Using plant extract to synthesize silver nanoparticles is particularly worth of attention due to the simple, quick, affordable and friendly protocol with the environment. In our experiment, we have proved both the ability of common species (Mentha aquatic, Coleus blumei and Tagetes erecta) of achieving the synthesis of nanoparticles with a diameter between 8 and 300 nm, and the antibacterian effects of the obtained nano-silver.

Drought is a major issue that humanity confronts with and due to its vast ramifications it is also most difficult to solve. Being a natural phenomenon it has various manifestations which scholars have categorised into meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, environmental and others, in order to better define and understand this phenomenon. Several drought indices have been proposed by different scholars for measuring it which take rainfall, temperature, sun shining and other features into account. This of course, led to a variety of interpretations which makes the phenomenon even more difficult to size up and quantify its devastating effects on a long term scale. The seven indexes this paper makes use of, for calculating drought are: N. Topor index, De Martonne index, Domuta hydroheliothermal index, Selianinov hydrothermal index, Palfai drought index and Lang rain index. In this paper, the case study conducted for Timisoara in the 1980-2014 period reveals alternating wet and dry periods which do not pose any threat of aridisation or desertification in the near future. However, a constant monitoring is imposed in order for these phenomena not to occur, made by the authorized law enforcement together with specialists from various fields.

Among the technologies used for the bioremediation of agricultural land polluted with petroleum residues, phytoremediation is considered the most environmentally-friendly and most economically-efficient due to reduced costs. The objective of this paper is the statistical analysis of the variables that affect the yield differences (YD) made during the phytoremediation of a controlled polluted soil, with 3 % crude oil, obtained in 10 years of experimental observations in the field from the Agricultural Research and Development Station Oradea. The yield differences made by the polluted variant in relation to the unpolluted variant provide information about the concentration of crude oil remaining in the soil at some moment of the phytoremediation process. These are correlated with the time, T (years) and the mean temperature from March – August, MT III-VIII (°C). The second-order polynomial correlation with two factors and their interaction, very significant statistically, between YD as a dependent variable and the independent variables T and MT III-VIII allow the establishment of very important characteristics of the phytoremediation process. The duration of the ecological reconstruction differs from 8.5 - 9.5 years for MT III-VIII of 16 °C to 4-5 years for MT III-VIIII of 18 °C.

Plant species from Amaranthus genus are extremely important from many points of view: from an historical point of view, they were mentioned in ancient cultures such as Inca or Ancient Greece; from a nutritional point of view, they have many usages as food sources or drinks in many cultures from all around the globe; from a cultural point of view, they have been an inspiration source for numerous poets; from an economic point of view, some are used as natural pigments. The present article shortly presents the mythology associated with Amaranthus genus, the usages of its different species as well as the inventory of plates present in INCDS Herbarium from Bucharest.

Bihor County is renowned for the quantity and quality of the non-wood forest products (NWFPs) harvested over time. Even if the potential of marketing of NWFPs is high, the focus is on timber production, that represents the main source of revenue for the forest owners. The aim of this research was to highlight the most important NWFPs from Bihor County. Four categories of NWFPs and nineteen criteria proposed within the FP1203 COST Action European non-wood forest products network were taken into account. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to evaluate the performance of selected alternatives by means of pairwise comparisons. The analyses were performed by using the Expert Choice Desktop software package. The non-wood forest products with the highest potential for Bihor County were the truffles (Tuber spp.) and the pheasant (Phasianus colchicus L.), while the less important ones were the flowers of the black elder (Sambucus nigra L.) and bear’s garlic (Allium ursinum L.). Based on the results of this study, we conclude that Bihor County has a great potential for NWFPs mainly due to its great biodiversity as regards the forest ecosystems.

The increased intensity of animal meat production and the large volume of adjacent livestock manure need new management technologies to fulfill the environmental requirements and convert manure for landfield application. The goals of new technologies are to standardize the nutrient stabilization, to reduce pathogens and odors. One of the main sources of manure comes from the chicken industry. In general the density of birds in the house is 15 per square meter. The volume of deep litter used at the beginning in addition with the manure including moisture produced during 7 week growing period (light broiler) reaches 30-35 kg/squaremeter. The nitrogen content is high in the litter which fact requires two considerations. First point is to reduce the ammonia in house during growing process. Ammonia volatilization under aerobic and anaerobic manure decomposition occurs. The layer of litter at the end of period may riche 8 to 10 cm. It is estimated that both mechanisms participate in the decomposition processes that generate ammonia. One portion of ammonia enters in the air which then is removed from poultry house by ventilation. It means that this portion of nitrogen is air pollutant and is lost as potential fertilizer row material. At the same time ammonia content of air causes respiratory problems for birds. Production of ammonia in the litter increases the pH, thus causing leg injuries. Second point is that due to high nitrogen content the poultry manure requires specific treatment before is used as fertilizer to avoid the nitrate pollution.

In many regions of Europe (among others in Hungary) agricultural production has been affected by droughts over the past decades. Global Water Partnership (GWP) Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) wanted to supported European countries in developing of an early warning system, which consists of monitoring, prediction and combine national drought policies. In order to use risk assessment – in which prevention of drought is emphasized - available water content calculation of watershed should be prepared for drought impacted areas. The aim of our study was to create a highresolution, trans - border database, which takes into account the most important water regime properties of soils and it can be uniformly used in other countries of Tisza River Basin. Based on traditional soil maps, a soil database was created, where soil water content - in 2m layer depth of soil - can be estimated for different horizons and for different soil types. First of all, digital soil maps of different countries were adjusted to WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources), and calculation mapping was worked out for the total area of the Tisza River Basin. After allocations of the soil layers, physical limit values of soils were estimated by using pedo-transfer functions. Water storage capacity and available water content were determined by the depth of the impermeable layer. Finally, spatial queries were carried out in the Tisza River Basin and in units of administration. These data were integrated into a geographic information system, in which the data clearly showed that the impact of drought was more severe in extreme water management soils. In case of large-scale longterm droughts, local differences decreased the reliability of the calculations to a lesser degree. However, with further methodological development, the effect of these local differences can be reduced.

The object of the study was the ex situ conservation of Narcissus poëticus L specie deriving from the protected area of “the Forest with Daffodils from Alparea (Osorhei village)” from Bihor County, a vulnerable specie, conserved in vitro, with the purpose of multiplying and reconstructing the area where it originates. The advantage of the method consists in obtaining a large number of explants, identical with the mother plant, being a unique method of multiplying asexual plants. Ex situ multiplication in free collections has some deficiencies (the destruction of the specie by the attack of some diseases, by natural disasters, etc.), which raised interest for the in vitro conservation, the method becoming a certitude. At the tuber-bulbous plants, obtaining the vegetal material for the multiplication (the bulbs) requires a period of low temperatures (vernalization stage). Narcissus poëticus L was cultivated in vitro from scale detached from the bulb, with the disk area, after the bulb donor of the explant was treated with cold up to 4 months. The explant was cultivated on four basal mediums: MSM, MS, Heller and Gamborg, with different hormonal variants. After about 4 months from the in vitro inoculation, it was followed the evolution of the explant in relation to the period of cold, to the dose of phytohormones and lass to the nature of the medium. We point out the necessity of the treatment with cold for Narcissus poëticus L specie, involved in eliminating the profound repose of the bulbous plants. The rhythm of regeneration after a month of treatment with cold at 6 oC proved weak; after 2 months of treatment at 4 oC it is in slight increase with the formation of real leaflets; and after 3 - 4 months of cold at 2 – 3 oC applied to the bulb donor of explants the rhythm of regeneration reaches up to 30 – 50 %, with caulogenesis and the formation of 3 - 4 bulbils/explant. We recommend in vitro multiplication of Narcissus poëticus L specie, after normal periods of vernalization, or the replacement of this period with a treatment with cold for about 4 months at 2 – 4 oC, and even with high doses of cytokinins, for the natural extracts within the medium for obtaining in vitro bulbils at a low cost.