Studies were carried out on the effects of coumarin, ferulic acid and naringenin on soybean seed germination and on the growth of seed-borne fungi at concentrations of 50 and 100 mg.L-1. The compounds showed good inhibition of seed germination, especially at 50 mg.L-1, but little fungistatic activity. Possible mechanisms of action are discussed.

Several biological phenomena have a behavior over time mathematically characterized by a strong increasing function in the early stages of development, then by a less pronounced growth, sometimes showing stability. The separation between these phases is very important to the researcher, since the maintenance of a less productive phase results in uneconomical activity. In this report we present methods of determining critical points in logistic functions that separate the early stages of growth from the asymptotic phase, with the aim of establishing a stopping critical point in the growth and on this basis determine differences in treatments. The logistic growth model is fitted to experimental data of imbibition of arariba seeds (Centrolobium tomentosum). To determine stopping critical points the following methods were used: i) accelerating growth function, ii) tangent at the inflection point, iii) segmented regression; iv) modified segmented regression; v) non-significant difference; and vi) non-significant difference by simulation. The analysis of variance of the abscissas and ordinates of the breakpoints was performed with the objective of comparing treatments and methods used to determine the critical points. The methods of segmented regression and of the tangent at the inflection point lead to early stopping points, in comparison with other methods, with proportions ordinate/asymptote lower than 0.90. The non-significant difference method by simulation had higher values of abscissas for stopping point, with an average proportion ordinate/asymptote equal to 0.986. An intermediate proportion of 0.908 was observed for the acceleration function method

Clones de seringueira podem ter comportamento diferenciado, quanto à intensidade de sintomas causados por Microcyclus ulei, se estes são avaliados na idade jovem ou adulta, pela presença ou ausência de folhas maduras e ascoporos, concomitantemente com fluxos de folhas novas suscetíveis. Foi objetivo do presente trabalho avaliar seis clones de seringueira com um e oito anos de idade, quanto à intensidade de sintomas do mal das folhas, na região do Vale do Ribeira, Estado de São Paulo. Os resultados permitiram observar que os clones mais atingidos pela doença na fase jovem foram: FX 3864, RRIM 600, IAN 873 e IAN 717, na idade adulta os clones RRIM 600, IAN 717 e FX 3864. O clone IAN 873 teve uma das menores quantidades de doença na fase adulta, que pode ser explicado pela troca uniforme das folhas e um re-enfolhamento compacto numa época desfavorável ao patógeno, ocorrendo o fenômeno da evitação ou evasão no tempo.