(MPOB Transfer of Technology)
Malaysia is the world’s second producer of palm oil with 4.3 million hectares of the crop producing 15.9 million tonnes of the oil. As the crop is grown in a cycle of 25 – 30 years, it is estimated that more than 70 000 ha will have to be replanted every year, requiring the felling … Read more
Titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) is a white powder with high opacity, excellent whiteness, excellent covering power and resistance to colour change. These properties make it an excellent pigment for a broad range of applications – paints, plastic goods, inks and paper. In cosmetic and skin care products, TiO2 is used both as a pigment and thickener, … Read more
Most products are produced to satisfy consumer needs. For quality control, they are tested for their performance. Sometimes, their properties, e.g. viscosity and pH, are measured using various instruments. But, unfortunately, the perceived characteristics cannot be measured by any instrument, and sensory analysis has to be resorted to, instead. Products such as food, household chemicals, cosmetic … Read more
Bacteria such as Serratia, Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, Bacillus and actinomycetes from the genera Streptomycetes, Streptosporangium and Nacardiopsis are able to induce systemic resistance in plants (Kloepper et al., 1992), and shown biological traits like antibiotic activity and lysis. They have been isolated from a wide range of hosts including wild and cultivated crops, such as woody … Read more
Fungi are well-known antagonists of many plant pathogens, and some of them, mainly Trichoderma (Shukla and Uniyal, 1989; Wijesekera et al., 1996; Ilias and Abdullah, 1999), Aspergillus (Shukla and Uniyal, 1989) and Penicillium (Dharmaputra et al., 1989) have been evaluated against Ganoderma. This article describes an in vitro method to evaluate the potential of fungi … Read more