Smoke from burning vegetation is widely recognised as a germination cue for seed germination and recent reports suggest that smoke treatments can improve seedling vigour also. We investigated the effect of smoke-water on seedling vigour and changes of the global transcriptome in the early post-germination phase in maize. Application of smoke-water improved the germination characteristics and seedling vigour. The transcriptional response of embryos and emerging radicles 24 and 48 h after the onset of smoke treatment was investigated. The microarray study revealed a number of smoke-responsive genes amongst which stress- and abscisic acid (ABA)-related genes were over-represented. The global promoter analysis of the smoke-responsive genes revealed a tight correlation with the results obtained from Gene Ontology annotations. This concerted over-expression shows that smoke treatment induces stress and ABA-related responses in the early post-germination phase which leads to better adaptation to environmental stress factors occurring during germination, eventually resulting in greater seedling vigour.

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Saline-washed red blood cell (RBC) concentrates are largely depleted of leukocytes, microaggregates, and nearly of all plasma originally contained in the blood unit. Our aim was to determine the concentration of the eliminated IgA and total protein in the buffy coat and plasma removed RBC concentrate before and after a sequential dilution-centrifugation washing procedure, 75.3% protein, and 99% IgA were eliminated by the washing process used. The recovery of red blood cells was 87.2%. Our results have led to the conclusion that two sequential washings seem to guarantee an IgA level of less than 0.2 mg/unit to meet the recommendations of the Council of Europe. Additional advantages of washing include low levels of extracellular hemoglobin, metabolic waste products and debris in the supernatant.

An experiment was set up at five locations in Hungary in 2005, in a randomised block design with four replications. At each location 24 hybrids were tested from each of four maturity groups (FAO 200, FAO 300, FAO 400, FAO 500). Evaluations were made of the yield average (t/ha) and the yield components of the sample ears: ear length, number of kernel rows, thousand-kernel mass and kernel/cob ratio. This was followed by chemical analysis to determine the protein, oil and starch contents of the kernels. The chemical quality parameters were recorded for almost 100 hybrids, and the correlations of the protein, oil and starch contents with yield and yield components were analysed. It was found that in all the maturity groups the yield was closely correlated with the thousandkernel mass (0.72). In each maturity group the highest yield averages were associated with the greatest average starch contents, except for the FAO 500 group in the Szarvas location, where the development of secondary ears contributed to the achievement of the highest yield average. A very close correlation was found between the starch content and the thousand kernel mass (0.91). The variety caused greater differences in protein content than the location. This was also true for the oil content in the FAO 200 and FAO 400 groups, but only in the FAO 400 group in the case of starch content. More starch was incorporated at wetter locations, where the protein content of the samples was lower.