under impedance. This approach offers great potential for increasing our fundamental understanding of crop responses to strong soil (leading to new physiological screens) and provides DNA sequences for both the rapid, sensitive sampling of young plants and the future production of transgenic plants able to grow well in strong soil.

Rice Harvest could be everywhere

By changing technologies, now we could plant the rice everywhere without need muddy place (or usually we call as rice field) to plant the rice. Some people tried to plant the rice in polybag or in plastic vase and they are success to grow rice up by using periodically enough fertilizer and water. One again in hydroponic plant, it’s more important is enough nutrient, if nutrient is not enough to supply the plant need. So, the plant will dead. Maintenance is important, if we want to produce high product of rice. Usually hydroponic plant can live as long as a half of usual agriculture style. So, in hyroponic system, plants will get harvest time fastest than usual plants.