Plant-associated microbes represent a key determinant of plant fitness through acquiring nutrients, promoting growth, and resisting to abiotic and biotic stresses.  However, an extensive characterization of the bacterial and fungal microbiomes present in different plant compartments of soybean in field conditions has remained elusive.  In this study, we investigated the effects of four niches (roots, stems, leaves, and pods), four genotypes (Andou 203, Hedou 12, Sanning 16, and Zhonghuang 13), and three field locations (Jining, Suzhou, and Xuzhou) on the diversity and composition of bacterial and fungal communities in soybean using 16S and internal transcribed spacer rRNA amplicon sequencing, respectively.  The soybean microbiome significantly differed across organs.  Host genotypes explained more variation in stem bacterial community composition and leaf fungal community composition.  Field location significantly affected the composition of bacterial communities in all compartments and the effects were stronger in the root and stem than in the leaf and pod, whereas field location explained more variation in stem and leaf fungal community composition than in the root and pod.  The relative abundances of potential soybean fungal pathogens also differed among host organs and genotypes, reflecting the niches of these microbes in the host and probably their compatibility to the host genotypes.  Systematic profiling of the microbiome composition and diversity will aid the development of plant protection technologies to benefit soybean health.  

The study aimed to evaluate the application of silage fermentation in storing vine tea residue.  Dynamic of fermentation-related product, chemical component and bacterial community of silage with or without Lactobacillus plantarum F1 inoculant were analyzed.  The results showed that F1 treatment had a significant (P<0.05) impact on the lactic acid and ammoniacal nitrogen concentrations and pH value.  Total phenols were well preserved in both treatments.  After 30 days of ensiling, L. plantarum occupied the majority of Lactobacillus genus (more than 95%) in all silage samples.  Spearman revealed a positive (P<0.01) correlation between lactic acid content and Lactobacillus.  Overall, ensiling vine tea residue with L. plantarum can effectively preserve the nutritional attributes and total phenols, which offers a new insight into utilizing vine tea residue.

The dense and erect panicle (EP) genotype conferred by DEP1 has been widely used in the breeding of high-yield Chinese japonica rice varieties.  However, the breeding value of the EP genotype has rarely been determined at the plant population level.  Therefore, the effects of the interaction of EP genotype and the environment at different locations and times on rice yield and its various components were investigated in this study.  Two sets of near-isogenic lines (NILs) of EP and non-EP (NEP) genotypes with Liaojing 5 (LG5) and Akitakomachi (AKI) backgrounds were grown in the field in 2016 and 2017 in Shenyang, China, and Kyoto, Japan.  In 2018, these sets were grown only in Kyoto, Japan.  The average yields of the EP and NEP genotypes were 6.67 and 6.13 t ha⁻¹ for the AKI background, and 6.66 and 6.58 t ha⁻¹ for the LG5 background, respectively.  The EP genotype positively affected panicle number (PN) and grain number per square meter (GNPM), mostly resulting in a positive effect on harvest index (HI).  In contrast, the EP genotype exerted a negative effect on thousand-grain weight (KGW).  The ratio of the performance of the EP genotype relative to the NEP genotype in terms of yield and total biomass correlated positively with mean daily solar radiation during a 40-day period around heading.  These results indicate that the effectiveness of the EP genotype depends on the availability of solar radiation, and the effect of this genotype is consistently positive for sink formation, conditional in terms of source capacity, and positive in a high-radiation environment.

High yields of wheat are mainly obtained through a high level of nitrogen and irrigation supplementation.  However, excessive nitrogen and irrigation supplication increase the risk of lodging.  The main objectives of this work were to clarify the capacity of lodging resistance of wheat in response to nitrogen and irrigation, as well as to explore the effective ways of improving lodging resistance in a high-yield wheat cultivar. In this study, field experiments were conducted in the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 growing seasons.  A wheat cultivar Jimai 22 (JM22), which is widely planted in the northern of Huang-Huai winter wheat region, was grown at Tai’an, Shandong Province, under three nitrogen rates and four irrigation treatments.  The lodging risk was increased with increased nitrogen rate, as indicated by increasing lodging index (LI) and lodging rate across both growing seasons.  With nitrogen increasing, the plant height, the basal internode length and the center of gravity height, which were positively correlated with LI, increased significantly.  While the density of the basal 2nd internode (for culm and leaf sheath) and cell wall component contents, which were negatively correlated with LI, decreased conspicuous along with nitrogen increased.  Increasing irrigation supplementation increased the 2nd internode culm wall thickness, breaking strength and leaf sheath density within limits which increased stem strength.  Among the treatments, nitrogen application at a rate of 240 kg ha^–1 and irrigation application at 600 m3 ha^–1 at both the jointing and anthesis stages resulted in the highest yield and strongest stem.  A suitable plant height ensures sufficient biomass for high yield, and higher stem stiffness, which was primarily attributed to thicker culm wall, greater density of the culm and leaf sheaths and higher cell wall component contents are the characteristics that should be taken into account to improving wheat lodging resistance.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) often experiences photoinhibition due to strong light during the grain filling stage. As such, increasing the tolerance of wheat to photoinhibition is very desirable in breeding efforts focused on increasing grain yields. Previous reports have suggested that PROTON GRADIENT REGULATION 5 (PGR5) plays a central role in the generation of a proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane (DpH) and in acclimation to high light intensity conditions. Three PGR5 homoeologues were isolated from wheat, and mapped onto chromosomes 7A, 7B and 7D, respectively. The TaPGR5s shared highly similar genomic sequences and gene structures. The transcripts of TaPGR5s were found to be abundantly expressed in the flag leaves, and were transiently up-regulated by treatment with high light. High light treatment inhibited the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and the maximal quantum yield of photosystem II (Fv/Fm). Further, these inhibitions were more evident in the leaves with reduced expression of TaPGR5s achieved using virus-induced gene silencing methods. Moreover, reducing TaPGR5 expression impaired the induction of non-photochemical quenching (NPQ), which caused more severe cell membrane damage and lipid peroxidation in high light. Additionally, we observed that TaPGR5s transcripts were more abundantly expressed in the wheat genotypes with higher ms-delayed light emission (ms-DLE), a value reflecting transthylakoid DpH. These results suggested that TaPGR5s play important roles in the tolerance of wheat to photoinhibition.

The resistance in tomato plants to bacterial speck caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato is triggered by the interactions between the plant resistance protein Pto and the pathogen avirulence proteins AvrPto or AvrPtoB. Fen is a gene encoding closely related functional protein kinases as the Pto gene. To investigate the status of resistance to the pathogen and natural variation of Pto and Fen genes in tomato, 67 lines including 29 growing in China were subject to disease resistance evaluation and fenthion-sensitivity test. Alleles of Pto and Fen were amplified from genomic DNA of 25 tomato lines using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequences were determined by sequencing the PCR products. The results indicated that none of the 29 cultivars/hybrids growing in China were resistant to bacterial speck race 0 strain DC3000. Seven of eight tomato lines resistant to DC3000 were also fenthion-sensitive. Analysis of deduced amino acid sequences identified three novel residue substitutions between Pto and pto, and one new substitution identified between Fen and fen. A PCR-based marker was developed and successfully used to select plants with resistance to DC3000.

Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs, EC 2.7.1.37) comprise a large family of Ser/Thr kinases in plants and play an important role in plant Ca2+ signal transduction. A full-length CDPK gene, NtCDPK12 (GenBank accession number GQ337420), was isolated from common tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) leaves by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE). The NtCDPK12 cDNA is 1 816 bp length and contains an open reading frame (ORF) of 1 461 bp encoding 486 amino acids. Sequence alignments indicated that NtCDPK12 contains all conserved regions found in CDPKs and shows a high level of sequence similarity to many other plant CDPKs. The results of real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRTPCR) showed that NtCDPK12 was highly expressed in stems and increased in roots treated with high-salt or subjected to drought stress, which indicates that NtCDPK12 was induced by high-salt and drought stresses.