Polar-Net: Green fruit instance segmentation in complex orchard environment.

High-quality orchard picking has become a new trend, and achieving the picking of homogeneous fruit is a huge challenge for picking robots. Based on the premise of improving picking efficiency of homo-chromatic fruit in complex environments, this paper proposes a novel homo-chromatic fruit segmentation model under Polar-Net. The model uses Densely Connected Convolutional Networks (DenseNet) as the backbone network, Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) and Cross Feature Network (CFN) to achieve feature extraction and feature discrimination for images of different scales, regions of interest are drawn with the help of Region Proposal Network (RPN), and regression is performed between the features of different layers. In the result prediction part, polar coordinate modeling is performed based on the extracted image features, and the instance segmentation problem is reduced to predict the instance contour for instance center classification and dense distance regression. Experimental results demonstrate that the method effectively improves the segmentation accuracy of homo-chromatic objects and has the characteristics of simplicity and efficiency. The new method has improved the accuracy of segmentation of homo-chromatic objects for picking robots and also provides a reference for segmentation of other fruit and vegetables.

Cloning of insertion site flanking sequence and construction of transfer DNA insert mutant library in Stylosanthes colletotrichum.

Stylosanthes sp. is the most important forage legume in tropical areas worldwide. Stylosanthes anthracnose, which is mainly caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, is a globally severe disease in stylo production. Little progress has been made in anthracnose molecular pathogenesis research. In this study, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation was used to transform Stylosanthes colletotrichum strain CH008. The major factors of the genetic transformation system of S. colletotrichum were optimized as follows: A. tumefaciens' AGL-1 concentration (OD(600)), 0.8; concentration of Colletotrichum conidium, 1 × 10(6) conidia/mL; acetosyringone concentration, 100 mmol/L; induction time, 6 h; co-culture temperature, 25 °C; and co-culture time, 3 d. Thus, the transformation efficiency was increased to 300-400 transformants per 106 conidia. Based on the optimized system, a mutant library containing 4616 mutants was constructed, from which some mutants were randomly selected for analysis. Results show that the mutants were single copies that could be stably inherited. The growth rate, spore amount, spore germination rate, and appressorium formation rate in some mutants were significantly different from those in the wild-type strain. We then selected the most appropriate method for the preliminary screening and re-screening of each mutant's pathogenic defects. We selected 1230 transformants, and obtained 23 strains with pathogenic defects, namely, 18 strains with reduced pathogenicity and five strains with lost pathogenicity. Thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR was used to identify the transfer DNA (T-DNA) integration site in the mutant that was coded 2430, and a sequence of 476 bp was obtained. The flanking sequence of T-DNA was compared with the Colletotrichum genome by BLAST, and a sequence of 401 bp was found in Contig464 of the Colletotrichum genome. By predicting the function of the flanking sequence, we discovered that T-DNA insertion in the promoter region of the putative gene had 79% homology with the aspartate aminotransferase gene in Magnaporthe oryzae (XP_003719674.1).

AFLP analysis and zebra disease resistance identification of 40 sisal genotypes in China.

Sisal is the most important fiber crop in tropical and subtropical areas in China and the world. Zebra disease is a serious threat to the main cultivar Agave hybrid No.11648 (H.11648) worldwide. To select germplasm materials with zebra disease resistance for breeding, the fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique was used to make a cluster analysis of the genetic relationships of 40 sisal genotypes grown in China, and Phytophthora nicotianae was used to inoculate the 40 genotypes to identify their resistance to zebra disease. As a result, the similarity coefficient among 40 sisal genotypes was found to be 0.44-0.83 and the 40 genotypes show different levels of disease resistance. According to the AFLP analysis, the disease resistance and chromosomal ploidy, it can be reasoned that, A. attenuata var. marginata, Dong 109, Nan ya 1 and A. attenuata are suitable for hybridization with H.11648 to breed a new disease-resistant variety.