Application of digital technologies for ensuring agricultural productivity.

Over the decades, agri-food security has become one of the most critical concerns in the world. Sustainable agri-food production technologies have been reliable in mitigating poverty caused by high demands for food. Recently, the applications of agri-food system technologies have been meaningfully changing the worldwide scene due to both external strengths and internal forces. Digital agriculture (DA) is a pioneering technology helping to meet the growing global demand for sustainable food production. Integrating different sub-branches of DA technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation and robotics, sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics into agriculture practices to reduce waste, optimize farming inputs and enhance crop production. This can help shift from tedious operations to continuously automated processes, resulting in increasing agricultural production by enabling the traceability of products and processes. The application of DA provides agri-food producers with accurate and real-time observations regarding different features influencing their productivity, such as plant health, soil quality, weather conditions, and pest and disease pressure. Analyzing the results achieved by DA can help agricultural producers and scholars make better decisions to increase yields, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and manage resources. The core focus of the current work is to clarify the benefits of some sub-branches of DA in increasing agricultural production efficiency, discuss the challenges of practical DA in the field, and highlight the future perspectives of DA. This review paper can open new directions to speed up the DA application on the farm and link traditional agriculture with modern farming technologies.

No evidence of age-related decline in propagated Acer pseudoplatanus and Fraxinus excelsior plants.

Although a substantial body of evidence suggests that large and old trees have reduced metabolic levels, the search for the causes behind this observation has proved elusive. The strong coupling between age and size, commonly encountered in the field, precludes the isolation of the potential causes. We used standard propagation techniques (grafting and air-layering) to decouple the effects of size from those of age in affecting leaf structure, biochemistry and physiology of two broadleaved trees, Acer pseudoplatanus (a diffuse-porous species) and Fraxinus excelsior (a ring-porous species). The first year after establishment of the propagated plants, some of the measurements suggested the presence of age-related declines in metabolism, while other measurements either did not show any difference or suggested variability across treatments not associated with either age or size. During the second year after establishment, only one of the measured properties (specific leaf area) continued to show some evidence of an age-mediated decline (although much reduced compared to the field), whereas, for some properties (particularly for F. excelsior), even the opposite trend of age-related increases was apparent. We concluded that (1) our plants suffered from grafting shock during year 1 and they gradually recovered during year 2; (2) the results over 2 years do not support the statement that age directly mediates ageing in either species but instead suggest that size directly mediates ageing processes; and (3) neither shoots nor roots of A. pseudoplatanus showed any evidence of senescence.

How Tree Decline Varies the Anatomical Features in Quercus brantii

Drought has serious effects on forests, especially semi-arid and arid forests, around the world. Zagros Forest in Iran has been severely affected by drought, which has led to the decline of the most common tree species, Persian oak (Quercus brantii). The objective of this study was to determine the effects of drought on the anatomical structure of Persian oak. Three healthy and three declined trees were sampled from each of two forest sites in Ilam Forest. Discs were cut at breast height, and three sapwood blocks were taken near the bark of each tree for sectioning. The anatomical characteristics measured included fiber length (FL), fiber wall thickness (FWT), number of axial parenchymal cells (NPC), ray number (RN), ray width (RW), and number of calcium oxalate crystals. Differences between healthy and declined trees were observed in the abundance of NPC and in RN, FL, and FWT, while no differences occurred in the number of oxalate crystals. The decline had uncertain effects on the FL of trees from sites A and B, which showed values of 700.5 and 837.3 µm compared with 592.7 and 919.6 µm in healthy trees. However, the decline resulted in an increase in the FWT of trees from sites A and B (9.33 and 11.53 µm) compared with healthy trees (5.23 and 9.56 µm). NPC, RN, and RW also increased in declined individuals from sites A and B (28.40 and 28.40 mm−1; 41.06 and 48.60 mm−1; 18.60 and 23.20 µm, respectively) compared with healthy trees (20.50 and 19.63 mm−2; 31.60 and 28.30 mm−2; 17.93 and 15.30 µm, respectively). Thus, drought caused measurable changes in the anatomical characteristics of declined trees compared with healthy trees.

Evaluation of Gigantochloa scortechinii and soil interaction in three study sites in Malaysia.

Understanding the productivity and physiological status of an organ (rhizome) function can lead into a sustainable production of sympodial bamboo. Nutrient elements and ash content (AC) are among the indicators to indicate the productivity and physiological status of an individual bamboo organ. The present study aimed to (a) determine the concentration of macronutrient elements of Gigantochloa scortechinii's rhizomes at four different ages collected at three study sites, and (b) investigate their relationship with AC. The destructive sampling was conducted on a set of four consecutive rhizomes using the selective random sampling method. Middle rhizome wall portion was used to determine the macronutrient elements and AC. All primary and secondary macronutrients were found to be different (p ≤ 0.01) at different study sites, except for the magnesium (Mg). The changes in nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and Mg from new sprout to mature rhizome showed a strongly positive relationship with AC. Thus, the N, P, K, Ca, and Mg concentrations decreased with rhizome age, resulting in a decrease in AC. The present study suggests that the suitable harvesting of individual bamboo culm and rhizome is at mature and older age while the remaining younger age bamboo is kept being grown so that the bamboo production is sustainable in terms of the physiological functions.

A Brief Overview of Potential Treatments for Viral Diseases Using Natural Plant Compounds: The Case of SARS-Cov.

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the more general global increase in viral diseases, has led researchers to look to the plant kingdom as a potential source for antiviral compounds. Since ancient times, herbal medicines have been extensively applied in the treatment and prevention of various infectious diseases in different traditional systems. The purpose of this review is to highlight the potential antiviral activity of plant compounds as effective and reliable agents against viral infections, especially by viruses from the coronavirus group. Various antiviral mechanisms shown by crude plant extracts and plant-derived bioactive compounds are discussed. The understanding of the action mechanisms of complex plant extract and isolated plant-derived compounds will help pave the way towards the combat of this life-threatening disease. Further, molecular docking studies, in silico analyses of extracted compounds, and future prospects are included. The in vitro production of antiviral chemical compounds from plants using molecular pharming is also considered. Notably, hairy root cultures represent a promising and sustainable way to obtain a range of biologically active compounds that may be applied in the development of novel antiviral agents.

Toward a Better Understanding of Metal Nanoparticles, a Novel Strategy from Eucalyptus Plants.

Nanotechnology is a promising tool that has opened the doors of improvement to the quality of human's lives through its potential in numerous technological aspects. Green chemistry of nanoscale materials (1-100 nm) is as an effective and sustainable strategy to manufacture homogeneous nanoparticles (NPs) with unique properties, thus making the synthesis of green NPs, especially metal nanoparticles (MNPs), the scientist's core theme. Researchers have tested different organisms to manufacture MNPs and the results of experiments confirmed that plants tend to be the ideal candidate amongst all entities and are suitable to synthesize a wide variety of MNPs. Natural and cultivated Eucalyptus forests are among woody plants used for landscape beautification and as forest products. The present review has been written to reflect the efficacious role of Eucalyptus in the synthesis of MNPs. To better understand this, the route of extracting MNPs from plants, in general, and Eucalyptus, in particular, are discussed. Furthermore, the crucial factors influencing the process of MNP synthesis from Eucalyptus as well as their characterization and recent applications are highlighted. Information gathered in this review is useful to build a basis for new prospective research ideas on how to exploit this woody species in the production of MNPs. Nevertheless, there is a necessity to feed the scientific field with further investigations on wider applications of Eucalyptus-derived MNPs.

Age- and size-related changes in physiological characteristics and chemical composition of Acer pseudoplatanus and Fraxinus excelsior trees.

Forest growth is an important factor both economically and ecologically, and it follows a predictable trend with age. Generally, growth accelerates as canopies develop in young forests and declines substantially soon after maximum leaf area is attained. The causes of this decline are multiple and may be linked to age- or size-related processes, or both. Our objective was to determine the relative effects of tree age and tree size on the physiological attributes of two broadleaf species. As age and size are normally coupled during growth, an approach based on grafting techniques to separate the effects of size from those of age was adopted. Genetically identical grafted seedlings were produced from scions taken from trees of four age classes, ranging from 4 to 162 years. We found that leaf-level net photosynthetic rate per unit of leaf mass and some other leaf structural and biochemical characteristics had decreased substantially with increasing size of the donor trees in the field, whereas other gas exchange parameters expressed on a leaf area basis did not. In contrast, these parameters remained almost constant in grafted seedlings, i.e., scions taken from donor trees with different meristematic ages show no age-related trend after they were grafted onto young rootstocks. In general, the results suggested that size-related limitations triggered the declines in photosynthate production and tree growth, whereas less evidence was found to support a role of meristematic age.