Agriculture is the foundation of socio-economic development and is highly influenced by weather and climate conditions.  Drought is one of the most significant threats to agricultural development and food security.  Currently, in-situ drought monitoring based on weather stations and based on remote sensing data has limitations, including infrequent updates, limited coverage, and low accuracy.  This study leverages multi-source remote sensing data to monitor agricultural drought in Heilongjiang Province, China.  We developed multi-source composite drought indices (MCDIs) at various timescales (3, 6, 9, and 12 months) by integrating precipitation, land surface temperature, soil moisture, and vegetation indices.  Utilizing remote sensing data from various sources, we calculated a series of single drought indices, which are the precipitation condition index, soil moisture condition index, vegetation condition index, and temperature condition index.  These are then integrated into MCDIs using a multivariable linear regression approach.  The analysis reveals that MCDIs correlate more with standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) than single drought indices.  When examining the correlation between different MCDIs and the affected area of crops and major grain production, MCDI-9 showed the highest correlation with the affected area of crops, while MCDI-12 showed the highest correlation with grain production.  This suggests that these two MCDIs at different timescales are better indicators of agricultural drought.  The spatio-temporal analysis of MCDI indicates that drought in Heilongjiang Province primarily occurs in early spring, gradually spreading from the Greater Khingan Mountains region to the southeastern plains.  The drought gradually alleviates during the summer, ending by the autumn harvest period.  Therefore, the MCDIs constructed in this study can serve as effective methods and indicators for drought monitoring in Heilongjiang Province and similar regions.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a vital staple crop globally, with its grain microelement content playing a crucial role in human nutrition and health. In this study, the concentrations of eight essential microelements (micronutrients and toxic elements): iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), selenium (Se), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), and arsenic (As), were quantified in 272 wheat varieties using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) under three different environments. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted using 176,357 molecular markers, comprising 163,223 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 13,134 insertion-deletion (InDels) variants, identified through RNA sequencing. A total of 196 significant markers associated with microelement content traits were identified across 21 chromosomes in various environments. Of these, 14 significant markers consistently appeared across environments, forming 13 QTLs and linking to 45 candidate genes. Among these, 29 genes were homologs of known genes in Arabidopsis and rice, while 16 were novel candidates. Haplotype analysis indicated significant phenotypic variation in microelement accumulation, with TraesCS6A02G204300^Hap2 notably enhancing iron content. This study provides valuable insights into the genetic architecture of microelement accumulation in wheat grains and introduces novel genetic resources for breeding wheat varieties aimed at improving micronutrient content and ensuring food safety.

Within the context of modern cotton cultivation, which emphasizes cost savings and efficiency improvements, drip application of 1,1-dimethyl piperidinium chloride (DPC) provides potential advantage such as reducing the labour and mechanical costs associated with the chemical regulation of conventional DPC foliar spraying in arid cotton-growing areas. However, the appropriate drip DPC dose and its regulatory effects on cotton growth and yield, and particularly the responses to cultivars with different sensitivities to DPC, remain uncertain. A two-year (2023–2024) field experiment was conducted to evaluate the influences of various cultivars and drip DPC doses on cotton phenology, agronomic traits, canopy development, defoliation, boll opening, yield and residual DPC levels. The cultivars Huiyuan 720 (H₇₂₀, DPC-sensitive) and Xinluzao 74 (L₇₄, DPC-insensitive) were chosen, the D₀ (no DPC) and S₁ (DPC foliar spraying at 330 g ha⁻¹ in 2023 and 375 g ha⁻¹ in 2024) treatments were used as controls, and the drip DPC doses were D₁ (the same dose as that in S₁), D₄ (four times the dose in S₁) and D₆ (six times the dose in S₁). The results indicated that compared with those in D₀, the growth periods of H₇₂₀ in D₄ and L₇₄ in decreased by 9 days; in particular, the number of growth days from the peak flowering stage to the late peak bolling stage decreased by 6 days. The plant height, the height of the first fruiting branch, and plant width decreased significantly, by 10.1–19.1%. The diffuse non-interceptance and canopy light transmittance in the middle and upper parts from the peak squaring stage to the boll opening stage increased by 7.9–55.9% and 0.4–7.0%, respectively. The defoliation and boll opening rates increased by 1.5–3.4%. The boll numbers in the middle part increased by 16.7–36.4%, and the yield increased by 4.9–7.6%. Compared with those in S₁, the yields of H₇₂₀ in D₄ and of L₇₄ in D₆ were comparable but the levels of DPC residues in the cotton plants significantly decreased by 36.3–71.0%. Moreover, the levels of DPC residues in D₆ were minimal in soil. These results indicated that an appropriate drip DPC dose can optimize cotton growth and development and reduce the levels of DPC residues based on the cultivar characteristics. This study provides valuable practical insights into the potential of a drip DPC regulation system to replace the foliar spraying method and to advance light and simplified cotton cultivation.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and hemorrhagic disease caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV), with a mortality rate approaching 100% in domestic pigs. ASFV is a large DNA virus, and its genome can be recognized by the cytoplasmic DNA sensor cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) following infection to trigger the production of type I interferon (IFN-I) through the cGAS-STING signaling pathway. To establish productive infection, ASFV encodes multiple proteins to negatively regulate the cGAS-STING pathway and inhibit the expression of IFN-I. However, the molecular mechanisms by which ASFV proteins negatively regulate cGAS-STING signaling pathway remain incompletely elucidated. Through screening ASFV-encoded proteins, we found that pD345L significantly inhibits IFN-I production. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ASFV pD345L inhibits the promoter activities of Interferon-β (IFN-β)-, Interferon-α (IFN-α)-, interferon-stimulated gene (ISG)-54-Luciferase (Luc), as well as the mRNA levels of IFN-β, ISG-54, ISG-56 induced by cGAS-STING in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, our findings reveal that ASFV pD345L interacts with both stimulator of interferon genes (STING) and interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), thereby disrupting the formation of the STING-IRF3 complex. This interaction leads to impaired IRF3 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation, ultimately suppressing the production of IFN-I. Collectively, our findings reveal that ASFV pD345L functions as a negative regulator of the cGAS-STING signaling pathway to inhibit IFN-I production, thereby facilitating the viral evasion of the host innate immune response.