As abiotic stresses become more severe as a result of global climate changes, the growth and development of plants are restricted. In the development of agricultural crops with greater stress tolerance, AmDUF1517 had been isolated from the highly stress-tolerant shrub Ammopiptanthus mongolicus, and can significantly enhance stress tolerance when inserted in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, we inserted this gene into cotton to analyze its potential for conferring stress tolerance. Two independent transgenic cotton lines were used. Southern blot analyses indicated that AmDUF1517 was integrated into the cotton genome. Physiological analysis demonstrated that AmDUF1517-transgenic cotton had stronger resistance than the control when treated with salt, drought, and cold stresses. Further analysis showed that trans-AmDUF1517 cotton displayed significantly higher antioxidant enzyme (superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione S-transferase (GST)) activity and less reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, which suggests that overexpression of AmDUF1517 can improve cotton resistance to stress by maintaining ROS homeostasis, as well as by alleviating cell membrane injury. These results imply that AmDUF1517 is a candidate gene in improving cotton resistance to abiotic stress. 

Potato grows in most part of China, it achieves higher yield and better quality in Gansu Province than in others. With global warming, its growth duration has been prolonged and sowing date become earlier than before. Therefore, to regulate its sowing date and growing period is of great significance for better harvest. In this study, experiments were conducted with six sowing-date treatments of potato in Dingxi, which is in the Loess Plateau of central Gansu Province in Northwest China in 2010. The growth period, morphological index and change in yield and their relationships with temperature, precipitation, and other climatic factors were investigated for each treatment. Results show that the crop with different sowing dates experienced different climate conditions, leading to distinct growth duration, plant height, and leaf area index. The growth duration was shortened due to a delay in sowing date. For each 15-day delay in sowing, the growth duration was reduced by 12 days on average. A significant linear relationship was found between numbers of days either from seeding to emergence or from flowering to harvest and mean temperature over the corresponding period. Dry matter accumulation, tuber fresh weight, and final yield were all decreased because of insufficient cumulative temperature over the shorter growing periods. Marked differences in tuber yield were discovered among the six treatments of sowing date, the potato planted on May 27 giving the highest yield. The potato planted either earlier or later would produce invariably lower yield than the treatment of May 27. Late May therefore can be taken as the optimum sowing time of potato in this region because the crop can fully utilize thermal resource. We conclude that to postpone sowing time is a good practice for potato production to adapt to climate warming in the Loess Plateau of central Gansu, China.