Sorin Ciulca

Banat University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine · Department of Genetic engineering

Salt-affected soils constrain wheat production in many countries. It is estimated that more than 831 million hectares (Mha) are salt affected globally, with 10 Mha of cultivated land lost annually. Salinity adversely affects wheat grain yield and grain quality traits. Wheat genotypes show wide variation for salinity stress tolerance. The main objec...

Heavy metals like cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn), resulting from anthropogenic activities, are elements with high persistence in nature, being able to accumulate in soils, water, and plants with significant impact to human and animal health. This study investigates the phytoremediation capacity of Silphium perfoliatum L. as a s...

Lettuce is a valuable leaf vegetable for a well-balanced diet, since it is rich in nutrient elements, has low calories and provides dietary antioxidants. Compared to soil-based cultivation, the hydroponic system is an alternative associated with a shortening of growing cycles and a reduction of wasted water amount. The aim of this study was to anal...

Soil pollution by heavy metals as a result of mining activities is increasingly taking place. Once accumulated in soil, the heavy metals can then be dispersed, with serious effects on the environment and human health. It is therefore necessary to minimize, or even remove, all heavy metals from polluted areas, and one of the environmentally friendly...

The study aimed at assessing stability the grains number from panicle to autumn oats, under the influence of climatic conditions. The study was conducted over a period of three years. The biological material consisted of 73 genotypes. The experimental data was obtained by performing biometric measurements. The experimental data was processed by var...

Hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L) is widespread and cultivated for its pungent fruits worldwide and used for fresh consumption or dry powder. The biological material was composed of six hot pepper genotypes, genetically and ecologically differentiated, used as parents and 15 hybrids of half-diallel crosses between these parents. The aim of this resear...

Fruits of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) are valued mainly for their nutraceutical properties, and are among the fruits with the highest antioxidant activity due to their high content of phenolic compounds. The aim of this research was to assess the total polyphenol content and antioxidant activity of fruits in six wild bilberry populations from...

The aim of the research was to evaluate the variability value of the main characters that contribute to the achievement of plant production to a collection of hot pepper genotypes. The biological material was composed of 17 landraces of hot peppers collected from western Romania. The study was conducted for two years, with biometric measurements on...

Research was conducted during two growing seasons (2017-2018) in Miniş-Măderat vineyard. The study aimed to evaluate the variability of several red wine grape varieties in order to highlight their main qualitative and quantitative parameters. In the research were involved the morphological parameters: the number of bunches on the vine, the bunch we...

Short-rotation plantations for wood biomass production are systems in which different, fast-growing forest species are grown in intensive agricultural technologies to achieve high biomass yields. The genus paulownia comprises very fast-growing tree species, mainly used in biomass production for energy purposes, but not only. The biomass produced by...

The aim of the research was to study the correlations between the main morphological characters pursued in the autumn oat breeding programs. The study was conducted over three years, in field conditions, the observations being made by bioemetric measurements on the plant height and the morphological components of the plant productivity. The biologi...

Short-rotation plantations for wood biomass production are systems in which different, fast-growing forest species are grown in intensive agricultural technologies to achieve high biomass yields. The genus paulownia comprises very fast-growing tree species, mainly used in biomass production for energy purposes, but not only. The biomass produced by...

The aim of this study was conducted to assess the combined ability, for chlorophyll content, proline content, and dehydration capacity of the leaves. In this sense was used 4 x 4 half diallel crosses of winter barley to identify the best parents and combinations of these. Combining ability analysis provides important information for selecting paren...

Crop diversity of vegetable species is threatened by the current homogenization of agricultural production systems due to specialization of plant breeders and increasing globalization in the seed sector. With the onset of modern agriculture, most traditional vegetable cultivars were replaced by highly productive and often genetically uniform commer...

Heavy metal pollution, manifested by the accumulation, toxicity and persistence in soil, water, air, and living organisms, is a major environmental problem that requires energetic resolution. Mining tailing areas contain metal minerals such as Cu, Zn, Pb, Cr and Cd in high concentrations that pollute the environment and pose threats to human health...

In wheat, the size of the grain, respectively its dimensions as well as degree of filled, are important characteristics on which depends both the weight of the grain and yield of flour, the quality of milling and baking as well as the production capacity of the respective genotype. This paper presents the results obtained by studying for three year...

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the variability of a collection of paprika peppers landraces, in order to use them in the breeding process. The study lasted two years. The biological material was collected from western Romania. The behavior of landraces is not constant from year to year. Zărand landrace was the most stable. They can be rec...

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the variability of several white wine grape varieties in order to highlight their main quantitative and qualitative parameters. The study was carried out during two growing seasons (2017-2018) in the Pâncota locality area, Arad County, in the pedo-climatic conditions from the Miniş-Măderat vineyard. Research...

Romania has a wide variety of local landraces and heirloom genotypes. Our study aims to assess the performance of twenty halotolerant tomato landraces, collected from areas with medium and high levels of soil salinity, in terms ofthe accumulation of antioxidant compounds in fruits and to cluster them according to their nutraceutical components. The...

The purpose of this study is to examine the stability of grain number per panicle in a collection of autumn oat genotypes under different climatic conditions. The biological material analysed consisted of 73 oat genotypes studied over a period of three years. The experimental data were obtained by biometric measurements and subsequently processed u...

That a randomized sample of 100 leaves was used for measurements regarding: leaf length-LL(cm), leaf width-LW(cm), shape index (LSI=LL/LW), estimated leaf area ELA=LL*LW(cm2 ) and measured leaf area MLA(cm2 ) using a leaf area meter.All four characters exhibited direct and insignificant direct effects on the actual foliar surface of Silphium perfol...

SORADA F1 is a tomato hybrid between two local landraces (Cruceni 102 ♀ × ♂ Rudna 143) from Timis County, created in order to combine their valuable traits, namely large, tasty and flavorful fruits, with a good tolerance to unfavorable conditions. The plant is very vigorous, with indeterminate growth, wealthy foliage, medium sized fruits and good f...

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most economically important vegetable crops in the world. They are very widespread at the global level, accounting for 16% of the total area cultivated with vegetables. Tomatoes also recorded one of the most important increases in global production, 49% between 2000 and 2013. Tomato worldwide productio...

Information on the inheritance of yield and quality traits is important for the selection of parents and breeding approaches to be adopted for the improvement of strawberry. The present study aimed to estimate the combining ability and gene effects for plant yield, fruits number/plant, fruit weight, pulp firmness and sugar content of strawberries i...

Sprouted grain flour (sprouted grains) is rich in many active principles (oligosaccharides, vitamins, antioxidants, enzymes, microelements), making it a very valuable raw material for food, pharmaceuticals, diets, etc. The aim of our study was the biochemical characterization of flour obtained from germinated cereals (wheat, barley and oats) carrie...

The paper assesses the behavior of triticale genotypes in the evolution of the environment in Timisoara area during 2001 - 2011. The triticale varieties and lines were bred in the Eastern part of Romania [RICIC Fundulea] with a different climate pattern than Timisoara. We intended to see the yield evolution during a long period of cultivation [10 y...

The success of a breeding program depended on the genetic variability available into the germoplasm of the crop. The objectiveof the present study were to assess molecular variation among different Romanian and foreign barley cultivars, and to determine the level of genetic similarity among them. The results demonstrated that RAPD analysis are usef...

The success of a breeding program depended on the genetic variability available into the germoplasm of the crop. The objectiveof the present study were to assess molecular variation among different Romanian and foreign barley cultivars, and to determine the level of genetic similarity among them. The results demonstrated that RAPD analysis are usef...

The aim of this paper was to study the sources of the somatic variability induced in Momordica charantia cell cultures, by the evaluation of antioxidants, of polyphenols content and proteic fingerprint. Based on correlation between UPGMA proteic clustering of the bitter melon cell lines and their antioxidants and polyphenolic content, we concluded...

For breeding new varieties, local germoplasm can constitute a gene reservoir that is still unused. The study concerned 29 local populations collected from the counties of Timis, Arad, Bihor, which were compared with ‘Cristal’variety. The main morphological characters, components of production capacity, concerning variability and existing correlatio...

The success of a breeding program depends on the genetic variability available into the germoplasm of the crop. The aim of the present study was to evaluate intra-population genetic diversity of the 30 alfalfa Romanian cultivars using three available codominant microsatellite markers (SSRs) identified in the model legume Medicago truncatula from ES...

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.), an important medicinal plant from the warm climate area of the Asian continent (India, China, and Malaysia), can be cultivate in Romania for their high therapeutic value, but with low productivity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the measure and the different forms of the variability between donor and re...

Starch and total protein contents, -amylase activity of grains as well as falling number in the flour, an internationally accepted measure of -amylase activity in the food industry, were compared in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes which are widely used in the agriculture and breeding in Romania and Hungary. These cultivars were originated fr...

Genetic improvement of any crop species depends upon the existence, nature and extent of the genetic variability available for manipulation. Genetic analysis with RAPD markers has been extensively used to determine genetic diversity among barley varieties and to identify the best quality for malting, feeding, or human consumption. The objectives of...

The plant breeding programs are continuously searching new gene sources subsequently used to improve different characters. The present study refers to the obtained results concerning the value of some pepper local landraces collected from the west part of Romania in order to retrieve old cultivated forms. There have been collected 75 pepper local l...

Drought, considered as the combination of water stress plus high irradiance and temperature stresses, is the main abiotic factor limiting yield. The improvement of the yields under drought conditions therefore must combine the high yield potential and specific factors which are able to protect the crop against reduction due to this stress condition...

In our researches we studied the cell suspension growth at Momordica charantia L., in subcultures on Murashige-Skoog medium, under two combinations of growth regulators influence (AIA+Kin and BA+Kin), to select cell lines with high antioxidants content. The total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total phenol content analysis showed that the cell line...

Pepper is widely cultivated species in Romania, especially in West Plain region. Local landraces are still cultivated on reduced areas, but they tend to be replaced by cultivars. Recovering the old landraces is necessary in order to use them in breeding programs. The objective of this study was the evaluation of some morphological traits involved i...

Plant breeders invariably encounter genotype x environment interaction (GEI) when testing different cultivars across a number of environments. An ideal wheat variety should have a high mean yield combined with a low degree of fluctuation under different environments. The objective of this study was to evaluate the spike yield stability of 25 winter...

Cognition of correlations offers the possibility to evaluate complicated characters by evaluating the less complicated ones. Multiple correlations are useful in finding a balance between principal characters studied in breeding programs. The aim of the study was the evaluation of principal component characters of production capacity in a collection...

Our research aimed at the cultivation in field conditions of regenerants from in vitro culture of 5 genotypes of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.). On the ground of the results we obtained, we can draw the conclusion that we can, through in vitro cultures, get variability of some yield characters in bitter gourd that can be exploited in order t...