Abiotic stresses strongly affect plant growth, development, and quality of production; final crop yield can be really compromised if stress occurs in plants’ most sensitive phenological phases. Additionally, the increase of crop stress tolerance through genetic improvements requires long breeding programmes and different cultivation environments for crop performance validation. Biostimulants have been proposed as agronomic tools to counteract abiotic stress. Indeed, these products containing bioactive molecules have a beneficial effect on plants and improve their capability to face adverse environmental conditions, acting on primary or secondary metabolism. Many companies are investing in new biostimulant products development and in the identification of the most effective bioactive molecules contained in different kinds of extracts, able to elicit specific plant responses against abiotic stresses. Most of these compounds are unknown and their characterization in term of composition is almost impossible; therefore, they could be classified on the basis of their role in plants. Biostimulants have been generally applied to high-value crops like fruits and vegetables; thus, in this review, we examine and summarise literature on their use on vegetable crops, focusing on their application to counteract the most common environmental stresses.

Biostimulants Application in Horticultural Crops under Abiotic Stress Conditions

An overview of plant-based natural biostimulants for sustainable horticulture with a particular focus on moringa leaf extracts.

USDA-NIFAUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA) [2018-51181-28384, 1016465]; Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station

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Sensory and Consumer Studies in Plant Breeding: A Guidance for Edamame Development in the U.S.

High generation of food waste poses potentially serious pollution issues and high handling costs. However, food processing wastes rich in nutrients are attractive substrates for the bioconversion for valuable bioproducts such as enzymes, pigments, biofuels, oligosaccharides, growth-promoting substrates, polysaccharides, proteins, bioplastics, biosurfactants, and bioactive compounds. Microbiological and enzymatic methods have been described as a sustainable solution for obtaining of these bioproducts from food wastes. Progress has currently been made in optimizing processes at the laboratory level, but studies need to be based on the scale-up of bioprocesses. In view of the increasing interest in this topic, this short review aims to highlight recent studies on microbiological and enzymatic processes for converting food waste to useful bioproducts.

Recent advances on the microbiological and enzymatic processing for conversion of food wastes to valuable bioproducts

Lallemantia species response to drought stress and Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi application

The present study was aimed to investigate the plant biostimulant properties of sago bagasse (SB), an abundant by-product of sago industry. Sago bagasse hydrolysate (SBH) was produced by enzymatic hydrolysis and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), particle size analyzer and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Further, plant growth promoting ability of the SBH was confirmed by seed germination and greenhouse experiments. In seed germination experiment, SBH treatment registered improved seed germination traits and also accelerated protein (3.13%) and sugar (9.53%) content as compared to control. Moreover, SBH treatment significantly increase expression of carbon assimilating enzymes like malate dehydrogenase (5.0%), citrate synthase (11.47%) isocitrate dehydrogenase (8.08%). Similarly, nitrogen assimilating enzymes such as nitrate reductase (15.14%) and glutamate synthase (10.98%) were also higher in SBH the treated plants. In addition, qPCR analysis demonstrated the efficiency of SBH by up-regulating carbon and nitrogen assimilating genes responsible for plant growth. Thus, the present finding strongly suggest that SBH with plant growth promoting properties could be utilized for the agricultural productivity as a low-cost ecofriendly biofertilizer.

Enzymatically hydrolysed sago bagasse improves physiological, biochemical and molecular attributes of Solanum lycopersicum

Agricultural biotechnology is an area of agricultural science implementing various molecular techniques to improve the plant yield, quality, and disease resistance. In this chapter, some of the useful key concepts using genetic manipulation and modern plant breeding techniques are discussed to enhance the efficiency of plant breeding for plant productive mechanism and quality. The genetic engineering could be achieved through gene isolation, validation, and gene transfer techniques that are highlighted. The advanced plant breeding technique called molecular breeding represents a new technology that offers more advantages through molecular marker–assisted selection. These are the useful techniques for the selection of new desired characteristics for the nutritional improvement and stress resistance. The risk assessment and socioeconomic impacts pertaining to molecular breeding are generally discussed.

Agricultural Biotechnology: Engineering Plants for Improved Productivity and Quality

There are various text books, review and research articles dealing with various aspects of molecular biology of microorganisms. However, the reader usually gets disappointed in initiating an experiment due to complex protocols. In this concern, an assorted laboratory manual for molecular cloning not only designed to encourage the researchers and students, but also planned to give the scientific knowledge as well as the scientific aptitude. The proposed book on practical biotechnology comprises the practical procedures including aim, principle, material required, procedure and trouble shootings guides. This laboratory manual is presenting the protocols in a very simpler form for easy understanding of the undergraduates,postgraduates and researchers. Also the brief knowledge about principle and role of reagents used in the experiments will be useful for long run as well as it will be helpful to modify the protocol and reagents as per the their requirements and availability. Moreover, the trouble shooting guides will facilitate to avoid the negative result of the particular experiments.

Sathiya Kumar

Papers

Enzymatically hydrolysed sago bagasse improves physiological, biochemical and molecular attributes of Solanum lycopersicum

Agricultural Biotechnology: Engineering Plants for Improved Productivity and Quality

A laboratory manual for molecular cloning