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Surface treatment by low-temperature plasma has a great potential in a wide range of applications in many industries and research fields, such as material engineering, automobile industry, ecology, medicine, and agriculture. The application of plasma treatments is relatively new and not very common in agriculture. Protecting cereal seeds against some fungal diseases is one of the plasma applications in agriculture. We tested the possibility of decreased mycotoxin concentration by low pressure and atmospheric pressure plasmas. In addition, we investigated the effects of plasma treatment on nutritive values of the seeds because of their usage as domestic animal feed. The influence on seed germination was also studied and are also reported here.

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Minibreweries are a specific group on the Czech beer market and they communicate with their customers mostly via their product – the beer. Their main asset is uniqueness and locality. Presentation of these breweries is mostly realized by financially less difficult methods. The present text deals with the problems of marketing communication of minibreweries with respect to the techniques used. Data collection was performed via electronic questionnaire in January 2017. The researched sample consisted of 350 minibreweries as of 31st December 2016. Recoverability of the questionnaires was 41% (145 minibreweries). The aim of the research was to find out, with the help of descriptive statistic methods, which marketing tools are used by minibreweries. The results confirm that, for marketing communication, minibreweries use mostly low-cost techniques such as own web pages, which are used by 90% of the researched minibreweries, social sites by 84% of respondents, and through the renown of the minibrewery by 80% of respondents. Furthermore there are tools to be used to differentiate the product, such as labels (in 90% of respondents), glasses and beer coasters (in 85% of respondents), the least used kind of these tools being the advertisement in the national broadcast transmission (in 4% of respondents) and in the news (in 8% of respondents).

The control of climatic conditions where cattle are kept is one of the challenges in the livestock sector regarding the digital automation of the process. (1) Background: The main purpose of this study is to define the optimal foundations for automatic climatic systems in organic and energy-sustainable livestock production. In particular, the following components are suggested: (a) the determination of current deviations and interdependency between factors; (b) an algorithm for defining the possible sources of regulation; (c) the ranking approach of the optimal sequence of possible sources; and (d) ensuring transparency and coordination of the model with organic and energy certificates. (2) Methods: This investigation accumulates information on the characteristics of the main microclimatic parameters and simulates their possible combinations in a livestock building in Poland within 24 h of a spring day. A few indices are considered that signal the impact on the thermal comfort of cattle based on the example of recommended measures for the Angus steer genotype. (3) Results: The proposed transparent algorithm is designed for selecting and ranking potential sources of microclimate control according to three criteria. (4) Conclusions: This paper potentially contributes to determining the most optimal digital algorithm for managing microclimate conditions to ensure acceptable comfort for animals, meeting the requirements of organic certification with minimum costs of production, and switching to sustainable types of energy with consideration of technologies’ efficiency. The algorithm is scalable and adjustable to the individual conditions of any livestock premise with a digitally controlled environment.