The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of aqueous extracts from five traditional Egyptian medicinal plants in preventing Sphaerotheca fuliginea’s powdery mildew disease, which affects cucumber plants. Aqueous extracts from each of the examined plants suppressed the pathogen’s conidia germination in vitro. In trials using detached leaves and greenhouses, these extracts lessened the severity of the disease. Compared to other plant extracts, Curcuma longa rhizome extract showed the greatest potency against the pathogen. The aqueous extract of Curcuma longa showed the largest improvement in disease suppression compared to the control in the greenhouse experiment. The results showed that total phenol and associated defense enzyme levels (POD and PPO) were elevated by plant extracts from all studied plants. These findings might suggest that total phenol and associated defense enzymes strengthen the cucumber’s resistance to the disease. The C. longa extract had more total phenol than the extracts from the other plants. The phenolic components in the C. longa rhizome extract were varied, and these variations were detected and quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The content of curcumin (3220.8 μg · g ^–1 dry weight) was the highest. In comparison to the control, the foliar application of the C. longa extract considerably increased the cucumber fruit yield and its constituent parts. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the C. longa rhizome extract has been utilized to improve cucumber plants’ production and its constituent parts. The pathogen appeared as small colonies with fewer mycelia and immature conidia in the treated cucumber leaves with 20% of C. longa rhizome extract according to an examination by SEM. Overall, the results indicated that the extract of C. longa rhizome, was a promising, effective, and environmentally friendly management measure against powdery mildew disease of cucumbers, and thus could be used in the production of organically grown vegetables.

The aim of this research was to prepare the basis for the certification of the apple orchard protection program by determining disappearance models for active ingredients (AIs) of plant protection products (PPPs) in fruits. Field trials were carried out in a conventional apple orchard protected with PPPs in accordance with the currently adopted program. Residues of their AIs were determined using Agilent GC-MS/MS 7000D and LC-MS/MS 6470 QQQ, and their decreases were expressed by the exponential formula: R _t = R ₀ × ^{e–k × t}. Of all the AIs found in mature fruits, captan disappeared at the fastest rate [t _(1/2) in the range of 9 to 13 days], followed by fluopyram [t _(1/2) = 13 days], tebuconazole [t _(1/2) = 14 days] and carbendazim [t _(1/2) in the range of 24 to 32 days]. With the exception of dithiocarbamates and some fungicides (e.g., Captan 80 WDG) based on captan and methyl thiophanate, other insecticides and fungicides currently recommended can be used up to 3 months before harvest practically with virtually no restrictions. From July 15 to August 15, the chemicals effective at application rates not exceeding 0.3 kg of AI per ha should be used. To protect apples against storage diseases, PPPs that are effective at a dose ≤ 0.1 kg AI per ha (e.g., certain triazoles or strobilurins) and applied not later than 1 month before harvest, should be used.

In 2021, pak choi production in Indonesia was 727.47 Mg, marking an increase of 8.2% compared to the 2020 production, which was 667.47 Mg. Therefore, there is a clear need for cultivation improvement, particularly through the implementation of organic fertilisers. This study aimed to investigate the impact of liquid organic fertiliser (LOF) derived from fish waste and duck manure on the growth and yield of the pak choi plant ( Brassica rapa. L. var. Nauli F1). A randomised block design factorial was used with two factors and three replications. The first factor considered was LOF from fish waste, comprising three levels (LOF ₀ = control, LOF ₁ = 25 cm ³∙dm ^–3 of water, and LOF2 = 50 cm ³∙dm ^–3 of water). The second factor focused on duck manure fertiliser (DMF) and involved four levels (DMF ₀ = control, DMF ₁ = 3.7 kg∙plot ^–1, DMF ₂ = 5.55 kg∙plot ^–1, and DMF ₃ = 7.4 kg∙plot ^–1). The results showed that the application of LOF from fish waste positively influenced the growth and yield of pak choi, with the most effective treatment observed in LOF1 (25 cm ³∙dm ^–3 of water). However, the application of DMF did not yield a significant difference in its effect on the growth and yield of the pak choi plant. The control treatment (DMF ₀) reported comparable results and the combination of LOF from fish waste and DMF did not show a significant effect, with the most favourable findings observed in the LOF ₂DMF ₀ treatment (50 cm ³∙dm ^–3 and control).

This paper investigates on developing a novel model-based identification technique for the simultaneous identification of severe faults such as the unbalance in the rotor and transverse crack in the shaft supported on foil bearings. With plenty of advantages over rolling element bearings or fluid film bearings, foil bearings have been used as the supported bearings in rotating machines such as fuel cell-electric air compressors, blowers, expanders, air cycle machines, etc. In the present article, a rotor model consisting of a cracked and unbalanced rotor with a disc in the middle supported by foil bearings has been considered for easier understanding of online identification of faults in high-speed rotating machines. Dynamic equations of motion of the rotor-foil bearing system have been derived based on the equivalent stiffness concept of shaft-foil bearing, inertia force, unbalance force, and crack force relying on the switching crack concept. The solutions of the equations, i.e., time domain displacement responses, orbit plots, etc. have been obtained numerically using the Simulink inbuilt Runge-Kutta method for different values of spin speed of the rotor and ramp-up speeds. The shaft centreline orbit is found to have eight shaped and asymmetric about the axes due to presence of crack and unbalance faults. The force due to unbalance fault gets dominated over the crack force at the higher speeds. Moreover, the orbit line is also observed to be thicker at higher level of noise addition in the responses. As the switching crack force contains multiple harmonics, a full spectrum analysis has been done to investigate both the forward and backward rotor whirls. The frequency-based rotor displacement is utilized to illustrate an identification algorithm for the estimation of the dynamic coefficients of foil bearings, additive crack stiffness, and magnitude as well as phase of disc unbalance. The identification algorithm is found to be quite suitable for the estimation of system and faults parameters even with addition of different levels of noise signal and modelling errors.