This research aims at studying the ability of Mondell PINE tree )Pinus eldarica( in decreasing the heavy metal contaminants within the environment by determining the concentration of heavy metals in the LEAVES and bark of P. eldarica and comparing their concentrations with falling dust. After preparing the falling dust and plant samples, their heavy elements have been extracted by acid digestion method and then measured by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The results showed that the concentration of iron, manganese, zinc, lead, and cadmium in falling dust were the highest to the lowest, respectively. Concentrations of cadmium, iron, cobalt, and nickel, increased with increasing the distance from the road due to multi-directional winds and the presence of other contaminants. The Pearson correlation coefficient among the heavy metals found in the falling dust and Mondell PINE tree showed that the input and controlling factors of these elements in the Mondell PINE tree are probably the same as the dust. The results showed that the P. eldarica bark with the amount of accumulation index of 7261 mg/kg has more ability to simultaneously absorb different metals. As a result, it is expected that significant amount of heavy metals will be absorbed by these trees in the green belt surrounds the Yazd urban area.

Eldar PINE (Pinus eldarica Medw., Pinaceae) is among the most popular and commonly planted ornamental trees in Northern and Central Iran. Rust infected specimens of Eldar PINE were collected from PINE cultivated forest at Hezaar-Pich, Gorgan, Golestan province, in April 2012 and submitted to the Botany Department of Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Tehran for diagnosis. The specimens showed heavy rust diseases symptoms including aecia on needles of Eldar PINE. A description of the causal agent follows: Spermogonia subepidermal, on both sides of infected LEAVES. Aecia mostly hypophyllous, develop as conspicuous white columnar pustules on PINE needles, peridermioid, with strongly developed bullate or tongue-shaped peridium, 1. 5-3 x 0. 5 mm and up to 1. 2 mm high. Aeciospores catenulate, 25-40 x 17. 5-26. 5 μ m, ellipsoid, oblong ellipsoid or more or less globoid, spore wall covered by rod-like verrucae (verrucose), wall including verrucae 2. 5-4 μ m thick, discrete rods up to 2. 5 μ m high, occasionally reduced on one side of spores or united in irregular or pseudoreticulate patterns (Fig. 1). Based on infection pattern and above mentioned morphological features of aecia and aeciospores, the rust fungus was identified as Coleosporium tussilaginis (Pers. ) Lev. (Majewski 1977). The voucher specimen, 17001F, was deposited in IRAN, Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Tehran. This is the first report of C. tussilaginis on a member of Pinaceae in Iran. Moreover, Pinus eldarica, is reported as a new host for the rust. Coleosporium tussilaginis is a heteromacrocyclic rust with telial stage on members of Asteraceae family including species of the genera Tussilago, Senecio, Petasites and Sonchus (Braun 1981).

The batch removal of Cr(VI) from aqueous solution using lignocellulosic solid wastes such as sawdust and PINE LEAVES under different experimental conditions was investigated in this study. The influence of pH, temperature, contact time, initial concentration of Cr(VI) and particle size on the  chromium removal was investigated. Adsorption of Cr(VI) is highly pH-dependent and the results indicate that the optimum pH for the removal is 2. The capacity of chromium adsorption at equilibrium by these natural wastes increased with absorbent concentration. Temperature in the range of 20-60 °C showed a restricted effect on the adsorption capacity of PINE LEAVES, but had a considerable effect on the adsorption capacity of sawdust. The capacity of chromium adsorption at the equilibrium increased with the decrease in particle sizes. The suitability of adsorbents was tested with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms and their constants were evaluated. Results indicated that the Freundlich model gave a better fit to the experimental data in comparison with the Langmuir equation. The study showed that lignocellulosic solid wastes such as sawdust and PINE LEAVES can be used as effective adsorbents for removal of Cr(VI) from wastewater.  

Structural parameter estimation of the forests including deciduous and coniferous is required for understanding environmental cycles including Carbone cycle, hydrological cycle and etc., in a global scale, and sustainable management of the forests, in local scale. Although, the feasibility of different remotely sensed data including optical, radar and Lidar as reliable alternatives for conventional inventory methods have been frequently used for estimating forest structural parameters, the use of multi-temporal radar data have been studied less than the other options for this purpose. In this study the radar images acquired in different dates, were utilized to estimate the structural parameters of a PINE plantation. For this purpose, geometric correction and speckle noise reduction methods were applied on multi-polarized Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)-Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data. Afterwards, different backscatter derivatives along with their corresponding textural information were extracted using grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) for different window sizes and orientations. Afterwards, a stepwise multiple-linear regression was applied to model the relationship between structural parameters and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) attributes. The results indicated that the models based on multi-date SAR data performed better than those derived from single-date SAR data. Moreover, it was shown while the estimation error of mean height is 20. 7%, the other parameters were estimated with error of more than 30%. Finally, the effects of slope and tree age on the estimation accuracy of structural parameters were investigated.

Red PINE LEAVES were applied for the green method preparation of MgO nano-plates. The MgO nano-plates were used for the one-pot synthesis of 1 dihydropyrano [3, 2-c] chromene derivatives. This procedure is very simple and affords excellent yields.