Soybean yield has been increased through high planting density, but investigating plant height and petiole traits to select for compact architecture, lodging resistance, and high yield varieties is an underexplored avenue to improve yield.  We compared the relationship between yield-related traits, lodging resistance, and petiole-associated phenotypes in the short petiole germplasm M657 with three control accessions over 2017-2018 in four locations of the Huang-Huai region.  The results showed M657 exhibited stable and high tolerance to high planting density and resistance to lodging, especially at the highest density (8×10⁵ plants ha^-1).  Regression analysis showed that shorter petiole length was significantly associated with increased lodging resistance.  Yield analysis showed that M657 achieved higher yields under higher densities, especially in the north Huang-Huai region.  There are markedly different responses to intra- and inter-row spacing designs among varieties in both lodging and yield related to location and density.  Lodging was positively correlated with planting density, plant height, petiole length, and number of effective branches, and negatively correlated with stem diameter, seed number per plant, and seed weight per plant.  The yield of soybean was increased by appropriately increasing planting density on the basis of current soybean varieties in the Huang-Huai region.  This study provides a valuable new germplasm resource for introgression of compact architecture traits amenable to high yield in high density planting systems and establishes a high-yield model of soybean in the Huang-Huai region.

Phenotypic screening of soybean germplasm suitable for high planting density is currently the most viable strategy to increase yield.  Previous studies have shown that soybean varieties with dwarf features and a short petiole often exhibit a compact plant architecture which could improve yield through increased planting density, although previously reported short petiole accessions were ultimately not usable for breeding in practice.  Here, we established a method to assess petiole length and identified an elite mutant line, M657, that exhibits high photosynthetic efficiency.  The agronomic traits of M657 were evaluated under field conditions, and appeared to be stable for short petiole across seven locations in northern, Huang–Huai, and southern China from 2017 to 2018.  Compared with the Jihuang 13 wild type, the mutant M657 was shorter in both petiole length and plant height, exhibited lower total area of leaf, seed weight per plant and 100-seed weight, but had an increased number of effective branches and the growth period was prolonged by 2–7 days.  Using M657 as a parental line for crosses with four other elite lines, we obtained four lines with desirable plant architecture and yield traits, thus demonstrating the feasibility of adopting M657 in breeding programs for soybean cultivars of high density and high yield.

Recent investigations on pomegranate products have significantly increased and successfully drawn consumers’ attention to nutritional and medicinal values, promoting the pomegranate industry’s development worldwide.  However, little information on pomegranates grown in China is available.  Morphological and chemical characterizations of fruits and arils from 20 pomegranate cultivars in six regions of China were investigated.  Combined with overall scores by principal component analysis, ‘Yushiliu No. 1’, ‘Taishanhong No. 2’, ‘Tunisia’ and ‘Mollar’ were promising cultivars, and Chinese researchers bred the first two.  It was surprising that ‘Mollar’ had bigger fruit size and more aril moisture grown in China than in Spain.  Cultivars with higher anthocyanin content in arils were ‘Turkey’, ‘Moyu’ and ‘Red Angel’, which might be used as the source of natural red food colourants.  While red husk ‘Hongruyi’ and ‘Hongshuangxi’ with higher vitamin C, aril moisture and lower titratable acid in arils, might also be promising cultivars for further various utilization.  Furthermore, the comparison of ‘Tunisia’ fruits from four regions revealed that cultivation locations had more influence on fruit traits than genotypes.  Maturity index classification was established for Chinese pomegranate cultivars.  Therefore, the results would provide a valuable guide for agricultural cultivation, industrial utilization, and breeding. 

The leaf is the main photosynthetic organ of plants, and it plays a significant role in the yield of crop species.  Identifying the causal mutations and candidate genes that underlie leaf phenotypic variation is an important breeding target in soybean grain yield improvement.  An ethyl methyl sulfonate (EMS)-induced soybean mutant DWARFCRINKLEDLEAF1 (DCL1) with an aberrant crinkled leaf phenotype was identified in the background of the soybean cultivar Zhongpin 661 (Zp661).  We constructed an F₂ segregating population from a cross between Zp661 and DCL1 in order to investigate the genomic locus associated with the crinkled leaf trait.  Using bulk segregant analysis (BSA) combined with the whole-genome resequencing method, the Euclidean distance (ED) correlation algorithm detected 12 candidate genomic regions with a total length of 20.32 Mb that were linked to the target trait.  Following a comparative analysis of the sequence data for the wild-type and mutant pools, only one single nucleotide mutation (C:G>T:A) located on the first exon of Glyma.19G207100 was found to be associated with the trait.  Candidate gene validation based on a CAPS marker derived from the detected single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) indicated a nucleotide polymorphism between the two parents.  Therefore, our findings reveal that Glyma.19G207100, which is renamed as GLYCINE MAX DWARF CRINKLED LEAF 1 (GmDCL1), is a promising candidate gene involved in the morphogenesis of the crinkled leaf trait of the soybean mutant DCL1.  This study provides a basis for the functional validation of this gene, with prospects for soybean breeding targeting grain yield enhancement.

Mechanical pot-seedling transplanting is an innovatively developed transplanting method that has the potential to replace mechanical carpet-seedling transplanting.  However, the initial pot-seedling transplanting machine lacked optimized density spacing and limited yield potential for japonica rice.  Therefore, ascertaining the optimized density by wide-narrow rows and the appropriate transplanting method for yield formation and grain quality of japonica rice is of great importance for high-quality rice production.  Field experiments were conducted using two japonica rice cultivars Nanjing 9108 and Nanjing 5055 under three transplanting methods in 2016 and 2017: mechanical pot-seedling transplanting with wide-narrow row (K, average row spacing of 30 cm); equidistant row (D, 33 cm×12 cm); and mechanical carpet-seedling transplanting (T, 30 cm×12.4 cm).  In addition, five different density treatments were set in K (K1–K5, from 18.62×10⁴ to 28.49×10⁴ hills ha^–1).  The results showed that the highest yield was produced by a planting density of 26.88×10⁴ hills ha^–1 in mechanical pot-seedling transplanting with wide-narrow row with a greater number of total spikelets that resulted from significantly more panicles per area and slightly more grain number per panicle, as compared with equidistant row, and yield among density in wide-narrow row showed a parabolic trend.  Compared with mechanical carpet-seedling transplanting, the treatment of the highest yield increased yield significantly, which was mainly attributed to the larger sink size with improved filled-grain percentage and grain weight, higher harvest index, and increased total dry matter accumulation, especially the larger amount accumulated from heading stage to maturity stage.  With the density in wide-narrow row decreasing, processing quality, appearance quality, and nutrition quality were all improved, whereas amylose content and the taste value were decreased.  Compared with mechanical carpet-seedling transplanting, mechanical pot-seedling transplanting improved processing quality and nutrition quality, but decreased amylose content and deteriorated appearance quality.  These results suggested that mechanical pot-seedling transplanting with wide-narrow row coupling produced a suitable planting density of 26.88×10⁴ hills ha^–1 and may be an alternative approach to improving grain yield and quality for japonica rice.

Mechanical transplanting has been applied to rice cultivation to save labor costs and ease labor shortages in Asian countries, especially in China.  However, little information is available related to the characteristics of agronomic performance when comparing inter-sub-specific hybrid rice (IHR) and inbred japonica rice (IJR) under mechanical transplanting method.  In 2013 and 2014, field experiments were conducted using IHR (Yongyou 2640) and IJR (Wuyunjing 24) under two cultivation patterns, that is, pot seedlings mechanically transplanted (PS) and carpet seedlings mechanically transplanted (CS).  Grain yield, yield components, leaf area index (LAI), leaf area duration (LAD), aboveground biomass, crop growth rate (CGR), nitrogen (N) uptake, and N accumulation were investigated.  When compared with CS, PS displayed significantly increased grain yield for both varieties because the larger sink size allowed higher N accumulation from panicle initiation to maturity.  Moreover, total aboveground biomass under PS increased significantly compared with that under CS; that is, higher photosynthetic productivity resulted from a greater LAI and higher LAD during the grain filling stage.  Higher N absorption capacity in the middle and late growth periods resulted in significantly enhanced total N uptake under PS.  When compared with IJR for both treatments, IHR generated 75.2% more grain yield.  However, the characteristics creating high yield of IHR were different from those of IJR.  Greater aboveground biomass production as well as higher N uptake and accumulation created higher grain yield in IHR than in IJR.  These results suggest higher yield could be achieved using PS with IHR, attributing to exploit both yield superiority and productive potential.

Although studies on the balance between yield and quality of japonica soft super rice are limited, they are crucial for super rice cultivation.  In order to investigate the effects of nitrogen application rate on grain yield and rice quality, two japonica soft super rice varieties, Nanjing 9108 (NJ 9108) and Nanjing 5055 (NJ 5055), were used under seven N levels with the application rates of 0, 150, 187.5, 225, 262.5, 300, and 337.5 kg ha^–1.  With the increasing nitrogen application level, grain yield of both varieties first increased and then decreased.  The highest yield was obtained at 300 kg ha^–1.  The milling quality and protein content increased, while the appearance quality, amylose content, gel consistency, cooking/eating quality, and rice flour viscosity decreased.  Milling was significantly negatively related with the eating/cooking quality whereas the appearance was significantly positively related with cooking/eating quality.  These results suggest that nitrogen level significantly affects the yield and rice quality of japonica soft super rice.  We conclude that the suitable nitrogen application rate for japonica soft super rice, NJ 9108 and NJ 5055, is 270 kg ha^–1, under which they obtain high yield as well as superior eating/cooking quality.

Genomic selection has been demonstrated as a powerful technology to revolutionize animal breeding.  However, marker density and minor allele frequency can affect the predictive ability of genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs).  To investigate the impact of marker density and minor allele frequency on predictive ability, we estimated GEBVs by constructing the different subsets of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on varying markers densities and minor allele frequency (MAF) for average daily gain (ADG), live weight (LW) and carcass weight (CW) in 1 059 Chinese Simmental beef cattle.  Two strategies were proposed for SNP selection to construct different marker densities: 1) select evenly-spaced SNPs (Strategy 1), and 2) select SNPs with large effects estimated from BayesB (Strategy 2).  Furthermore, predictive ability was assessed in terms of the correlation between predicted genomic values and corrected phenotypes from 10-fold cross-validation.  Predictive ability for ADG, LW and CW using autosomal SNPs were 0.13±0.002, 0.21±0.003 and 0.25±0.003, respectively.  In our study, the predictive ability increased dramatically as more SNPs were included in analysis until 200K for Strategy 1.  Under Strategy 2, we found the predictive ability slightly increased when marker densities increased from 5K to 20K, which indicated the predictive ability of 20K (3% of 770K) SNPs with large effects was equal to the predictive ability of using all SNPs.  For different MAF bins, we obtained the highest predictive ability for three traits with MAF bin 0.01–0.1.  Our result suggested that designing a low-density chip by selecting low frequency markers with large SNP effects sizes should be helpful for commercial application in Chinese Simmental cattle.

  Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFAs) are essential components required for normal cellular function and have been shown to have important therapeutic and nutritional benefits in humans. But humans or mammals cannot naturally produce ω-3 PUFAs, due to the lack of the ω-3 fatty acid desaturase gene (fat-1 gene). Previously, fat-1 gene has been cloned from Caenorhabditis elegans and transferred into mice, pigs and sheep, but not yet into beef cattle. We attempt to transfer it into beef cattle. The object of this paper is to edit the fat-1 gene from C. elegans to express more efficiently in beef cattle and verify its biological function in mice model. As a result, the fat-1 gene from C. elegans was modified by synonymous codon usage and named it Bfat-1. We have demonstrated that degree of codon bias of Bfat-1 gene was increased in beef cattle. Moreover, Bfat-1 gene could be transiently expressed in mouse liver and muscle, the ω-6/ω-3 PUFAs ratio of 18 and 20 carbon was decreased significantly in liver (P<0.05), and the ratio of 20 carbon decreased significantly in muscle 24 and 72 h after injection (P<0.05). This confirms that the Bfat-1 gene modification was successful, and the protein encoded was able to catalyze the conversion of ω-6 PUFAs to ω-3 PUFAs.