Plant ability to tap moisture from deep-soil zones is crucial to adaptation to water stress environments. The function of the mesocotyl in seedling emergence is established in grasses such as maize. Information is scarce on the extent of genetic variability for mesocotyl length in available maize germplasm. Sixty-eight maize genotypes were studied using Completely Randomized Design in a laboratory experiment to investigate the extent of genetic variability for mesocotyl length (ML), and the relationship among seed biochemical components and ML. Ten seeds of each genotype were germinated for ten days in the dark, using locally-available materials. Mesocotyl length was determined by placing cut mesocotyl from germinated seedlings against a flexible measuring tape. Maize samples were also analyzed for biochemical composition. Analysis of variance revealed highly-significant (p ≤ 0.01) genotype mean squares. Broad-sense heritability and genetic advance were high. Mean mesocotyl length for genotypes ranged from 0.58 to 9.02. Dendrogram from cluster analysis based on Ward’s minimum variance classified 67 of the genotypes into clusters I, II, and III with mesocotyl length (mean ± standard deviation) of 0.49 ± 0.18, 4.25 ± 0.96, and 9.16 ± 0.93 cm respectively. The results of the biochemical analysis and the implications of the results of this study on maize improvement will be discussed at the meeting.

The beetle Xylotrechus arvicola is an important pest in vineyards (Vitis vinifera) in the main Iberian wine-producing regions of Iberian Peninsula. X. arvicola larvae bore into the grapevine wood and make galleries, which cause structural damages to the plant and a decrease in the quality and quantity of its production. Under laboratory conditions and over artificial diet used for the larval rearing of this cerambycid pest, the susceptibility of X. arvicola larvae against five coleopteran toxic Cry proteins (Cry1B, Cry1I, Cry3A, Cry7A and Cry23/37) was evaluated. After 30 days of evaluation, Cry proteins have demonstrated larvicidal activity on X. arvicola, with mortalities over 50%, being the proteins Cry1Ba and Cry7Ab, with mortalities greatest than 83%, which showed greatest larval activity. Cry proteins can be applied for the biological control of X. arvicola larvae, due to that these activated Cry proteins had the ability to be inserted into the evaluated stages of this insect, and subsequently cause their death to a greater or lesser intensity. The results can help in designing new combinations of Cry proteins applications as biopesticides over its grapevine hosts in the vineyards by the time when these larvae hatch from egg layings to increase its protection.

Treatment of municipal wastewater has a high economic and environmental burden to communities around the world. Fast-growing Salix miyabeana (willow) trees can potentially be used to environmentally treat high volumes of primary municipal wastewater while also generating sustainable biomass and phytochemicals for green biorefinery. However, the biochemical mechanisms underlying wastewater tolerance in willow and the impact of wastewater treatment on their extractable phytochemicals are as yet unexplored.

A one-hectare Salix miyabeana ‘SX67’ plantation was established in Southern Québec (Canada) and three replicated blocks compared trees left unirrigated with those irrigated with primary effluent wastewater at rates of around 29 ML ha^-1 yr^-1. In addition to assessing sustainable biomass yields, methanol extracted phytochemical composition of harvested stems were compared using untargeted LC-MS/MS with an annotation pipeline including a Salicaceae metabolite library, MS/MS fragment clustering and global plant metabolite libraries.

Biomass production was substantially improved by wastewater treatment, increasing the yield by 200% compared to unirrigated controls_. The phytochemical profile was also altered: out of 214 detected compounds, 119 significantly varied in concentration between treatments. One hundred were significantly reduced in abundance due to wastewater irrigation whereas nineteen compounds were significantly induced, potentially including isoflavonoid, lactone and phenolic based macrocompounds.

These findings reveal the phytochemical toolkit used by willow trees to tolerate abiotic stress and provide an insight into novel mechanisms underpinning plant tolerance. The identified compounds will serve to target functional studies and provide a detailed profile of valuable green bioproducts available from wastewater treated trees which could potentially help improve the economic feasibility of this clean technology, particularly once increased biomass yields are considered.

There are imperative to opportunistic skin pathogens and skin commensals for Malassezia genus of the yeasts in lipophilic. Recently, in the eastern and western US nine types of bats skins were isolated as new Malassezia species in the subfamily Myotinae. Factually, wild-type Malassezia insulates typically susceptible to azoles, except for fluconazole, but developed azole resistance in the area of these strains has lately been related to either alterations or quadruplication on the ERG11 gene. Those remarks are provoked for interest in substitute antifungal therapy, like chlorhexidine, and different plant essential oils. The purposes of this investigation were to assess atopic dermatitis (AD) along with the Malassezia species and the adequacy of its inhibitory by different plants essential oils against pathogenic Malassezia isolates. Plants produce essential oils because of physiological stresses, microorganism assaults, and biological variables. Essential oils are complex volatile compounds, integrated normally in various plant parts during the cycle of secondary metabolism. The yeasts of the class Malassezia have been related with various ailments influencing the human skin, for example, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis, folliculitis, Malassezia (Pityrosporum) and pityriasis Versicolor, and—less generally—with other dermatologic issues, for example, transient acantholytic dermatosis, onychomycosis, and reticulated and confluent papillomatosis. Malassezia is a significant causal factor for seborrheic dermatitis. Studies looking at cell and humoral immune responses explicit to Malassezia species in patients with Malassezia-related infections and healthy controls have commonly been not able to characterize critical contrasts in their resistant reaction. These days, the medications accessible to treat this fungal infection are not many. The current examination was expected to for clinical utilization of essential oils and there is an urgent need to direct further in vivo investigations with a huge number of patients so as to confirm the clinical capability of essential oils against Malassezia species.

Plant secondary metabolic pathways are finely regulated by the activity of transcription factors, among which members of the bHLH and MYB Subfamilies play a main role. Cannabis sativa L. is a unique officinal plant species with over 600 synthesized phytochemicals having diverse scale-up industrial and pharmaceutical usage. Despite a comprehensive knowledge on cannabinoids metabolic pathway, very little is known about their regulation, while literature on flavonoids metabolic pathway is still scarce. In this study we provide the first genome-wide analysis of bHLH and MYB families in C. sativa reference cultivar CBDRx and identify 93 and 89 genes coding for these transcription factors, respectively. CsbHLHs and CsMYBs were then classified into functional Subfamilies through comparative phylogenetic analysis with A. thaliana transcription factors. Analyses of gene structure and motif distribution confirmed that CsbHLHs and CsMYBs belonging to the same evolutionary clade share common features at both gene and amino acidic level. Candidate regulatory genes for key metabolic pathways leading to flavonoids and cannabinoids synthesis in Cannabis were also retrieved. Furthermore, a candidate gene-approach was used to identify structural enzymes-coding genes for flavonoids and cannabinoids synthesis. Taken as a whole, this work represents a valuable resource of candidate genes for further investigating of the C. sativa cannabinoids and flavonoids metabolic pathways for genomic studies and breeding programs.

The metal-tolerant legume Lotus corniculatus L. and it's metal-tolerant rhizobial symbiont has been identified in calamine tailing highly contaminated with trace elements including Zn, Pb and Cd. The cell wall reorganization is one of the most common plant strategy of trace metal avoidance. The aim of this study is to determine this avoidance mechanism in symbiotic nodules to tolerate toxic metals present in calamine wastes. Cell wall reorganisation under metal stress was examined by using histochemical methods and specific monoclonal antibodies against cellulose and non-cellulosic wall components in metal treated or untreated L. corniculatus nodules.

Microscopic analysis showed wall thickening of infected cells and higher content of cellulose, xyloglucan, pectins, arabinogalactan proteins, extensins, and callose in metal treated Lotus nodules.

The toxic metals presence activated apoplast modification in symbiotic nodules, which may protect infected cells from toxic ions and increase plant tolerance to heavy metal present in calamine wastes.

In vitro plant cultures of Cannabis sativa may have a valuable contribution to the production of prospective genotypes as high-quality propagation material for further breeding work towards new applications of hemp in fields of economy and medicine. The key to this study is to optimize the micropropagation process of the selected Russian variety K290 C. sativa, which has the appropriate level of cannabinoids.

The aim of the present work was to comparative phenotypic study in terms of assessing the effect of the type of medium with different mineral salt content, i.e. Schenk-Hildebrandt medium (SH) and Gamborg medium (B-5), addition of vitamins and IAA auxin on growth of shoot with leaves during induction and development of adventitious roots.

In total, 12 variants were compared, taking into account the presence of vitamins and two concentrations of auxin IAA (0.5 and 1.0 mg/L). Nodal and apical fragments of plants obtained from seeds were selected as explants. The experiment was performed in triplicate.

Our results show that in terms of shoot length and number of leaves, the SH with the addition of IAA at a concentration of 1.0 mg/L without vitamins is the most effective. It was also found that IAA at a concentration of 0.5 mg/L in SH stimulated the formation of adventitious shoots (n = 3.21 after 3 weeks). The average number of roots was 4.65 per shoot on the SH with 0.5 mg/L.

Therefore, it can be concluded that a higher content of potassium ions as well as cobalt, copper, magnesium, molybdenum ions and a lower content of calcium, zinc, boron, manganese and iron ions in the SH medium positively influenced the development of shoots and leaves. In addition, it was found that after 6 weeks, the number of leaves and their size had doubled.

This research investigates a set of factors that can lead to the natural imbalance of plants and provides an overview of the agricultural economy in terms of innovative agricultural development, especially in the field of plant protection, taking into account the effects of climate change. Environmental protection and sustainable management of natural resources, vulnerabilities regarding fertilizer application techniques are current individualized concerns in the work on development areas.
The excessive and intrusive development generated by mega-tourism, causes degradations of the environment and society and the reorientation of the methods applied to plant protection in order to protect the biosphere is back today. Climate change involves the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the adaptation of agricultural systems and in our opinion they are closely related to the use of various types of plant protection, especially fungicides. The plant-soil interdependence in agricultural practice is also highlighted in the paper. Thus, we found that the products (chemicals) that are used to control diseases in agricultural crops grow in agricultural areas highlighted especially fungicides. The amount of fungicides sold in solid form in 2018 increased compared to the previous year by 5.7%. One of the main objectives in the field of agriculture is to maintain a low level of greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. The emergence of modern agriculture in the 60's with harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers, caused danger to the field ecosystem. This research uses the theories of eco-philosophy, the role of research and studies has shown an important factor in reducing the carbon footprint per ton of food produced from organic farming compared to conventional agriculture, mainly due to the abandonment of the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The novelty of this research is the amalgamation of local village wisdom and traditions and inherited value as progressive tools for the application of a plant protection system in response to climate change and the pressure of diseases and pests. During the research we tried to highlight issues that, in our opinion, are important for the development of the agricultural sector as part of the economy return to local methods in traditional farms premises that will reduce fertilizer consumption and thus contribute to pest control.

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is economically valuable crop used in a production of nutraceutical supplements, functional food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics etc. However, the large scale propagation of this plant has been so far limited by the challenges regarding low regeneration rate and variety-/genotype-dependent response of the explants. Previously, it was shown that elevated endogenous auxin levels are inhibitory for the shoot organogenesis and the use of auxin transport inhibitor may improve shoot regeneration in some recalcitrant species. This study explored the effect of auxin transport inhibitor such as 1-N-naphthylphthalamic acid (NPA) and 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) application on shoot induction in hemp. Epicotyls isolated from 7-day-old seedlings were used as explants. Explants were cultured on shoot regeneration media composed of Murashige and Skoog basal medium enriched with meta-topolin (mT) and tidiazuron TDZ (control), as well as media supplemented with combination of TDZ or mT with auxin transport inhibitors NPA (0.0-20 mg L^-1) and TIBA (0.05-0.5 mM). Shoot regeneration proceeded at 25°C± 2°C with a 16 h photoperiod under a photosynthetic flux of 80 µmol m² s^-1. After three weeks of culture the following data were recorded: percentage of survival explants, percentage of explants producing axillary shoots, and their mean number per explant and percentage of callusing and malformed explants. The use of medium supplemented with NPA at concentration 10 mg L^-1 for both hormonal treatments resulted in the higher number of shoots per explant as compared with control (4.3 vs. 3.4 for TDZ and 3.7 vs. 2.8 for mT). The regeneration rate for TIBA treatment was lower than in the control medium. Moreover, inhibition of growth and necrosis of explants was observed. The results of this study demonstrated the promotional effect of NPA on shoot organogenesis in hemp in vitro cultures. Further studies on various plant material (different genotypes/cultivars) and the effects of auxin transport inhibitors are recommended in order to establish the optimal protocol.

Funded by Polish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, resolution of the Council of Ministers no: 171/2017

Water scarcity and the increasing water demand for irrigation in olive orchards are leading to adopt

deficit irrigation approaches to save water. The partial rootzone drying (PRD) irrigation technique has been proposed for woody crops as an agronomic practice to improve water productivity. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of this irrigation strategy on water relations and transpiration of olive tree (cv. Cobrançosa) under climate conditions of the Northeast of Portugal, during the season of 2014. To irrigation treatments were used: control (FI), irrigated with 100% of the estimated crop evapotranspiration (ET) and PRD₅₀, irrigated with 50% of the control on one side switching every two weeks. Whole tree transpiration (T) was quantified by sap flow, that was monitored within the trunk of both the control (FI) and deficit irrigated (PRD₅₀) trees using the compensation heath-pulse technique. Foliage gas exchange and water potentials were determined throughout the experimental period. During summer, daily transpiration reached roughly 27 and 43 L d^-1 for PRD₅₀ and FI olive trees, respectively, with a clear reduction of 32% in PRD₅₀ olives trees. PRD₅₀ showed statistically comparable values of water potentials to the Control which seemed to prevent an excessive drop in tree water status by modulating stomatal closure.