Optimizing the quality of horticultural crop: insights into pre-harvest practices in controlled environment agriculture.

In modern agriculture, Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) stands out as a contemporary production mode that leverages precise control over environmental conditions such as nutrient, temperature, light, and other factors to achieve efficient and high-quality agricultural production. Numerous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of manipulating these environmental factors in the short period before harvest to enhance crop yield and quality in CEA. This comprehensive review aims to provide insight into various pre-harvest practices employed in CEA, including nutrient deprivation, nutrient supply, manipulation of the light environment, and the application of exogenous hormones, with the objective of improving yield and quality in horticultural crops. Additionally, we propose an intelligent pre-harvest management system to cultivate high-quality horticultural crops. This system integrates sensor technology, data analysis, and intelligent control, enabling the customization of specific pre-harvest strategies based on producers' requirements. The envisioned pre-harvest intelligent system holds the potential to enhance crop quality, increase yield, reduce resource wastage, and offer innovative ideas and technical support for the sustainable development of CEA.

Bibliometric analysis of horticultural crop secondary metabolism.

The goal of the study was to examine the trends in recent years by analyzing 750 studies, 3619 authors, and 166 sources with the statement "Horticultural Crop Secondary Metabolism" in the article title published within the scope of SCI-Expanded and "Scopus" journals in between the years 2010 and 2023. In this case, the Web of Science Core Collection database was scanned under the heading "Horticultural Crop Secondary Metabolism", and bibliometric information was gathered. In order to advance research on horticulture crops, current problems and recommend solutions within "Horticultural Crop Secondary Metabolism" were identified in this study. The number of publications, publication kinds, reference analyses, total citations per year, most common words, most often cited local authors, most pertinent affiliations, and most pertinent sources were all examined in relation to the research. According to the findings, Horticulture Research, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry: PPB, Scientific Reports, and BMC Genomics are the journals that publish the most papers on "Horticultural Crop Secondary Metabolism". The phrases "gene expression regulation plant", "transcriptome", and "plant proteins" are used most frequently. Because of this, the increase of bibliometrics study can be very beneficial by serving as a catalyst for horticulture crop research.

Foliar application of chitosan-putrescine nanoparticles (CTS-Put NPs) alleviates cadmium toxicity in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) cv. Sultana: modulation of antioxidant and photosynthetic status.

BACKGROUND: Cadmium (Cd) stress displays critical damage to the plant growth and health. Uptake and accumulation of Cd in plant tissues cause detrimental effects on crop productivity and ultimately impose threats to human beings. For this reason, a quite number of attempts have been made to buffer the adverse effects or to reduce the uptake of Cd. Of those strategies, the application of functionalized nanoparticles has lately attracted increasing attention. Former reports clearly noted that putrescine (Put) displayed promising effects on alleviating different stress conditions like Cd and similarly chitosan (CTS), as well as its nano form, demonstrated parallel properties in this regard besides acting as a carrier for many loads with different applications in the agriculture industry. Herein, we, for the first time, assayed the potential effects of nano-conjugate form of Put and CTS (CTS-Put NP) on grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) cv. Sultana suffering from Cd stress. We hypothesized that their nano conjugate combination (CTS-Put NPs) could potentially enhance Put proficiency, above all at lower doses under stress conditions via CTS as a carrier for Put. In this regard, Put (50 mg L- 1), CTS (0.5%), Put 50 mg L- 1 + CTS 0.5%" and CTS-Put NPs (0.1 and 0.5%) were applied on grapevines under Cd-stress conditions (0 and 10 mg kg- 1). The interactive effects of CTS-Put NP were investigated through a series of physiological and biochemical assays. RESULTS: The findings of present study clearly revealed that CTS-Put NPs as optimal treatments alleviated adverse effects of Cd-stress condition by enhancing chlorophyll (chl) a, b, carotenoids, Fv/Fm, Y(II), proline, total phenolic compounds, anthocyanins, antioxidant enzymatic activities and decreasing Y (NO), leaf and root Cd content, EL, MDA and H2O2. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, CTS-Put NPs could be applied as a stress protection treatment on plants under diverse heavy metal toxicity conditions to promote plant health, potentially highlighting new avenues for sustainable crop production in the agricultural sector under the threat of climate change.

Image-Based High-Throughput Phenotyping in Horticultural Crops.

Plant phenotyping is the primary task of any plant breeding program, and accurate measurement of plant traits is essential to select genotypes with better quality, high yield, and climate resilience. The majority of currently used phenotyping techniques are destructive and time-consuming. Recently, the development of various sensors and imaging platforms for rapid and efficient quantitative measurement of plant traits has become the mainstream approach in plant phenotyping studies. Here, we reviewed the trends of image-based high-throughput phenotyping methods applied to horticultural crops. High-throughput phenotyping is carried out using various types of imaging platforms developed for indoor or field conditions. We highlighted the applications of different imaging platforms in the horticulture sector with their advantages and limitations. Furthermore, the principles and applications of commonly used imaging techniques, visible light (RGB) imaging, thermal imaging, chlorophyll fluorescence, hyperspectral imaging, and tomographic imaging for high-throughput plant phenotyping, are discussed. High-throughput phenotyping has been widely used for phenotyping various horticultural traits, which can be morphological, physiological, biochemical, yield, biotic, and abiotic stress responses. Moreover, the ability of high-throughput phenotyping with the help of various optical sensors will lead to the discovery of new phenotypic traits which need to be explored in the future. We summarized the applications of image analysis for the quantitative evaluation of various traits with several examples of horticultural crops in the literature. Finally, we summarized the current trend of high-throughput phenotyping in horticultural crops and highlighted future perspectives.

Effects of host plant on the development and reproduction of Agrotis ipsilon (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on horticultural crops.

One of cosmopolitan pest, Agrotis ipsilon (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), causes serious economic damages in horticultural crops. This pest is difficult to manage and causes irreversible damage because its larvae stay in the ground at day and cut the plant stems at night. Thus, this study compared the host fitness of A. ipsilon among nine major horticultural crops in Korea. Among the nine crops, the population of A. ipsilon failed to complete its development in spinach, cucumber, melon, and kidney bean. The host effects on development and reproduction of A. ipsilon were further investigated in the remained five crops (i.e., napa cabbage, soybean, perilla, corn, and pepper). Host plants significantly (P < 0.05) affected the development-related factors (i.e., developmental time, survivorship, and weight) of A. ipsilon eggs, larvae, and pupae. They also affected the adult reproduction-related factors including preoviposition period, oviposition period and number, and longevity except for the prepupa stage. A positive relationship was found between biological factors (i.e., development- and reproduction-related factors). Among the nine crops in this study, napa cabbage showed the highest suitability for the A. ipsilon populations. These findings in this study would be helpful to understand the ecology and develop the management tactics of A. ipsilon in horticultural crops.

The Response of Iranian Melon (Cucumis melo L.) Accessions to 2,4-D Drift.

One of the most widely used auxinic herbicides in southern Iran's cereal crop fields is 2,4-D; however, the concurrent growing season of off-season melons in this region potentially leads to herbicide drift from cereal fields to the melon fields. To study the response of some Iranian wild melon accessions to three simulated drift rates of 2,4-D, including 112.1, 11.2, and 3.7 g ae ha-1, a field experiment was conducted during 2019 and 2020 growing seasons. It was found that by increasing the herbicide rate from 3.7 to 112.1 g ae ha-1, the level of visual injury increased in all accessions. However, significant variation in herbicide tolerance was observed among different melon accessions. The MEL-R1 was the most tolerant accession with only 20% injury, while MEL-D8 displayed very high injury rate (ca. 90%) as assessed at 6 weeks after treatment during 2019. The accession MEL-S3 was the most tolerant to 2,4-D drift rates (20% injury) at 6 weeks after treatment during 2020. There was no significant difference between the accessions MEL-R1 and MEL-S3 in terms of their response to 2,4-D treatment during both years of the study, as these accessions fully recovered from injury over 6 weeks after herbicide treatment. In addition, only these two accessions were able to produce yield after the application of 2,4-D at the highest rate tested (112.1 g ae ha-1). Therefore, the melon accessions MEL-R1 and MEL-S3 could be recommended for cultivation and even for breeding programs in order to develop 2,4-D-tolerant commercial cultivars in regions where this herbicide is commonly used in cereal crop production adjacent to the melon fields.

Effect of 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy acetic acid on tomato gene expression and rhizosphere bacterial communities under inoculation with phosphate-solubilizing bacteria.

The herbicide 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy acetic acid (MCPA) is widely used to control the spread of broad-leaved weeds in agricultural soils, though it remains unclear how tomato plants cope with the phytotoxic effects of MCPA at the molecular level. In this study, RNA-seq and Illumina MiSeq were used to sequence bacterial communities in tomato rhizosphere soils treated with MCPA and the phosphate-solubilizing bacterial strain N3. The results showed that MCPA induced abnormal growth of lateral roots in tomato seedlings and reduced uptake of the nutrients N, P, and K as well as the hormone (ABA and GA3) levels. Inoculation with strain N3 increased nutrient uptake by roots and increased levels of the hormones ABA, ZEA, and JA in tomato seedlings and also increased the abundance of the phyla Proteobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes in soil under MCPA treatment. GO functional groups in which differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are involved included DNA binding transcription factor activity, transcriptional regulator activity, enzyme inhibitor activity, and cell wall biogenesis. The highest numbers of DEGs are annotated to ribosome, photosynthesis, and carbon metabolism categories. Our findings provide valuable information for the application of strain N3, which is beneficial for reducing the toxic effect of MCPA on vegetable plants.

Data supporting midpoint-weighting life cycle assessment and energy forms of cumulative exergy demand for horticultural crops.

With an increasing demand of horticultural crops, it is critical to examine environmental damages and exergy impacts and evaluate their potential in producing sustainable products of agricultural systems. As such, environmental midpoints of five dominated horticultural products, namely, hazelnut, watermelon, tea, kiwifruit, and citrus, are scrutinized using life cycle assessment approach in Guilan province, Iran. Each crop is considered under a separate scenario and 10 tons of yield is determined as the functional unit. ReCiPe2016, as a new approach, is used for computation of 17 midpoints. Moreover, a weighting analysis is undertaken to find the share of each input in environmental damages with dimensionless notation. In the second part of this paper, cumulative exergy demand (CExD) is applied for evaluation of energy forms in each scenario. Data are presented under two sectors in the main article. The first part is midpoint results of each crop and the second part depicts energy forms of CExD with input rate in each category. Besides, the supplementary files contain raw material of each input, midpoint physical rate, share of each input to contribute midpoint, raw data of weighted damages and share of each input in total weighted damages.

RNAi-mediated resistance to whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) in genetically engineered lettuce (Lactuca sativa).

RNA interference (RNAi)-based transgenic technologies have evolved as potent biochemical tools for silencing specific genes of plant pathogens and pests. The approach has been demonstrated to be useful in silencing genes in insect species. Here, we report on the successful construction of RNAi-based plasmid containing an interfering cassette designed to generate dsRNAs that target a novel v-ATPase transcript in whitefly (Bemisia tabaci), an important agricultural pest in tropical and sub-tropical regions. The presence of the transgene was confirmed in T0 and T1 generations of transgenic lettuce lines, segregating in a Mendelian fashion. Seven lines were infested with whiteflies and monitored over a period of 32 days. Analysis of mortality showed that within five days of feeding, insects on transgenic plants showed a mortality rate of 83.8-98.1%. In addition, a reduced number of eggs (95 fold less) was observed in flies feeding on transgenic lettuce plants than insects on control lines. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR showed decreased expression level of endogenous v-ATPase gene in whiteflies feeding on transgenic plants. This technology is a foundation for the production of whitefly-resistant commercial crops, improving agricultural sustainability and food security, reducing the use of more environmentally aggressive methods of pest control.