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Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 April 2024) | Viewed by 6602

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yong Zhou

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Guest Editor

College of Bioscience and Bioengineering, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China
Interests: vegetable; plant molecular biology; abiotic stress; biotic stress; genetic improvement
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xiaolei Fan

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Guest Editor

Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Crop Genomics and Molecular Breeding, State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Physiology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Interests: vegetable; plant molecular biology; abiotic stress; biotic stress; genetic improvement

Dr. Jianping Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Bioscience and Bioengineering, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China
Interests: vegetable; plant molecular biology; abiotic stress; biotic stress; genetic improvement

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plants are frequently subjected to various biotic and abiotic stresses such as pathogens, drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, heavy metals, and ultra-violet light, which may retard their growth, reduce their average yield, and even cause death. Therefore, there is a need to develop stress-resistant plants to minimize the environmental impacts of the productivity and quality of plants under stress conditions. In addition, to resist and adapt to various environmental stresses, plants have developed complex molecular mechanisms that regulate the transcriptional levels of a number of stress-related genes to further control the signaling networks involved in stress responses.

The Special Issue “Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants” is to present original research articles on the identification of important stress-related genes on the basis of omics or other technologies and reveal the roles of them in the molecular mechanisms of responses to biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. This Special Issue also welcomes innovative articles on genomic and phenomic research applications, with the aim of presenting the latest findings related to the molecular mechanisms of plants’ response to environmental stresses. Critical reviews on these topics are also welcome in this Special Issue.

We are looking forward to your excellent contributions to this Special Issue in Sustainability.

Dr. Yong Zhou
Dr. Xiaolei Fan
Dr. Jianping Liu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

abiotic stress
biotic stress
multi-omics
stress signaling in plants
physiological process
stress response

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 6295 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Aspartic Acid-Based Nano-Copper Induces Resilience in Zea mays to Applied Lead Stress Via Conserving Photosynthetic Pigments and Triggering the Antioxidant Biosystem

by Rehman Ullah, Zakir Ullah, Javed Iqbal, Wadie Chalgham and Ajaz Ahmad

Sustainability 2023, 15(16), 12186; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151612186 - 09 Aug 2023

Viewed by 937

Abstract

Heavy metal stress, including lead, adversely affects the growth and yield of several economically important crops, leading to food challenges and significant economic losses. Ameliorating plant responses to various environmental stresses is one of the promising areas of research for sustainable agriculture. In this study, we evaluated the effect of aspartic acid-functionalized copper nanoparticles on the photosynthetic efficiency and antioxidation system of maize plants under Pb toxicity. The ion reduction method was employed for the synthesis of CuNPs, using ascorbic acid as the reducing agent and aspartic acid as the surface functionalizing agent. Isolated experiments under laboratory and field conditions were performed using a randomized complete block design (RCBD). Seeds primed in water, 1.0, 5.0, and 10 µg/mL of Asp-CuNPs were sown under 0, 500, and 1000 mg/L Pb stress in laboratory conditions, while primed seeds along with foliar-applied Asp-CuNP plants were grown in a field under applied Pb stress, and the obtained data were statistically analyzed using TWANOVA. The laboratory experiment shows that Asp-CuNPs act both as a plant growth regulator (PGR) and plant growth inhibitor (PGI), depending upon their concentration, whereby Asp-CuNPs act as a PGR at a concentration of 1 µg/mL ≤ X ≤10 µg/mL. The field experiment confirms that seed priming and foliar spraying with Asp-CuNPs activate embryos and enhance plant growth in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, Asp-CuNPs (10 µg/mL) significantly increase chlorophyll content to 0.87 mg/g from 0.53 mg/g (untreated) when plants were exposed to Pb toxicity at 1000 mg/kg of soil. It is noteworthy that Asp-CuNPs induce resilience to Pb toxicity (1000 mg/kg of soil) in plants by reducing its root absorption from 3.68 mg/kg (0 µg/mL Asp-CuNPs) to 1.72 mg/kg with the application of 10 µg/mL Asp-CuNPs. Additionally, histochemical analyses with NBT and hydrogen peroxide revealed that ROS accretion in plants treated with Asp-CuNPs declined because of the augmentation of antioxidant enzyme (POD, SOD, APOX, etc.) activities under Pb toxicity. Our findings suggest that amino acid-functionalized copper nanoparticles regulate plant defensive mechanisms related to lead tolerance, which is a promising approach for the induction of resistivity to heavy metal stress. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants)

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16 pages, 1783 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Differences in Pathogenesis-Related Protein Expression and Polyphenolic Compound Accumulation Reveal Insights into Tomato–Pythium aphanidermatum Interaction

by Seham A. Soliman, Abdulaziz A. Al-Askar, Sherien Sobhy, Marwa A. Samy, Esraa Hamdy, Omaima A. Sharaf, Yiming Su, Said I. Behiry and Ahmed Abdelkhalek

Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6551; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086551 - 12 Apr 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1546

Abstract

Plant diseases significantly reduce crop yields, threatening food security and agricultural sustainability. Fungi are the most destructive type of phytopathogen, and they are responsible for major yield losses in some of the most crucial crops grown across the world. In this study, a fungus isolate was detected from infected tomato plants and molecularly identified as Pythium aphanidermatum (GenBank accession number MW725032). This fungus caused damping-off disease and was shown to be pathogenic. Moreover, the expression of five pathogenesis-related genes, namely PR-1, PR-2, PR-3, PR-4, and PR-5, was quantitatively evaluated under the inoculation of tomato with P. aphanidermatum. The quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) showed that the expression levels of PR-1, PR-2, and PR-5 genes went up significantly at 5 days post-inoculation (dpi). The expression of the PR-1 gene also increased the variably, which reached its highest value at 20 dpi, with a reported relative expression level 6.34-fold higher than that of the control. At 15 dpi, PR-2 and PR-5 increased the most, while PR-1, PR-3, and PR-5 also increased noticeably at 20 dpi. On the contrary, PR-4 gene expression significantly decreased after inoculation, at all time intervals. Regarding PR-5 gene expression, the data showed a variable change in PR-5 gene expression at a different sample collection period. Still, it was highly expressed at 15 dpi and reached 3.99-fold, followed by 20 dpi, where the increasing percentage reached 3.70-fold, relative to the untreated control. The HPLC analysis indicated that the total concentration of all detected polyphenolic compounds was 3858 µg/g and 3202.2 µg/g in control and infected plant leaves, respectively. Moreover, the HPLC results concluded that Pythium infection decreased phenolic acids, such as chlorogenic and ellagic acids, which correlated with the infection–plant complex process. Based on the results, P. aphanidermatum could be a biotic stress pathogen that causes the expression of pathogen-related genes and stops the regulation of defensin phenolic compounds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants)

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20 pages, 729 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Potential Effects of Kinetin Implementation on Hybrid Rice Seed Production under Water Deficit

by Hassan Sh. Hamad, Eman M. Bleih, Elsayed E. Gewaily, Khadiga Alharbi and Medhat Rehan

Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 5623; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075623 - 23 Mar 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1343

Abstract

Drought is one of the main abiotic stresses responsible for reducing crop yields worldwide. In hybrid rice production, cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) displays an alternative plan for producing high-yielding hybrid rice depending on the hybrid vigor. Kinetin (Kin) has an essential role during the early phase of grain setting by regulating cell division, assimilate flow, and osmotic modification under water deficit. Growth, floral, and yield-related traits were evaluated in two CMS lines under five irrigation intervals and two concentrations of the phytohormone kinetin. Our study was conducted to explore the effects of irrigation intervals (continuous flooding (CF), irrigation every six (I₆), nine (I₉), twelve (I₁₂), and fifteen (I₁₅) days, and kinetin exogenously applied (control, 15 mg L⁻¹, and 30 mg L⁻¹) on growth, floral, and yield-related traits. Growth traits (i.e., number of leaves (NOL), days to complete leaf number (DCLN), days to heading (DTH, 50%), flag leaf area (FLA), and plant height (PH)), floral traits (i.e., duration of spikelet opening (DSO), panicle length (PL), spikelet opening angle (SOA), and panicle exertion (PE)), and seed yield traits (i.e., seed set (SS), panicle weight (PW), seed yield (SY), harvest index (HI), and number of fertile panicles per hill (NFP)) in two CMS lines. Implementation of kinetin displayed the highest significant and positive values for all growth, floral, and yield-related traits when compared to the control (average of applied irrigation intervals). Applying 30 mg L⁻¹ kinetin positively enhanced the growth traits (i.e., NOL, FLA, and PH with 4.1%, 5%, and 3%, respectively), floral traits (i.e., PL, PE, SOA, and DSO with 5.4, 5.7, 5.9, and 5.4%, respectively), and yield-related traits (i.e., PW, SS, SY, HI, and NFP with 22%, 17%, 14%, 14.5%, and 15%, with the same sequence) compared to non-treated plants. Consequently, exogenous foliar spray of kinetin could be an effective process in minimizing the harmful effects (the reduction in PW, SS, SY, HI, and NFP recorded 41%, 61%, 45%, 30%, and 48%, respectively, under I₁₅ conditions when compared to CF) of water deficit in hybrid rice and increasing seed production. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants)

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Review

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13 pages, 2761 KiB

Open AccessReview

Application and Development of Bt Insect Resistance Genes in Rice Breeding

by Changyan Li, Jianyu Wang, Fei Ling and Aiqing You

Sustainability 2023, 15(12), 9779; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129779 - 19 Jun 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2200

Abstract

As pests are an important factor in reducing crop yields, pest control is an important measure in preventing reductions in crop yields. With the aim of ending the use of chemical pesticides, biological control and genetically modified methods are now considered more reasonable pest control strategies. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) can produce crystal proteins that have specific toxicity to lepidopteran insects, and so it has been applied as a microbial insecticide in the control of crop pests for several decades. With the development of plant genetic engineering, Bt genes encoding insecticidal crystal protein have been introduced into many crop species for pest control. This article indicates that, after years of experiments and research, Bt transgenic rice is close to becoming a commercial insect-resistant rice, and many studies have shown that transgenic rice has pronounced abilities in the control of pests such as yellow stem borers (Scirpophaga incertulas, YSB), striped stem borers (Chilo suppressalis, SSB), and rice leaf rollers (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis, RLR); moreover, it does not obviously differ from non-transgenic rice in terms of safety. This paper suggests that transgenic Bt rice has application potential and commercial value. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges of Sustainable Agriculture: Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Plants)

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