Silicon and mechanical damage increase polyphenols and vitexin in Passiflora incarnata L.

Passiflora incarnata L. is a species of global pharmacological importance, has not been fully studied in the context of cultivation and management. It is known that silicon acts on abiotic stress and promotes phenols synthesis. The practice of mechanical damage is widely used in P. incarnata crops, and its interaction with silicon can have a significant influence on plant metabolism. Therefore, our objective was to investigate the effects of silicon and mechanical damage on photosynthesis, polyphenols and vitexin of P. incarnata. The experiment was conducted in a factorial design with SiO2 concentrations (0, 1, 2, 3 mM) and presence or absence of mechanical damage. It was found that mechanical damage improved photosynthetic performance at lower concentrations or absence of silicon. Moreover, this condition promoted an increasing in vitexin concentration when SiO2 was not provided. The application of 3 mM Si is recommended to increase polyphenols and vitexin, without harming dry mass of aerial part. The interaction between silicon and mechanical damage could be a tool to increase agronomic yield and commercial value of the P. incarnata crop.

Predicting phenotypes from genetic, environment, management, and historical data using CNNs

Predicting phenotypes from genetic (G), environmental (E), and management (M) conditions is a long-standing challenge with implications to agriculture, medicine, and conservation. Most methods reduce the factors in a dataset (feature engineering) in a subjective and potentially oversimplified manner. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) can overcome this by allowing the data itself to determine which factors are most important. CNN models were developed for predicting agronomic yield from a combination of replicated trials and historical yield survey data. The results were more accurate than standard methods when tested on heldout G, E, and M data (r=0.5 vs r=0.4), and performed slightly worse than standard methods when only G was held out (r=0.74 vs r=0.78). Pre-training on historical data increased accuracy by 1-36% compared to trial data alone. Saliency map analysis indicated the CNN has "learned" to prioritize many factors of known agricultural importance.

Agronomic yield and starch properties of banana cultivars

The objective of this work was to evaluate the banana cultivars for their agronomic yield and starch characteristics. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design, with a factorial arrangement of two cultivars ('BRS Conquista' and 'BRS Platina') and two crop cycles, with three plants per treatment, and five replicates. Fruit yield and starch quality were evaluated. 'BRS Conquista' showed smaller fruit; however, it had a greater marketable bunch weight and yield than 'BRS Platina'. Starches differed for the main physicochemical characteristics, except for X-ray diffraction pattern (B type) and phosphorus content (0.0058–0.0060%). 'BRS Platina' stood out for its higher content of resistant starch (74.55%) that differed from the starch isolated from 'BRS Conquista'. However, the starch of 'BRS Conquista' showed the following characteristics: larger granules (34.74 µm), with greater crystallinity (33.64%); less swelling power and solubility (26.77 g g-1 and 19.21%, respectively); and greater breakdown, setback and final viscosity (67.06, 182.42, and 341.39 RVU, respectively). 'BRS Conquista' shows favorable production characteristics for processing to obtain starch. The higher resistant starch content of 'BRS Platina' may commercially justify its lower agronomic yield. Starches of the two cultivars show desirable characteristics for different industrial applications.

Understanding Fields by Remote Sensing: Soil Zoning and Property Mapping

Precision agriculture aims to optimize field management to increase agronomic yield, reduce environmental impact, and potentially foster soil carbon sequestration. In 2015, the Copernicus mission, with Sentinel-1 and -2, opened a new era by providing freely available high spatial and temporal resolution satellite data. Since then, many studies have been conducted to understand, monitor and improve agricultural systems. This paper presents results from the SolumScire project, focusing on the prediction of the spatial distribution of soil zones and topsoil properties, such as pH, soil organic matter (SOM) and clay content in agricultural fields through random forest algorithms. For this purpose, samples from 120 fields were investigated. The zoning and soil property prediction has an accuracy greater than 90%. This is supported by a high agreement of the derived zones with farmer’s observations. The trained models revealed a prediction accuracy of 94%, 89% and 96% for pH, SOM and clay content, respectively. The obtained models for soil properties can support precision field management, the improvement of soil sampling and fertilization strategies, and eventually the management of soil properties such as SOM.

Agronomic yield and quality of industrial tomatoes under NPK doses

ABSTRACT High doses of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in irrigated systems may lead to an increase in the productivity of industrial tomatoes, but may also alter the final quality of the fruits. The objective of this was to evaluate the agronomic yield and post-harvest quality of industrial tomatoes, under NPK doses for climatic conditions of Northern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The study was conducted in the city of Jaíba, MG, Brazil, in randomized block design with four repetitions in a 3 x 3 factorial scheme, consisting of three doses of N (90, 135 and 180 kg ha-1), of P (270, 405 and 540 kg ha-1) and of K (225, 337 and 450 kg ha-1), corresponding to 50, 75 and 100% of the fertilization recommendation; and three tomato hybrids: BRS Sena, Heinz 9553 and BHN 0574. The following variables were evaluated: number of bunches, number and weight of fruits, productivity and fertilizer efficiency index; besides the physico-chemical characteristics: firmness, soluble solids concentration, pH and pulp industrial yield. The hybrid Heinz 9553 showed higher weight, number of fruits, productivity and industrial yield at doses of 75 and 100% of NPK recommendation. The fertilizer doses did not interfere on the soluble solids, pH and fruit firmness of the three hybrids. The hybrid BRS Sena was not influenced by the increase of NPK and there was lower weight, number of fruits, productivity and fertilization efficiency. The hybrid BHN and Heinz hybrids can be indicated for cultivation at doses of 100 and 75% of NPK recommendation, because they promote higher agronomic yield and do not alter the post-harvest quality of the tomatoes.

Soil water availability for drip-irrigated common bean crop

ABSTRACT Minimum limits of soil water storage should be established for the irrigation management of crops, in order to satisfactorily provide water to plants. This study aimed to define the soil water availability factor (f factor) that provides the maximum agronomic yield and maximum water-use efficiency for drip-irrigated common bean cultivars. The experiment was carried out in a randomized block design, with four replications. The treatments were arranged in split plots, with the plots consisting of f factors (0.20, 0.35, 0.50, 0.65 and 0.80) and subplots consisting of common bean cultivars (BRS Pérola and BRS Estilo). The use of f factors between 0.30 and 0.35 is recommended for common bean crops to obtain the maximum agronomic yield and maximum water-use efficiency. The BRS Estilo cultivar presents a water-use efficiency 16 % higher than the BRS Pérola.

CARACTERÍSTICAS FISIO-AGRONÔMICASDO FEIJOEIRO DE CICLOSUPERPRECOCETRATADO COMPROMOTORES DE CRESCIMENTO

Common bean hasan economic and social relevancefor the Brazilian population. Among the technologies that contribute to high crop yieldare growth promoters. This study objected to determine the growth promoters’effect, applied via seed or via seed and leaf, on the performance of super early common bean, cultivar FC-104, regarding the physiological(gas exchange and nutrient content) and agronomic (yield and itscomponents) indicators. The experimental design was a randomized complete block, with 13 treatments and fourreplicates. The treatments were constituted by the growth promoters (I) MicronutrientsComplex, (II) Leonardite; (III) Micronutrients+ fulvic acids, (IV) Micronutrients+ amino acids; (V) Micronutrients+ Ascophyllum; (VI) Micronutrients+ Eklonya; (VII) N + Zn; (VIII) N + K + amino acids; (IX) Growth regulators; (X) Trichodermaasperellum, (XI) T. asperellum+ Bacillus methylotrophicusand(XII) Peat. Seeds treated with water was considered control treatment(XIII). In treatments IV and XI, the plants had significantly higher stomatal conductance(gs)and number of pods per plant (NVP).In treatment V, theplants presentedhighervalue of leaf phosphorus (P), in both casesin relation to the control.However, there was no significant increase in grain yield of common bean treated with growth promoter

Agronomic Evaluation of Bunching Onion in the Colombian Cundiboyacense High Plateau

Bunching onion (Allium fistulosumL.) is a strategic crop for Colombia due to its economic relevance within fresh and processed food markets, and therefore, there is a demand for high yielding genotypes adapted to specific regions. For this reason, after carrying out a clonal selection process including 62 genotypes, ten of these, including a regional control, were evaluated for six different traits in Boyacá (Colombia) during 2012 and 2013. These traits were grouped into agronomic, yield, and processing categories. In general, these showed significant differences (p≤0.01) for genotypes, location, and genotypes × location interaction. Compared with the regional control and based on the multienvironmental analysis the genotypes Clone 30 and Clone 38 were the most promising new cultivars identified in this study. These two clones showed comparative advantages on earliness and yield, and they moreover showed some level of resistance to downy mildew and root rot, the most limiting diseases for Boyacá’s bunch onion farmers. Therefore, Clone 30 and Clone 38 were registered as new bunching onion cultivars for the Cundiboyacense High Plateau region under the names Corpoica Aquitania-1 and Corpoica Tota-1, respectively. Finally, further approaches and initiatives on bunching onion breeding are discussed.