Micropropagation of Cryptanthus with leaf explants with attached intercalary meristems excised from greenhouse stock plants

By using the leaves with attached intercalary meristems from greenhouse grown stock plants, five cultivars of Cryptanthus were cultured on modified MS media with 4.5 μM NAA and IBA and 3 μM BA to induce adventitious shoot formation from callus tissue. Contamination was 17–21% for explants taken from stock plants which were sprayed weekly with Agribrom and 27–75% for those taken from stock plants which were not treated. More than 99% true to type plantlets were obtained from non-chimeric plants. Green and albino plantlets were obtained from chimeric plants. The chimeric C. ‘Coster's Favorite’ DeCoster also produced a few chimeric plantlets with intermarginal pink stripes in addition to the green and albino plantlets. Most of the non-chimeric plants took a shorter time to produce plantlets of transplantable size (8–12 mm) than the chimeric ones. Except for albino plantlets, survival rate of plantlets exceeded 95%. A minimum average of 500 rooted plantlets can be obtained in a year from a single well-callused leaf explant. The protocol in this report should speed up the mass production and introduction of desirable new cultivars and hybrids of non-chimeric Cryptanthus.     

光通量和温差对马铃薯试管苗生长的影响

试验研究了光通量和昼夜温差对自养培养马铃薯试管苗生长的影响。结果表明:光通量为 200μmol/(m2·s)时,自养培养苗的生长、幼苗的净光合速率显著优于光通量50,100μmol/(m2·s)处理,且总气 孔数和张开的气孔数量也最多,分别为318.0和277.7个。7℃的昼夜温差有利于自养培养马铃薯试管苗的光 合作用,从而促进幼苗生长,获得健壮的植株。     

Sandersonia aurantiaca: Domestication of a new ornamental crop

South Africa has a large number of indigenous geophytes and many of these have been developed as cut flower crops. Sandersonia aurantiaca Hook. is one of the geophytes to be developed in the latter half of the 20th century. Most of the development work leading “domestication” of sandersonia occurred in New Zealand, led by pioneer growers working closely with researchers. Test marketing of the cut stems in Japan quickly demonstrated the commercial potential of the crop that derived its popularity from its distinctively shaped, golden orange lantern-shaped flowers.     

In vitro multiplication of statice plantlets using sugar-free media

Clumps of statice (Limonium latifolium) plantlets grown photomixotrophically were used as explants and cultured for 25 days on a sugar-free modified Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium in Magenta-type vessels with the number of air exchanges of the vessel (NAE) being 3.8 h⁻¹, at a photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) of 100 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ and a CO₂ concentration of 1500 μmol mol⁻¹ in the culture room. A factorial experiment was conducted with three levels of 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) concentration, namely 0, 0.25 and 0.5 mg L⁻¹, and two types of supporting material, agar and Florialite (a porous material). The control treatment was a photomixotrophic culture using a sugar- and BA (0.25 mg L⁻¹) containing agar medium in the vessel with NAE of 0.2 h⁻¹, at a PPF of 50 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ and a CO₂ concentration of 400 μmol mol⁻¹ in the culture room. Leaf area, chlorophyll concentration and net photosynthetic rate were greater in the sugar-free medium treatment with a BA concentration of 0.25 mg L⁻¹ and Florialite than those in the control treatment. The number of shoots and dry weight per clump in the sugar-free medium treatment were comparable to those in the control treatment. Among the sugar-free medium treatments, the number of shoots increased with increasing BA concentration, however, the leaf area, dry weight, chlorophyll concentration and net photosynthetic rate decreased with increasing BA concentration. The use of Florialite significantly enhanced the growth and root induction as well as net photosynthetic rate, compared with the treatments that use agar. These results indicated that sugar-free medium micropropagation could be commercially applied to the multiplication of statice plantlets.     

生态因子对水稻Rubisco和光合日变化的调节

水稻光合日变化的研究表明,受一天中光强、湿度、温度和CO2浓度等因素变化的影响,Rubisco活力和光合速率有明显的日变化.采用多项式回归分析理论建立了较有预测能力的复合回归模式,以回归方程为数学模型形象描绘了各因子与光合速率之间的关系.结果表明,气孔导度(Sc)和Rubisco活力是影响水稻光合日变化的重要生理和生化因子,光强和湿度是影响水稻光合速率的重要生态因子.     

植物衰老的研究进展及其在分子育种中的应用

植物衰老是植物生命科学研究领域的核心问题之一。无论是在器官水平上还是在个体水平上，衰老都是一个高度有序的被调控的过程。近年来，已发现大批衰老相关基因以及突变体，初步阐明了叶片衰老的分子机制。而在个体水平，G2豌豆以其在短日条件下无限生长的独特发育模式，提供了很好的实验材料。PPFl(Pisum sativum post—floral genel)是首次在短日条件下G2豌豆中分离出来的与衰老相关的基因，过表达PPFl基因可以显著延迟转基因拟南芥的开花时间。最新的研究表明，它可能编码一个定位于叶绿体膜上的钙离子泵，通过调节细胞质中钙离子浓度来影响植物的生长发育。PPFl还可能通过调控LFY(LEAFY)等一系列开花途径调节基因的表达水平来影响植株的整体衰老进程。关于植物衰老的研究，不仅具有理论上的重大意义，并且在分子育种中具有潜在的价值。     

Temperature and photoperiod control of morphology and flowering time in two greenhouse grown Hydrangea macrophylla cultivars

Knowledge of the factors involved, and tools to control morphology and flowering are important in intensive and cost-efficient greenhouse production. Hydrangea macrophylla is an important flowering pot plant in Norway and is produced year-around in greenhouses. Due to problems in scheduling, a study was conducted to compare floral transition and morphology of two commercially important cultivars of Hydrangea (‘Early Blue’ and ‘Schneeball’) under different flower initiating treatments in growth chambers. Plants were grown with high pressure sodium lamps (HPS) at moderate temperature (17 °C) (MT) and high (24 °C) temperature. At high temperature, the effect of (1) irradiance under long day conditions (16 h lighting with 70 or 200 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹), and (2) short day (8 h lighting) was investigated. The short day treatment had similar light integral as the low irradiance long day treatment (SD: 8 h × 140 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ and LD: 16 h × 70 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ = 4.0 mol m⁻² d⁻¹). The intention was to test the effect of irradiance and SD on flower transition and morphology under high temperatures. The results clearly showed that MT is the strongest signal for floral transition. MT resulted in a rapid floral transition of the terminal buds and lateral flower buds. A short forcing period was required and the plants became short and compact without any use of chemical growth retardants. At high temperatures only SD had a promotive effect on flower transition and the response was found to be stronger in ‘Schneeball’ than ‘Early Blue’. In general, all the treatments under high temperatures required a long forcing time and the plants tended to be very tall with a low number of lateral flower buds.     

Potential and cost of carbon sequestration in Indian agriculture: Estimates from long-term field experiments

Carbon sequestration in tropical soils has potential for mitigating global warming and increasing agricultural productivity. We analyzed 26 long-term experiments (LTEs) in different agro-climatic zones (ACZs) of India to assess the potential and cost of C sequestration. Data on initial and final soil organic C (SOC) concentration in the recommended N, P and K (NPK); recommended N, P and K plus farmyard manure (NPK + FYM) and unfertilized (control) treatments were used to calculate carbon sequestration potential (CSP) i.e., capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) by increasing SOC stock, under different nutrient management scenarios. In most of the LTEs wheat equivalent yields were higher in the NPK + FYM treatment than the NPK treatment. However, partial factor productivity (PFP) was more with the NPK treatment. Average SOC concentration of the control treatment was 0.54%, which increased to 0.65% in the NPK treatment and 0.82% in the NPK + FYM treatment. Compared to the control treatment the NPK + FYM treatment sequestered 0.33 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ whereas the NPK treatment sequestered 0.16 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. The CSP in different nutrient management scenarios ranged from 2.1 to 4.8 Mg C ha⁻¹ during the study period (average 16.9 yr) of the LTEs. In 17 out of 26 LTEs, the NPK + FYM treatment had higher SOC and also higher net return than that of the NPK treatment. In the remaining 9 LTEs SOC sequestration in the NPK + FYM treatment was accomplished with decreased net return suggesting that these are economically not attractive and farmers have to incur into additional cost to achieve C sequestration. The feasibility of SOC sequestration in terms of availability of FYM and other organic sources has been discussed in the paper.     

聚丙烯纤维混凝土抗拉性能试验研究

以聚丙烯纤维的掺量和长度为变化参数,对二组各15个混凝土试件分别进行抗弯、抗劈拉试验,研究聚丙烯纤维对混凝土抗拉性能的影响。以试验结果为依据,分析了聚丙烯纤维掺量和长度对混凝土抗弯强度、抗劈拉强度及其韧性的影响规律,探索了聚丙烯纤维掺量和长度对混凝土抗弯强度、抗劈拉强度及其韧性影响的机理。研究结果表明,掺入聚丙烯纤维后,混凝土的抗拉性能明显改善,特别是混凝土劈拉韧性、抗弯韧性有较大幅度的提高。     

延缓衰老基因PPF1转化水稻的初步研究

利用农杆菌介导法,把短日豌豆花后特异表达、具有延缓衰老作用的基因PPF1（post-floral-specific gene expressed in short-day-grown G2 pea）转入水稻,以期获得延缓衰老的转基因植株。约970块未成熟胚性愈伤组织与农杆菌共培养后,得到了约280块抗性愈伤组织,从中分化出抗性绿苗54株。PCR和Southern blotting检测结果表