Perception and Importance of Urban Home Gardeners to Improve Sustainable Food Production

Home gardening has been practiced over centuries in rural areas for their food and financial security. This practice has also engendered the urban people to supply toxic-free organic vegetables and fruits, to control pollution, etc. However, urban gardeners are facing a lot of economical, infrastructure, and physical challenges in their practice. Even though there are more web and mobile remedies available in the form of video or audio demonstration, they are completely designed in their own local languages, and not applicable to all plants and trees, etc. To provide a solution, this study analyses 165 urban gardeners of Madurai city, Tamil Nadu an Indian state on their importance, ecological and environmental benefits, challenges faced in home gardening practice. As an outcome of the analysis, this study recommends the web and mobile developers “what the home gardeners are really expected from the mobile/ web applications?” to improve their sustainable food production.</p

Phenol-formaldehyde cationic matrices substituted by sulphonated <i>Acacia nilotica </i>charcoal

623-626Sulphonated Acacia nilotica charcoal (SANC) could be used as a substituent for cation exchanger viz., sulphonated phenol-formaldehyde resin(SPFR). SANC was used to partly replace the polymeric matrix of sulphonated phenol-formaldehyde cation exchanger, by varying the substituent content of SANC. All the important physico-chemical, thermal and spectral characteristic properties of the composites have been determined. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the composite was found to decrease with the increase in the substitution by SANC(%w/w) in the SPFR. It was observed that SANC retains all the properties, as compared to that of the unsubstituted phenol-formaldehyde cationic resin (PFCR). It is concluded that SANC could partly replace PFCR, upto 20% (w/w) substitution without affecting the properties of the PFCR

Influence of metal ions on bioremediation activity of protocatechuate 3,4-dioxygenase from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia KB2

The aim of this paper was to describe the effect of various metal ions on the activity of protocatechuate 3,4-dioxygenase from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia KB2. We also compared activity of different dioxygenases isolated from this strain, in the presence of metal ions, after induction by various aromatic compounds. S. maltophilia KB2 degraded 13 mM 3,4-dihydroxybenzoate, 10 mM benzoic acid and 12 mM phenol within 24 h of incubation. In the presence of dihydroxybenzoate and benzoate, the activity of protocatechuate 3,4-dioxygenase and catechol 1,2-dioxygenase was observed. Although Fe(3+), Cu(2+), Zn(2+), Co(2+), Al(3+), Cd(2+), Ni(2+) and Mn(2+) ions caused 20–80 % inhibition of protocatechuate 3,4-dioxygenase activity, the above-mentioned metal ions (with the exception of Ni(2+)) inhibited catechol 1,2-dioxygenase to a lesser extent or even activate the enzyme. Retaining activity of at least one of three dioxygenases from strain KB2 in the presence of metal ions makes it an ideal bacterium for bioremediation of contaminated areas