Mapping of Plant-Parasitic Nematode Using GIS Technology in Tainal Watershed, Sulaimaniyah Province, Iraq

The present experiment was conducted to evaluate soil samples which had been taken from depths ranging from 0-30 cm in greenhouses planted with different vegetables such as cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in 24 agricultural sites in 19 villages. GIS application was used to make maps showing the results of a field survey that was conducted. The experiment was conducted for an area of 12 km2 in the Tainal Plain, west of Sulaimaniyah Province. Nearly 30% of the soil of the greenhouses were heavily infected. Plant analysis showed that the characteristics of ash, fat and moisture were significantly affected as a result of infection with nematodes. The spread of root-knot nematode juveniles in the villages of Al-Mahmoudia, Kani Pengsharma and Kani Shaya was 706, 695 and 622 per 250 g of soil. In tissues of the studied plants, the highest nitrogen content was 68.2 mg in Ziyeka, 60.4 mg in Gawani and 59.7 mg in Ali Bzaw. Phosphorus concentrations were highest in Kani Shaya, Shwankara and Ziyeka (25.5, 25.3 and 23.1 mg, respectively). Warmizyar had 91.8 mg of potassium, Kani Shaya had 78.6 mg and Kani Big had 71.6 mg. The calcium concentrations in Ziyeka, Gawani and Mewk were 54.5, 48.4 and 47.7 mg, respectively.

Identifying crisphead lettuce genotypes for a wider range of environments

This work aims to select crisphead lettuce (Lactuca sativa L) genotypes superior in production, stability, and adaptability using a mixed model method: restricted maximum likelihood/best linear unbiased prediction. Ten genotypes were grown in different municipalities of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, and seasons of the year, resulting in twelve different environments. The experiment has a randomized complete block design with four repetitions. Genotypes comprise eight breeding lines and two commercial cultivars, Vanda and Vera. The evaluated traits include total production in g/plant, commercial production in g/plant, and numbers of leaves/plant. Analysis of joint deviance indicated that the genotypes responded differently to the environments evaluated. The crisphead lettuce breeding lines that were most productive, stable, and adapted to the twelve lettuce-growing environments, even outperforming the commercial Vanda and Vera cultivars, were lines L8, L2, and L6.

Bisphenol A—A Dangerous Pollutant Distorting the Biological Properties of Soil

Bisphenol A (BPA), with its wide array of products and applications, is currently one of the most commonly produced chemicals in the world. A narrow pool of data on BPA–microorganism–plant interaction mechanisms has stimulated the following research, the aim of which has been to determine the response of the soil microbiome and crop plants, as well as the activity of soil enzymes exposed to BPA pressure. A range of disturbances was assessed, based on the activity of seven soil enzymes, an abundance of five groups of microorganisms, and the structural diversity of the soil microbiome. The condition of the soil was verified by determining the values of the indices: colony development (CD), ecophysiological diversity (EP), the Shannon–Weaver index, and the Simpson index, tolerance of soil enzymes, microorganisms and plants (TIBPA), biochemical soil fertility (BA21), the ratio of the mass of aerial parts to the mass of plant roots (PR), and the leaf greenness index: Soil and Plant Analysis Development (SPAD). The data brought into sharp focus the adverse effects of BPA on the abundance and ecophysiological diversity of fungi. A change in the structural composition of bacteria was noted. Bisphenol A had a more beneficial effect on the Proteobacteria than on bacteria from the phyla Actinobacteria or Bacteroidetes. The microbiome of the soil exposed to BPA was numerously represented by bacteria from the genus Sphingomonas. In this object pool, the highest fungal OTU richness was achieved by the genus Penicillium, a representative of the phylum Ascomycota. A dose of 1000 mg BPA kg−1 d.m. of soil depressed the activity of dehydrogenases, urease, acid phosphatase and β-glucosidase, while increasing that of alkaline phosphatase and arylsulfatase. Spring oilseed rape and maize responded significantly negatively to the soil contamination with BPA.

Pheno4D: A spatio-temporal dataset of maize and tomato plant point clouds for phenotyping and advanced plant analysis

Understanding the growth and development of individual plants is of central importance in modern agriculture, crop breeding, and crop science. To this end, using 3D data for plant analysis has gained attention over the last years. High-resolution point clouds offer the potential to derive a variety of plant traits, such as plant height, biomass, as well as the number and size of relevant plant organs. Periodically scanning the plants even allows for performing spatio-temporal growth analysis. However, highly accurate 3D point clouds from plants recorded at different growth stages are rare, and acquiring this kind of data is costly. Besides, advanced plant analysis methods from machine learning require annotated training data and thus generate intense manual labor before being able to perform an analysis. To address these issues, we present with this dataset paper a multi-temporal dataset featuring high-resolution registered point clouds of maize and tomato plants, which we manually labeled for computer vision tasks, such as for instance segmentation and 3D reconstruction, providing approximately 260 million labeled 3D points. To highlight the usability of the data and to provide baselines for other researchers, we show a variety of applications ranging from point cloud segmentation to non-rigid registration and surface reconstruction. We believe that our dataset will help to develop new algorithms to advance the research for plant phenotyping, 3D reconstruction, non-rigid registration, and deep learning on raw point clouds. The dataset is freely accessible at https://www.ipb.uni-bonn.de/data/pheno4d/.

Effect of seed coating on the yield of soybean Glycine max (L.) Merr.

Enhanced seeds, e.g. dressed, encrusted or pelleted seeds, are often sown in agricultural practice. These treatments play a different role depending on the type and chemical composition of the preparation. The aim of the experiment was to compare the effectiveness of three coatings (B – chitosan, C – chitosan + alginate/jojoba oil/E and D – chitosan + alginate/PEG) applied to soybean seeds in comparison to control (A). The study was carried out in three cultivars: Annushka, Mavka and Smuglyanka. The coatings did not differentiate seed yield in 2018 due to favourable weather conditions. The use of coating D in the following years increased seed yield by 0.46 t/ha in 2019 and by 0.51 t/ha in 2020 compared to control. The obtained results allow concluding that coating D was the most effective in soybean cultivation. The field emergence capacity, plant density as well as the SPAD (soil plant analysis development) and LAI (leaf area index) indices were significantly increased compared to control as a result of this coating application. The g_s index (stomatal leaf conductance) was significantly reduced. The cv. Smuglyanka yields were significantly higher compared to cvs. Mavka and Annushka, by 0.32 t/ha and 0.85 t/ha, respectively. The difference in seed yield between 2018 and 2019 was 0.81 t/ha.

Pollen plant analysis of different sunflower genotypes

Pollen analysis makes it possible to determine the reproductive potential of sunflower plants by the morphological characteristics of pollen grains with the aim of breeding to increase yields. The research was carried out in 2019–2020 at V.S. Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops, Krasnodar. The objects of the research were plants of cultivated sunflower Helianthus annuus L.: four hybrids – Factor, Typhoon, Oxy and NK Brio, confectionery variety Djinn, two parental lines of the hybrid Oxy – VK876 B and VK195, as well as a perennial wild growing hexaploid species H. tuberosus L. Pollen was stained with acetoorcein and viewed under a microscope Micros MS 20. The diameter of pollen grains in the hybrids Factor, NK Brio, Typhoon, Oxy, the line VK195 and the cultivar Djinn varied from 34 to 31 μm. The line VK876 B and H. tuberosus were characterized by the lowest values of this trait – 29 and 27 μm, respectively. For the line VK876 B and the hybrid Oxy, significant morphological heterogeneity of pollen was observed, which was expressed in a correspondingly high proportion of abnormal pollen grains – 34 and 26%. At the same time, there was a two-peak distribution of the values of the diameter of pollen grains. The morphological heterogeneity of the pollen grains of the hybrid Oxy is associated with the dominant inheritance of this trait from the maternal CMS-form VK876 A, since the paternal line VK195 has a normal characteristic of pollen grains. The pollen of the hybrid NK Brio showed a significantly higher (by 25%) seed setting in crossing with the CMS tester than that of the hybrid Oxy, which confirms the assumption that there is a relation between an increased proportion of abnormal pollen grains and reduced pollen fertility.