Insect communities related to wheat and coriander cropping histories and essential oils in the Rolling Pampa, Argentina

Intensive land use in the Rolling Pampa of Argentina have resulted in a mosaic of fields with different cultural histories creating different soil environments, which interact with crops and cropping activities producing a wide range of habitats for insects. Species and functions in canopy structure, food quality and essential oils of the crop–weed associations may vary depending on the field's cropping history and management (i.e. crops, soil degradation, weeding and fertilization). Species composition and functional structure of insect communities may respond to these changes. We studied insect communities in wheat and coriander crops that differed in their canopy structures, essential oil production, and the cropping histories of the fields on which they grew. For this purpose we planted wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and two coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) landraces in plots with two levels of weeding and fertilization. The crops were grown in two consecutive years at two locations differing in cropping history and related to this in level of soil degradation. Insects were sampled in all plots at crop full flowering, and were classified and related to agronomic variables and to essential oils using multivariate techniques. Among all the environmental factors tested in this study, year and soil degradation were the main factors explaining insect community structure; and also weed community structure in unweeded plots. The proportion of essential oil components varied with cropping history, suggesting an association among soil properties indicative of soil degradation, plant chemical signals and insect distribution. Although insect community composition varied widely, functional structure was very similar among crop–weed communities. Soil degradation appeared to have affected directly crop–weed communities and insects’ assemblages, since no consistent relationship was found between plant composition and insect community structure. It can be hypothesized that soil degradation might have affected the amount of volatiles produced especially by coriander, generating a “soil degradation scent” that determined the structure in the insect community, and/or the soil itself emitted different signals, in relation to changes in its physical, chemical and biological characteristics.     

遥感技术在植物氮营养诊断和推荐施肥中的应用之研究进展

·通过对遥感技术在作物氮营养诊断方面的研究与最新进展进行了综述，系统评价了高光谱遥感技术、可见光数字图像技术和卫星遥感技术在作物氮营养诊断与氮肥推荐方面的原理、优缺点以及目前的研究现状。认为遥感技术在作物氮营养诊断方面仍然存在技术复杂与设备昂贵等方面的问题，但随着技术的发展，遥感技术在未来精确养分管理方面有广阔的应用前景。     

Development of a high-throughput field phenotyping rover optimized for size-limited breeding fields as open-source hardware

Phenotyping is a critical process in plant breeding, especially when there is an increasing demand for streamlining a selection process in a breeding program. Since manual phenotyping has limited efficiency, high-throughput phenotyping methods are recently popularized owing to progress in sensor and image processing technologies. However, in a size-limited breeding field, which is common in Japan and other Asian countries, it is challenging to introduce large machinery in the field or fly unmanned aerial vehicles over the field. In this study, we developed a ground-based high-throughput field phenotyping rover that could be easily introduced to a field regardless of the scale and location of the field even without special facilities. We also made the field rover open-source hardware, making its system available to public for easy modification, so that anyone can build one for their own use at a low cost. The trial run of the field rover revealed that it allowed the collection of detailed remote-sensing images of plants and quantitative analyses based on the images. The results suggest that the field rover developed in this study could allow efficient phenotyping of plants especially in a small breeding field.     

Light competition for invasive species control: A model of cover crop–weed competition and implications for Phalaris arundinacea control in sedge meadow wetlands

Summary Since resource competition plays a critical role in many plant invasions, controlling invasive vegetation may require managing the supply of limiting resources. For example, lowering light availability with a cover crop might prevent invasions during community establishment in light-limited restored ecosystems. However, most cover crops evaluated for invasive species control either do not adequately suppress invasives or equally suppress desired species. To improve our ability to predict cover crop effectiveness, we use a theoretical model of plant competition to identify potential mechanisms by which cover crops might favor desired species over invasives. In addition, we consider the model's implications for controlling an invasive forage, Phalaris arundinacea, in restored sedge meadows. The model suggests that cover crops will improve the outcome of competition between desired and invasive species only when (1) desired species have lower minimum light requirements than invasive species and (2) invasive species dominance results from rapid establishment and resource preemption. Cover crops in the model favor desired species over faster-growing invasives because faster-growing invasives are positioned higher in the canopy. Invasive species higher in the canopy shade desired species more than desired species shade invasives. Consequently, by reducing invasive species biomass, cover crops give desired species a competitive advantage. The simple requirements for cover crop success in the model suggest that cover crops may be effective for invasive species control in light-limited restored ecosystems. The available information on P. arundinacea responses to shade suggests, however, that cover crops are unlikely to favor sedge meadow species over P. arundinacea.     

Faba bean genomics: current status and future prospects

Faba bean represents a crucial source of protein for food, especially for Mediterranean countries, and local demand for faba bean grains is increasing. The crop is also gaining increased attention as an elite candidate for conservation agriculture. However, the complexity of the faba genome has made progress in breeding programs and molecular studies relatively slow compared with other legume crops. Recent advances in plant genomics have made it feasible to understand complex genomes such as faba bean. With the increase of faba bean consumption in the Middle East region, there is an urgent need to develop elite faba genotypes suitable for arid and semi arid environments, with high yield potential and acceptable nutritional quality. This article highlights the recent advances in legume and faba genomics and its potential to contribute to the above mentioned goal. Emphasis is given on prospects on faba improvements strategies from the Middle East point of view.     

WIPPER: an accurate and efficient field phenotyping platform for large-scale applications

More accurate, rapid, and easy phenotyping tools are required to match the recent advances in high-throughput genotyping for accelerating breeding and genetic analysis. The conventional data recording in field notebooks and then inputting data to computers for further analysis is inefficient, time-consuming, laborious, and prone to human error. Here, we report WIPPER (for Wireless Plant Phenotyper), a new phenotyping platform that combines field phenotyping and data recording with the aid of Bluetooth communication, thus saving time and labor not only for field data recoding but also for inputting data to computers. Additionally, it eliminates the risk of human error associated with phenotyping and inputting data. We applied WIPPER to 100 individuals of a rice recombinant inbred line (RIL) for measuring leaf width and relative chlorophyll content (SPAD value), and were able to record an accurate data in a significantly reduced time compared with the conventional method of data collection. We are currently using WIPPER for routine management of rice germplasm including recording and documenting information on phenotypic data, seeds, and DNA for their accelerated utilization in crop breeding.     

Improving the efficiency of plant root system phenotyping through digitization and automation

Root system architecture (RSA) determines unevenly distributed water and nutrient availability in soil. Genetic improvement of RSA, therefore, is related to crop production. However, RSA phenotyping has been carried out less frequently than above-ground phenotyping because measuring roots in the soil is difficult and labor intensive. Recent advancements have led to the digitalization of plant measurements; this digital phenotyping has been widely used for measurements of both above-ground and RSA traits. Digital phenotyping for RSA is slower and more difficult than for above-ground traits because the roots are hidden underground. In this review, we summarized recent trends in digital phenotyping for RSA traits. We classified the sample types into three categories: soil block containing roots, section of soil block, and root sample. Examples of the use of digital phenotyping are presented for each category. We also discussed room for improvement in digital phenotyping in each category.     

论植物表型组和植物表型组学的概念与范畴

植物表型分析是理解植物基因功能及环境效应的关键环节,随着植物功能基因组学和作物分子育种研究的深入,传统的表型观测已经成为制约其发展的主要瓶颈,而高通量的植物表型组分析技术和植物表型组学研究是解决这一困境的有效途径。虽然植物表型组分析正在成为国内外研究的热点,相关概念仍然较为模糊,阻碍了这一新兴学科的发展。本文分析了植物表型组和植物表型组学的相关概念和范畴,引入了准表型组、可辨识性状、映射性状、植物表型的遗传和环境包容性等新概念,将植物表型组定义为"受基因组和环境因素决定或影响的,反映植物结构及组成、植物生长发育过程及结果的全部物理、生理、生化特征和性状",将植物表型组学定义为"对植物表型组信息及相关环境参数的综合控制、完整采集和系统分析",并提出了植物表型组学的研究范围、研究方向和顶层设计原则。     

Recent applications of metabolomics in plant breeding

Metabolites play a central role in maintaining organismal life and in defining crop phenotypes, such as nutritional value, fragrance, color, and stress resistance. Among the ‘omes’ in biology, the metabolome is the closest to the phenotype. Consequently, metabolomics has been applied to crop improvement as method for monitoring changes in chemical compositions, clarifying the mechanisms underlying cellular functions, discovering markers and diagnostics, and phenotyping for mQTL, mGWAS, and metabolite-genome predictions. In this review, 359 reports of the most recent applications of metabolomics to plant breeding-related studies were examined. In addition to the major crops, more than 160 other crops including rare medicinal plants were considered. One bottleneck associated with using metabolomics is the wide array of instruments that are used to obtain data and the ambiguity associated with metabolite identification and quantification. To further the application of metabolomics to plant breeding, the features and perspectives of the technology are discussed.     

Exploring integrated crop–livestock systems in different ecoregions of the United States

Large-scale, energy-intensive, specialized production systems have dominated agricultural production in the United States for the past half-century. Although highly productive and economically successful, there is increasing concern with unintended negative environmental impacts of current agricultural systems. Production systems integrating crops and livestock have potential for providing additional ecosystem services from agriculture by capturing positive ecological interactions and avoiding negative environmental outcomes, while sustaining profitability. A diversity of ecologically sound integrated crop-livestock systems have been and can be employed in different ecoregions: sod-based crop rotations, grazing cover crops in cash-crop rotations, crop residue grazing, sod intercropping, dual-purpose cereal crops, and agroforestry/silvopasture. Improved technologies in conservation tillage, weed control, fertilization, fencing, and planting, as well as improved plant genetics offer opportunities to facilitate successful adoption of integrated systems. This paper explores the use and potential of integrated crop-livestock systems in achieving environmental stewardship and maintaining profitability under a diversity of ecological conditions in the United States.     

The Experimental and Commercial Release of Transgenic Crop Plants

With advances in recombinant DNA methods and transformation procedures, it is possible to transfer genes into crop plants from unrelated plants, microbes and animals. Many of the modifications being carried out, or envisaged, are for disease and pest resistance, product quality and tolerance to environmental stress, but there are additional opportunities to modify crops to give specialized products for industrial or pharmaceutical use. Some of the characteristics of transgenic plants are considered, including: transgene copy number, position, expression, stability, pleiotropy, selectable marker genes and somaclonal variation. There have been several hundreds of field trials with transgenic plants, and the first transgenic varieties are likely to be approved for commercial production in 1993. Before releasing transgenic plants, it is necessary to carry out a risk assessment to determine whether the transgenic variety will behave differently from a conventionally bred variety. Assessment procedures are being harmonized internationally by various organizations. There is a growing commitment to apply these genetic modification methods to crops in developing countries, as genes relevant to their crops and environments become available.     

Reflectance estimation of canopy nitrogen content in winter wheat using optimised hyperspectral spectral indices and partial least squares regression

Many spectral indices have been proposed to derive plant nitrogen (N) nutrient indicators based on different algorithms. However, the relationships between selected spectral indices and the canopy N content of crops are often inconsistent. The goals of this study were to test the performance of spectral indices and partial least square regression (PLSR) and to compare their use for predicting canopy N content of winter wheat. The study was conducted in cool and wet southeastern Germany and the hot and dry North China Plain for three winter wheat growing seasons. The canopy N content of winter wheat varied from 0.54% to 5.55% in German cultivars and from 0.57% to 4.84% in Chinese cultivars across growth stages and years. The best performing spectral indices and their band combinations varied across growth stages, cultivars, sites and years. Compared with the best performing spectral indices, the average value of the R² for the PLSR models increased by 76.8% and 75.5% in the calibration and validation datasets, respectively. The results indicate that PLSR is a potentially useful approach to derive canopy N content of winter wheat across growth stages, cultivars, sites and years under field conditions when a broad set of canopy reflectance data are included in the calibration models. PLSR will be useful for real-time estimation of N status of winter wheat in the fields and for guiding farmers in the accurate application of their N fertilisation strategies.     

后基因组时代下作物的SNP分型方法

单核苷酸多态性(single nucleotide polymorphisms,SNPs)是生物体最普遍的一种多态差异,在植物功能基因组研究和作物遗传改良方面有着广泛的应用。利用全基因组水平SNP标记谱进行遗传变异的研究、群体结构分析、关联性分析、作物分子设计育种,以及对大规模SNP数据进行验证、评估等,都迫切需要发展和利用各种不同的SNP分型手段实现。本文综述了目前常用的一些SNP分型方法,简要介绍了检测原理及操作流程,并对后基因组时代下作物的高通量SNP数据的分析进行了讨论。     

Light absorption and water loss in overwintered and spring–sown evening primrose (Oenothera spp.) crops

Evening primrose (Oenothera spp.) is a high-value oilseed crop for temperate areas which may be either overwintered or spring–sown. Light absorption, light use efficiency, water loss and biomass water ratio were compared between overwintered and spring–sown crops of cv. Merlin in two years of field trials. An overwintered crop of cv. Peter was also studied in year two. The energy content of evening primrose plant material was shown to be similar to other crops. Both overwintered and spring–sown crops can achieve full canopy closure and maintain high fractional photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception for long periods but canopy closure occurred much later than in other temperate seed crops. In spring–sown evening primrose, maximum PAR interception did not occur until August, by which time incident light levels were declining and consequently the proportion of incident light energy captured during the main growing season was low. Most light was intercepted by green leaves and very little shading by senescent tissue and flowers occurred. Light conversion efficiencies for the main growing period were comparable with other temperate C₃ crops, but in year two a steep decline in light conversion efficiency was observed as the crops matured and the soil water deficit exceeded 60 mm. In year one, water loss from both the overwintered and spring–sown crops were low and the soil water deficit increased relatively slowly. By contrast, in the year two crop water loss was high and the soil water deficit built up very rapidly between the end of June and crop maturity. No significant differences in biomass water ratio (water use efficiency) were recorded between overwintered and spring–sown crops but ratios were 50% higher in year one than in year two. Although no relationship was detected between biomass water ratio corrected for vapour pressure deficit (“normalised”) and soil water deficit, after canopy closure normalised daily water loss declined with increasing soil water deficit. Earlier canopy closure, particularly in the spring crop, and the avoidance of soil water deficits through irrigation, would lead to substantial improvements in the size and consistency of seed yields of evening primrose crops.     

植物矮生性状的分子遗传研究进展

近年来,随着分子生物学和基因组学的飞速发展,对作物高产性状,高产机理及其相关基因的研究愈加深入,应用基因工程技术对作物进行遗传改良已成为提高作物产量的有效途径,培育理想株型已成为作物育种的重要目标。株高是高等作物的重要农艺性状之一,植株过高容易引起倒伏而减产,而矮生植株抗倒能力强,高产,因而矮化育种对培育理想株型十分重要,矮生基因的发掘研究和利用也越来越受到重视。本文综述了目前高等作物矮生性的分子遗传研究进展,特别是对水稻、小麦、玉米、黄瓜、西瓜和番茄等主要作物矮生性状的遗传特点、分子标记、矮生基因的克隆等方面的研究进展做了较为详细的总结和评价,分析了激素对高等植物矮生突变体的调控,提出了高等植物矮生资源的利用和矮化育种中存在的问题,并探讨了高等植物矮生性状分子遗传学研究和分子育种的发展趋势。     

Precision agriculture on grassland: Applications, perspectives and constraints

Precision agriculture (PA) is an innovative, integrated and internationally standardized approach aiming to increase the efficiency of resource use and to reduce the uncertainty of decisions required to control variation on farms. Worldwide, investments in research and technology on PA have considerably increased during the past decades. Advances in agricultural research, combined with application of PA on grasslands, could provide major economic and environmental benefits. However, most of the available technology is currently being applied on arable land but not on grassland although the latter contributes substantially to agricultural land use as well as to capital and income. The authors hypothesise that heterogeneity of grassland among and within fields is a major constraint to PA application and that understanding such heterogeneity would enable to implement PA where competitive and cost efficient.In this paper, current developments and future perspectives of digital image processing, remote sensing, yield measurement, and site-specific management on grassland are discussed. At fine scales, on-board sensors can provide information on sward properties that application techniques could respond to. At larger scales, remotely sensed information can provide digital maps of type and status of vegetation that allow a precise management, although the mix of spatial coverage and spatial resolution is not yet ideal. The site-specific management on arable land, however, has not yet proven its applicability in different environments. On grassland, some of these technologies are either already implemented as prototypes into research projects or under development with a short-term perspective to be introduced into practice.Grassland scientists can significantly contribute to the current development and, in return, benefit from latest sensor technology and so enable rapid data acquisition and improvement of experimentation and knowledge. Also existing computer simulation models can contribute to make PA on grassland a success. Animal husbandry is strongly linked to grassland utilization and can also benefit from present PA technology through animal production and health control and animal guidance with appropriate electronic stimuli. Considerable interdisciplinary research is required to link existing knowledge on PA technology with grassland science and with animal science. This could mainly be accomplished by the interpretation of signal–object interaction that is needed to set up suitable configurations on grassland.     

A methodological study on participatory barley breeding II. Response to selection

Farmer participation is increasingly seen as a key to develop technologies which are more relevant to farmers' communities. In plant breeding, farmer participation is seen as key to increase the probability of adoption of new varieties. This paper addresses the issue of selection efficiency in participatory plant breeding by testing the effect of selection environment and of who did the selection in one cropping season (1997) on the performance of the selected lines in the following cropping season (1998). Selection environment had a larger effect on response to selection than who did the selection, confirming the importance of decentralized selection. Selections made by the breeder and the farmers in 1997, differed in 1998 for a number of traits, but seldom for grain yield. When the difference for grain yield was significant, breeder's selection was more effective on station, while farmers' selection was more effective in farmers' fields. The results of this study indicate that it is possible to organize a plant breeding program with the objective of adapting crops to a multitude of both physical and socio-economic environments: such a breeding program will, at the same time, increase productivity and stability, enhance biodiversity and produce environmentally friendly cultivars. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

农产品与环境样品中氯虫苯甲酰胺的残留动态分析

氯虫苯甲酰胺是以昆虫鱼尼丁受体为靶标的新型杀虫剂,具有超高的杀虫性能,尤其对鳞翅目害虫具有优异的防效,在水稻、蔬菜、瓜果等农产品生产上大量应用。随着氯虫苯甲酰多年大面积连续使用,其对农产品及环境的安全性日益受到关注。为了解氯虫苯甲酰胺的残留动态规律,笔者总结相关文献,简要概述了氯虫苯甲酰胺在不同样本中的残留分析方法,包括主要的样品提取、净化和检测技术及其优缺点,综述了近年来氯虫苯甲酰胺在蔬菜、水果、粮食作物、土壤等农产品与环境样品中的残留动态,以期为氯虫苯甲酰胺在农业生产上的科学安全使用和残留量的控制提供参考。     

温室作物调亏灌溉研究进展

在温室土壤-作物-环境的连续体中,作物水分损耗、吸收和水分利用效率一直是研究的热点,温室作物水分来源的唯一途径是灌溉。为了在生产实践中指导节水灌溉,从近些年来节水灌溉的新技术新方法--滴灌和调亏灌溉入手,主要综述了温室内作物调亏灌溉的研究,包括调亏灌溉的节水及增产机理,调亏灌溉相应的灌溉指标,影响调亏灌溉的环境因素,以及作物本身不同时期对水分亏缺的反应。