Effect of spring nitrogen fertilization on bearing and branching behaviors of young apple trees.

The total aboveground biomass production, nutritional status, bearing and branching behaviors of the central leader and one year old shoots of young apple trees have been analyzed. The shoots were further characterized according to the length, shoot demography, and the production of terminal and lateral flowers. All the characteristics are described in connection with nitrogen supply and cultivar. Nitrogen represents one of the major macronutrients involved in the growth and development of the fruit trees. The understanding of the effect of nitrogen supply for flower bud formation can be further improved by detailed analyses of tree architecture. While the biomass production was cultivar specific, the trees within particular cultivar were characterized by almost similar growth with respect to the nitrogen supply. Cultivar ´Rubinola´ exhibited similar branching pattern, but higher vigor than ´Topaz´. As a result of higher apical dominance, ´Rubinola´ produced higher proportion of long shoots, but a lower quality of short shoots than ´Topaz´. Consequently, cultivar ´Rubinola´ produced only few terminal flowers on short shoots and lateral flowers dominantly in the distal zone, while ´Topaz´ was characterized by intensive terminal flowering, but the lateral flowers were more abundant in the median zone. Even a lower dose of spring nitrogen improved the flower bud formation on both terminal and lateral positions extending the flowering zone on one-year-old shoots. This further changed the branching and bearing behavior of the apple trees, which particularly allows to optimize their fertilization management. However, this effect appears to be further regulated by mechanism connected with apical dominance.

Microwave accelerated aza-Claisen rearrangement.

A study of microwave-induced and standard thermal Overman rearrangement of selected allylic trichloroacetimidates 1a-1f, 6-8 to the corresponding acetamides 2a-2f, 9-11 is reported. The microwave-assisted rearrangement of trifluoroacetimidate 13 is also described. Using this methodology, an efficient access to versatile allylic trihaloacetamides building synthons was established.

Development of 3,5-Dinitrobenzylsulfanyl-1,3,4-oxadiazoles and Thiadiazoles as Selective Antitubercular Agents Active Against Replicating and Nonreplicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Herein, we report the discovery and structure-activity relationships of 5-substituted-2-[(3,5-dinitrobenzyl)sulfanyl]-1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles as a new class of antituberculosis agents. The majority of these compounds exhibited outstanding in vitro activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis CNCTC My 331/88 and six multidrug-resistant clinically isolated strains of M. tuberculosis, with minimum inhibitory concentration values as low as 0.03 µM (0.011-0.026 µg/mL). The investigated compounds had a highly selective antimycobacterial effect because they showed no activity against the other bacteria or fungi tested in this study. Furthermore, the investigated compounds exhibited low in vitro toxicities in four proliferating mammalian cell lines and in isolated primary human hepatocytes. Several in vitro genotoxicity assays indicated that the selected compounds have no mutagenic activity. The oxadiazole and thiadiazole derivatives with the most favorable activity/toxicity profiles also showed potency comparable to that of rifampicin against the nonreplicating streptomycin-starved M. tuberculosis 18b-Lux strain, and therefore, these derivatives, are of particular interest.