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Salinity is the primary environmental stress that adversely affects plants’ growth and productivity in many areas of the world. Published research validated the role of aspartic acid in improving plant tolerance against salinity stress. Therefore, in the present work, factorial pot trials in a completely randomized design were conducted to examine the potential role of exogenous application of aspartic acid (Asp) in increasing the tolerance of wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) plants against salt stress. Wheat plants were sown with different levels of salinity (0, 30, or 60 mM NaCl) and treated with three levels of exogenous application of foliar spray of aspartic acid (Asp) (0, 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8 mM). Results of the study indicated that salinity stress decreased growth attributes like shoot length, leaf area, and shoot biomass along with photosynthesis pigments and endogenous indole acetic acid. NaCl stress reduced the total content of carbohydrates, flavonoid, beta carotene, lycopene, and free radical scavenging activity (DPPH%). However, Asp application enhanced photosynthetic pigments and endogenous indole acetic acid, consequently improving plant leaf area, leading to higher biomass dry weight either under salt-stressed or non-stressed plants. Exogenous application of Asp, up-regulate the antioxidant system viz . antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, catalase, and nitrate reductase), and non-enzymatic antioxidants (ascorbate, glutathione, total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, beta carotene, lycopene) contents resulted in declined in reactive oxygen species (ROS). The decreased ROS in Asp-treated plants resulted in reduced hydrogen peroxide, lipid peroxidation (MDA), and aldehyde under salt or non-salt stress conditions. Furthermore, Asp foliar application increased compatible solute accumulation (amino acids, proline, total soluble sugar, and total carbohydrates) and increased radical scavenging activity of DPPH and enzymatic ABTS. Results revealed that the quadratic regression model explained 100% of the shoot dry weight (SDW) yield variation. With an increase in Asp application level by 1.0 mM, the SDW was projected to upsurge through 956 mg/plant. In the quadratic curve model, if Asp is applied at a level of 0.95 mM, the SDW is probably 2.13 g plant -1 . This study concluded that the exogenous application of aspartic acid mitigated the adverse effect of salt stress damage on wheat plants and provided economic benefits.

Sustainable increases in crop production require efficient use of resources, and intercropping can improve water use efficiency and land productivity at reduced inputs. Thus, in a three-year field experiment, the performance of maize/soybean strip intercropping system differing with maize plant density (6 maize plants m-2, low, D1; 8 maize plants m-2, medium, D2; and 10 maize plants m-2, high, D3) was evaluated in comparison with sole maize or soybean cropping system. Results revealed that among all intercropping treatments, D2 had a significantly higher total leaf area index (maize LAI + soybean LAI; 8.2), total dry matter production (maize dry matter + soybean dry matter; 361.5 g plant-1), and total grain yield (maize grain yield + soybean grain yield; 10122.5 kg ha-1) than D1 and D3, and also higher than sole maize (4.8, 338.7 g plant-1, and 9553.7 kg ha-1) and sole soybean (4.6, 64.8 g plant-1, and 1559.5 kg ha-1). The intercropped maize was more efficient in utilizing the radiation and water, with a radiation use efficiency of 3.5, 5.2, and 4.3 g MJ-1 and water use efficiency of 14.3, 16.2, and 13.3 kg ha-1 mm-1, while that of intercropped soybean was 2.5, 2.1, and 1.8 g MJ-1 and 2.1, 1.9, and 1.5 kg ha-1 mm-1 in D1, D2, and D3, respectively. In intercropping, the land and water equivalent ratios ranged from 1.22 to 1.55, demonstrating that it is a sustainable strategy to improve land and water use efficiencies; this maximization is likely associated with the species complementarities for radiation, water, and land in time and space, which resulted in part from competition avoidance responses that maximize the economic profit (e. g., 1300 US$ ha-1 in D2) over sole maize (798 US $ha-1) or sole soybean (703 US $ ha-1). Overall, these results indicate that optimizing strip intercropping systems can save 20–50% of water and land, especially under the present scenario of limited resources and climate change. However, further research is required to fully understand the resource capture mechanisms of intercrops in intercropping.

Limited availability of nutrients to crops is a major agricultural concern. Deteriorated soil health and poor fertility status decrease the bioavailability of essential nutrients to the plants. Consequently, organic soil amendment biochar is gaining attention due to its potential benefits. Rhizobacterial inoculation, are also documented as an effective technology for mobilization of immobile nutrients in soil. However, limited literature is available on combined use of rhizobacteria and biochar. Therefore, this study was carried out to examine the changes in the nutrient content of einkorn wheat and the change in some soil properties during the application of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) with biochar. Four doses of biochar (0, 2.5, 5, and 10%) were applied with and without PGPR in the study. Biochar increased the growth criteria such as plant fresh weight (PFW), plant dry weight (PDW), root fresh weight (RFW), root dry weight (RDW), number of tillers, germination rate (GR) and potassium (K), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and nickel (Ni) elements. While PGPR application increased soil pH, dry and fresh weight of root, R/S, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Ni contents, and it caused a decrease in PH, PFW, tillers, GR, P, Cu, and Zn values. Combined biochar applications and PGPR had a significant effect on the pH, RFW, R/S, P, Na, and Cu. In conclusion, the combination of biochar and PGPR applications has shown a positive effect in terms of soil properties, plant growth, and element contents of einkorn wheat.

This research compares the use of the SAR (Sentinel-1) and Optical (Sentinel-2) sensors in identifying and mapping burnt and unburnt scars are rising during a bushfire in southeastern Australia and Margalla Hills, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2019 and 2020. In order to evaluate the backscatter strength along with the Polarimetric decomposition portion, the C-band dual-polarized Sentinel-1 data was investigated to determine the magnitude of the burnt areas of forest cover in the study area. We could derive texture measurements from locally-based statistics using the Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and the backscatter coefficient. This was because of how well it picked up on differences in texture between burned and unburned scars. In contrast, Sentinel-2 optical remote sensing was employed to evaluate the extent of the burnt intensity levels for both regions utilizing the differential Normalized Burnt Ratio (dNBR). A Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Markov Random Field (MRF) classifier were utilized to investigate the study's context. The ideal smoothing parameter is the result of incorporating the image's spectral characteristics and spatial meaning. Sentinel-2 images were used as a foundation for both the test and training datasets, which were built from images of both unburned and burned areas broken down pixel by pixel. In both types, including spectral sensitivity and sensitivity of Polarimetric for the two groups identified after classification, the experimental findings showed a clear association between them. The algorithm's efficiency was evaluated using the kappa coefficient and F-score calculation. Except for Sentinel-1 data in Pakistan, all fire areas have more than 0.80 accuracies. The highest precision of both Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 was also provided by the performance of users' and producers' accuracy. The entropy alpha decomposition helped define the target given by the H-a plane based on its physical properties. After the burn, the entropy and alpha values diminished and formed a pattern. However, the findings in this field validate the effectiveness of SAR sensors data and optical satellite in forest applications. The related sensitivity is highly dependent on the composition of the landscape, the geographical nature of the study area, and the severity of the burn.

Satellite remote sensing is widely being used by the researchers and geospatial scientists due to its free data access for land observation and agricultural activities monitoring. The world is suffering from food shortages due to the dramatic increase in population and climate change. Various crop genotypes can survive in harsh climatic conditions and give more production with less disease infection. Remote sensing can play an essential role in crop genotype identification using computer vision. In many studies, different objects, crops, and land cover classification is done successfully, while crop genotypes classification is still a gray area. Despite the importance of genotype identification for production planning, a significant method has yet to be developed to detect the genotypes varieties of crop yield using multispectral radiometer data. In this study, three genotypes of wheat crop (Aas-‘2011’, ‘Miraj-‘08’, and ‘Punjnad-1) fields are prepared for the investigation of multispectral radio meter band properties. Temporal data (every 15 days from the height of 10 feet covering 5 feet in the circle in one scan) is collected using an efficient multispectral Radio Meter (MSR5 five bands). Two hundred yield samples of each wheat genotype are acquired and manually labeled accordingly for the training of supervised machine learning models. To find the strength of features (five bands), Principle Component Analysis (PCA), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and Nonlinear Discernment Analysis (NDA) are performed besides the machine learning models of the Extra Tree Classifier (ETC), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree (DT), Logistic Regression (LR), k Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with detailed of configuration settings. ANN and random forest algorithm have achieved approximately maximum accuracy of 97% and 96% on the test dataset. It is recommended that digital policymakers from the agriculture department can use ANN and RF to identify the different genotypes at farmer's fields and research centers. These findings can be used for precision identification and management of the crop specific genotypes for optimized resource use efficiency.

Drought and salinity stress severely inhibits the growth and productivity of crop plants by limiting their physiological processes. Silicon (Si) supplementation is considerd as one of the promising approaches to alleviate abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity. In the present study, a field experiment was conducted over two successive growth seasons (2019-20) to investigate the effect of foliar application of Si at two concentrations (1 and 2 kg Si ha -1 ) on the growth, yield and physiological parameters of three maize cultivars (ES81, ES83, and ES90) under three levels of irrigation salinity) [1000 (WS 1 ), 2000 (WS 2 ) and 3000 (WS 3 ) mg L -1 NaCl]. In this study, A trickle irrigation system was used. Si application significantly mitigated the harsh effects of salinity on growth and yield components of maize, which increased at all concentrations of Si. In irrigation with S3 salinity treatment, grain yield was decreased by 32.53%, however, this reduction was alleviated (36.19%) with the exogenous foliar application of Si at 2 kg Si ha -1 . At salinity levels, Si application significantly increased maize grain yield (t ha -1 ) to its maximum level under WS of 1000 mg L -1 , and its minimum level (Add value) under WS of 3000 mg L -1 . Accordingly, the highest grain yield increased under Si application of 2 kg Si ha -1 , regardless of salinity level and the cultivar ES81 achieved the highest level of tolerance against water salinity treatments. In conclusion, Application of Si at 2 kg Si ha -1 as foliar treatment worked best as a supplement for alleviating the adverse impacts of irrigation water salinity on the growth, physiological and yield parameters of maize.

Bacterial spot, caused by a group of Xanthomonads ( Xanthomonas spp.), is a devastating disease. It can adversely affect the Capsicum annum productivity. Scientists are working on the role of antioxidants to meet this challenge. However, research is lacking on the role of antioxidant enzymes and their isoforms in the non-compatible pathogen and host plant interaction and resistance mechanisms in capsicum varieties. The present study was conducted to ascertain the defensive role of antioxidant enzymes and their isoforms in chilli varieties Hybrid, Desi, Serrano, Padron, and Shehzadi against bacterial spot disease-induced Xanthomonas sp. The seedlings were inoculated with bacterial pathogen @ 10 7  CFU/mL, and samples were harvested after regular intervals of 24 h for 4 days followed by inoculation. Total plant proteins were extracted in phosphate buffer and quantified through Bradford assay. The crude protein extracts were analyzed through quantitative enzymatic assays in order to document activity levels of various antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase (POD), Catalase (CAT), Ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and Superoxide dismutase (SOD). Moreover, the profiles appearance of these enzymes and their isoforms were determined using native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) analysis. These enzymes exhibited maximum activity in Hybrid (HiR) cultivar followed by Desi (R), Serrano (S), Padron, and Shehzadi (HS). Both the number of isoforms and expression levels were higher in highly resistant cultivars compared to susceptible and highly susceptible cultivars. The induction of POD, CAT, and SOD occurs at the early stages of growth in resistant Capsicum cultivars. At the same time, APX seems to make the second line of antioxidant defense mechanisms. We found that modulating antioxidant enzymes and isoforms activity at the seedling stage was an important mechanism for mitigating plant growth inhibition in the resistant ones.

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is one of the most important industrial cash crops, contributing to the world sugar industry and biofuel production. It has been cultivated and improved from prehistoric times through natural selection and conventional breeding and, more recently, using the modern tools of genetic engineering and biotechnology. However, the heterogenicity, complex poly-aneuploid genome and susceptibility of sugarcane to different biotic and abiotic stresses represent impediments that require us to pay greater attention to the improvement of the sugarcane crop. Compared to traditional breeding, recent advances in breeding technologies (molecular marker-assisted breeding, sugarcane transformation, genome-editing and multiple omics technologies) can potentially improve sugarcane, especially against environmental stressors. This article will focus on efficient modern breeding technologies, which provide crucial clues for the engineering of sugarcane cultivars resistant to environmental stresses.

As sulphur is the most vital nutrient for the growth and yield of soybean, determining its optimum source and dose becomes very critical. Experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Farm, Faculty of Agriculture (Wadura), SKUAST-Kashmir, India to assess the effects of different sources of sulphur at varying levels on the performance of soybean during the Kharif seasons of 2021 and 2022. Two sulphur sources (gypsum and elemental sulphur) were evaluated at five levels (0, 30, 45, 60, and 75 kg sulphur per hectare) using factorial randomized block design with three replicates. The quadratic response function was estimated for each source’s optimum sulphur level. The findings showed that gypsum application consistently led to superior growth performance compared to elemental sulphur and higher seed yield of 18.53 and 18.71 q ha −1 and stover yield of 23.60 and 26.82 q ha −1 in the years 2021 and 2022 respectively. However, a significant difference was not observed between the two sources regarding AE, PE, and ANR. In the sulphur levels studied, employing 60 kg sulphur ha −1 demonstrated the most favourable outcomes for growth parameters followed by 75 kg sulphur ha −1 . However, with 60 kg sulphur ha −1 an increase of 4.17 and 2.75% for seed yield was shown, 3.97 and 3.08% for stover yield, and 2.62 and 2.19% for biological yield over 75 kg sulphur ha −1 in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Gypsum application resulted in higher S uptake than elemental sulphur in grain and stover highlighting its effectiveness as a sulphur source. S uptake in grain and stover increases with increasing sulphur levels, with the highest uptake observed at 60 kg S ha −1 being coequal to 75 kg S ha −1 . The quadratic response, therefore, concluded that for achieving the best performance of Soybean, the sulphur application should be optimized at 60 kg ha −1 . The need to assess and analyze the use of S @ 60 kg ha −1 using gypsum is critical in future as sulphur deficiency is becoming very common in Indian soils.

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectroscopy detects functional groups such as vibrational bands like N-H, O-H, C-H, C = O (ester, amine, ketone, aldehyde), C = C, C = N (vibrational modes of a tetrapyrrole ring) and simply C = N. The FTIR of these bands is fundamental to the investigation of the effect of biochar (BC) treatment on structural changes in the chlorophyll molecules of both plants that were tested. For this, dried leaf of Spinacia oleracia (spinach) and Trigonella corniculata (fenugreek) were selected for FTIR spectral study of chlorophyll associated functional groups. The study’s primary goal was to investigate the silent features of infrared (IR) spectra of dried leave samples. The data obtained from the current study also shows that leaf chlorophyll can mask or suppress other molecules’ FITR bands, including proteins. In addition, the C = O bands with Mg and the C9 ketonic group of chlorophyll are observed as peaks at1600 (0%BC), 1650 (3%BC) and 1640, or near to1700 (5%BC) in spinach samples. In fenugreek, additional effects are observed in the FTIR spectra of chlorophyll at the major groups of C = C, C = O and C9 of the ketonic groups, and the vibrational bands are more evident at C-H and N-H of the tetrapyrrole ring. It is concluded that C-N bands are more visible in 5% BC treated spinach and fenugreek than in all other treatments. These types of spectra are useful in detecting changes or visibility of functional groups, which are very helpful in supporting biochemical data such as an increase in protein can be detected by more visibility of C-N bands in FTIR spectra.