Accurate estimation of regional winter wheat yields is essential for understanding the food production status and ensuring national food security.  However, using the existing remote sensing-based crop yield models to accurately reproduce the inter-annual and spatial variations in winter wheat yields remains challenging due to the limited ability to acquire irrigation information in water-limited regions.  Thus, we proposed a new approach to approximating irrigations of winter wheat over the North China Plain (NCP), where irrigation occurs extensively during the winter wheat growing season.  This approach used irrigation pattern parameters (IPPs) to define the irrigation frequency and timing.  Then, they were incorporated into a newly-developed process-based and remote sensing-driven crop yield model for winter wheat (PRYM–Wheat), to improve the regional estimates of winter wheat over the NCP.  The IPPs were determined using statistical yield data of reference years (2010–2015) over the NCP.  Our findings showed that PRYM–Wheat with the optimal IPPs could improve the regional estimate of winter wheat yield, with an increase and decrease in the correlation coefficient (R) and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.15 (about 37%) and 0.90 t ha^–1 (about 41%), respectively.  The data in validation years (2001–2009 and 2016–2019) were used to validate PRYM–Wheat.  In addition, our findings also showed R (RMSE) of 0.80 (0.62 t ha^–1) on a site level, 0.61 (0.91 t ha^–1) for Hebei Province on a county level, 0.73 (0.97 t ha^–1) for Henan Province on a county level, and 0.55 (0.75 t ha^–1) for Shandong Province on a city level.  Overall, PRYM–Wheat can offer a stable and robust approach to estimating regional winter wheat yield across multiple years, providing a scientific basis for ensuring regional food security.

Understanding the spatial distribution of the crop yield gap (YG) is essential for improving crop yields.  Recent studies have typically focused on the site scale, which may lead to considerable uncertainties when scaled to the regional scale.  To mitigate this issue, this study used a process-based and remote sensing driven crop yield model for winter wheat (PRYM-Wheat), which was derived from the boreal ecosystem productivity simulator (BEPS), to simulate the YG of winter wheat in the North China Plain from 2015 to 2019.  Yield validation based on statistical yield data revealed good performance of the PRYM-Wheat Model in simulating winter wheat actual yield (Ya).  The distribution of Ya across the North China Plain showed great heterogeneity, decreasing from southeast to northwest.  The remote sensing-estimated results show that the average YG of the study area was 6 400.6 kg ha^–1.  The YG of Jiangsu Province was the largest, at 7 307.4 kg ha^–1, while the YG of Anhui Province was the smallest, at 5 842.1 kg ha^–1.  An analysis of the responses of YG to environmental factors showed no obvious correlation between YG and precipitation, but there was a weak negative correlation between YG and accumulated temperature.  In addition, the YG was positively correlated with elevation.  In general, studying the specific features of the YG can provide directions for increasing crop yields in the future

This paper examined consumers’ experiences in and preferences for plant-based meat (PBM) food and their respective correlates, based on data from an online survey of 579 consumers in four major cities in China in early 2021.  We first described consumers’ experiences in consuming and purchasing PBM food and their correlates, and then analyzed consumer preferences using hypothetical choice experiment.  The experiment offered consumers various options to purchase burgers made from PBM or animal-based meat (ABM), combined with different countries of origin (COO), taste labels, and prices.  Our data showed that respondents hold overall positive attitudes toward PBM food; 85 and 82% of respondents reported experience in eating and purchasing PBM food, respectively.  More than half of them ate PBM food because they wanted to try new food (58%), or were interested in healthy food (56%).  Income, religion, and dietary restrictions were significantly correlated with consumers’ experiences in PBM food consumption.  Results from the Random Parameter Logit Model based on the hypothetical choice experiment data showed that 79% of respondents chose PBM burgers and were willing to pay an average of 88 CNY for a PBM burger.  We also found that 99.8 and 83% of respondents are willing to buy burgers made in China and those with a taste label, with a willingness to pay (WTP) of 208 and 120 CNY, respectively.  The heterogeneity test revealed that females and those with at least a bachelor’s degree, higher income, religious beliefs, and dietary restrictions are more likely to buy PBM burgers than their counterparts

Primary porcine tracheal epithelial cells (PTECs) are an appropriate model for studying the molecular mechanism of various porcine respiratory diseases, including swine-origin mycoplasmas, which are isolated from respiratory tract of pigs and mainly found on the mucosal surface surrounding swine trachea.  However, the short proliferation ability of primary PTECs greatly limits their lifespan.  In this study, primary PTECs were carefully isolated and cultured, and immortal PTECs were constructed by transfecting primary PTECs with the recombinant constructed plasmid pEGFP-hTERT containing human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT).  Immortal PTECs (hTERT-PTECs) maintained both the morphological and functional characteristics of primary PTECs, as indicated by the expression of cytokeratin 18, cell-cycle analysis, proliferation assay, Western blotting, telomerase activity assay, karyotype analysis and quantitative RT-PCR.  Compared to primary PTECs, hTERT-PTECs had an extended replicative lifespan, higher telomerase activity, and enhanced proliferative activity.  In addition, this cell line resulted in a lack of transformed and grown tumors in nude mice, suggesting that it could be safely applied in further studies.  Moreover, hTERT-PTECs were vulnerable to all swine-origin mycoplasmas through quantitative analysis as indicated by 50% color changing unit (CCU₅₀) calculation, and no significant differences of adhesion ability between primary and immortal PTECs were observed.  For the representative swine mycoplasma Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mhp), except for DNA copies quantitative real-time PCR assay, indirect immunofluorescence assay and Western blotting analysis also depicted that hTERT-PTECs was able to adhere to different Mhp strains of different virulence.  In summary, like primary PTECs, hTERT-PTECs could be widely used as an adhesion cell model for swine-origin mycoplasmas and in infection studies of various porcine respiratory pathogens.  

Spatial dynamics of crop yield provide useful information for improving the production. High sensitivity of crop growth models to uncertainties in input factors and parameters and relatively coarse parameterizations in conventional remote sensing (RS) approaches limited their applications over broad regions. In this study, a process-based and remote sensing driven crop yield model for maize (PRYM–Maize) was developed to estimate regional maize yield, and it was implemented using eight data-model coupling strategies (DMCSs) over the Northeast China Plain (NECP). Simulations under eight DMCSs were validated against the prefecture-level statistics (2010–2012) reported by National Bureau of Statistics of China, and inter-compared. The 3-year averaged result could give more robust estimate than the yearly simulation for maize yield over space. A 3-year averaged validation showed that prefecture-level estimates by PRYM–Maize under DMCS8, which coupled with the development stage (DVS)-based grain-filling algorithm and RS phenology information and leaf area index (LAI), had higher correlation (R, 0.61) and smaller root mean standard error (RMSE, 1.33 t ha^–1) with the statistics than did PRYM–Maize under other DMCSs. The result also demonstrated that DVS-based grain-filling algorithm worked better for maize yield than did the harvest index (HI)-based method, and both RS phenology information and LAI worked for improving regional maize yield estimate. These results demonstrate that the developed PRYM–Maize under DMCS8 gives reasonable estimates for maize yield and provides scientific basis facilitating the understanding the spatial variations of maize yield over the NECP.

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of molasses on the fermentation characteristics of mixed silage ensiled rice straw and vegetable by-products with alfalfa.  Mixture (202 g kg^–1 dry matter (DM)) consisting of rice straw, broccoli residue and alfalfa at the ratio of 5:4:1 was ensiled with three experimental treatments: (1) no additives (control); (2) molasses at 2.5% (M1); (3) molasses at 5% (M2) on a fresh matter basis of mixture, respectively.  All treatments were packed into laboratory-scale silos, and three silos per treatment were sampled on days 1, 3, 5, 14 and 30.  The result showed that the pH value of all mixed silages decreased gradually with the time of ensiling except for the control silage, in which a significant increase (P<0.05) on day 30 occurred.  The lactic acid content increased gradually with the time of ensiling and reached the highest value on day 14, and a marked decrease (P<0.05) was found in the control silage on day 30.  The changes of acetic acid content showed similar pattern with lactic acid content.  A trace amount of propionic and butyric acid contents were found in the three mixed silages during the fermentation period.  Comparing to the control, M1 and M2 treatments improved the fermentation quality of mixed silages as indicated by higher (P<0.05) lactic acid contents and lower (P<0.05) pH and ammonia-N contents.  The Flieg points also showed that M1 and M2 silages were well preserved, whereas the control silage had a bad quality.  Overall, the findings of this study suggested that adding molasses could improve fermentation quality of mixed silage, and M1 was more suitable for practical application.