Plum Production in Italy: State of Art and Perspectives

Quality of autochthonous Sicilian plums

Thirty four plum local varieties and accessions obtained from different growing area of the Sicilian island were analyzed for their qualitative and nutraceutical properties and three commercialcultivar were used as references. These properties included the fruit fresh weight (g), the pulp firmness (FFF), the total soluble solids (TSS), the titratable acidity (TA), the total anthocyanins,the phenolics content and the antioxidant activity.This preliminary study showed significantly differeces among the plums; Zuccarato giallo and Prunu Niuru presented TSS higher than the commercial cultivars (24.9 and 21.6 °Brix respectively)and interesting data obtained on the nutraceutical compounds values …

Genetic manipulation of spiramycin-producing strain Streptomyces ambofaciens ATCC 23877 by φC31 Att/Int system-based vectors results in a significant reduction of antibiotic production

The genus Streptomyces produces about two-thirds of naturally occurring antibiotics and many other biologically active secondary metabolites. The genetic manipulation of Streptomycetes is often labor and time intensive due to their large genome and complex development. Much progress has been made to develop gene transfer methods useful to construct antibiotic-producing strains with improved properties. The φC31 Att/Int system is an integration system that has been widely used to produce stable recombinants in Actinomycetes and its integration site is an attB site located in a pirin-like gene (pirA) of the bacterial chromosome. In this study we demonstrate that the integration of φC31 DNA in…

The effect of modified atmosphere packaging on the physical and chemical quality of fresh yellow plum cultivars

The aim of this work was to store fresh yellow plums (cvs. Sanacore and Ariddo di Core) for a maximum of 20 days at 1°C±1 and 90–95% relative humidity (RH) using modified atmosphere (MA) technology (flowpack system). Fruits of both cultivars were sealed in baskets with six films and compared with fruit stored under a normal atmosphere (NA). The effect of several packaging materials and several gas concentrations in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) were evaluated on the postharvest quality of plums considering the weight loss, flesh texture, total soluble solids (TSS) and titratable acidity (TA). Samples were monitored at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 days. All continuous plastic films used have ox…

Food sustainability perception at universities: Education and demographic features effects

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations merged in 17 goals the strong need to change the pattern of human life on the planet in a path of strengthening sustainability especially in an era that is widely defined as Anthropocene. The Global Action Program (GAP) on Education and Sustainable Development was adopted based on the power of education and knowledge with the idea of 'green universities' aimed at improving the perception of sustainability for future policy decisions. Based on a Best-Worst (BW) scaling methodological approach, in this study we quantified the preferences of generation Y at University of Turin as they relate to issues explicitly connected to the ordinary consumption of foo…