Unlocking the potential of biochar in the remediation of soils contaminated with heavy metals for sustainable agriculture.

Agricultural soils contaminated with heavy metals (HMs) impose a threat to the environmental and to human health. Amendment with biochar could be an eco-friendly and cost-effective option to decrease HMs in contaminated soil. This paper reviews the application of biochar as a soil amendment to immobilise HMs in contaminated soil. We discuss the technologies of its preparation, their specific properties, and effect on the bioavailability of HMs. Biochar stabilises HMs in contaminated soil, enhance the overall quality of the contaminated soil, and significantly reduce HM uptake by plants, making it an option in soil remediation for HM contamination. Biochar enhances the physical (e.g. bulk density, soil structure, water holding capacity), chemical (e.g. cation exchange capacity, pH, nutrient availability, ion exchange, complexes), and biological properties (e.g. microbial abundance, enzymatic activities) of contaminated soil. Biochar also enhances soil fertility, improves plant growth, and reduces the plant availability of HMs. Various field studies have shown that biochar application reduces the bioavailability of HMs from contaminated soil while increasing crop yield. The review highlights the positive effects of biochar by reducing HM bioavailability in contaminated soils. Future work is recommended to ensure that biochars offer a safe and sustainable solution to remediate soils contaminated with HMs.

Inquiring the inter-relationships amongst grain-filling, grain-yield, and grain-quality of Japonica rice at high latitudes of China.

The widespread impacts of projected global and regional climate change on rice yield have been investigated by different indirect approaches utilizing various simulation models. However, direct approaches to assess the impacts of climatic variabilities on rice growth and development may provide more reliable evidence to evaluate the effects of climate change on rice productivity. Climate change has substantially impacted rice production in the mid-high latitudes of China, especially in Northeast China (NEC). Climatic variabilities occurring in NEC since the 1970s have resulted in an obvious warming trend, which made this region one of the three major rice-growing regions in China. However, the projections of future climate change have indicated the likelihood of more abrupt and irregular climatic changes, posing threats to rice sustainability in this region. Hence, understanding the self-adaptability and identifying adjustive measures to climate variability in high latitudes has practical significance for establishing a sustainable rice system to sustain future food security in China. A well-managed field study under randomized complete block design (RCBD) was conducted in 2017 and 2018 at two study sites in Harbin and Qiqihar, located in Heilongjiang province in NEC. Four different cultivars were evaluated: Longdao-18, Longdao-21 (longer growth duration), Longjing-21, and Suijing-18 (shorter growth duration) to assess the inter-relationships among grain-filling parameters, grain yield and yield components, and grain quality attributes. To better compare the adaptability mechanisms between grain-filling and yield components, the filling phase was divided into three sub-phases (start, middle, and late). The current study evaluated the formation and accumulation of the assimilates in superior and inferior grains during grain-filling, mainly in the middle sub-phase, which accounted for 59.60% of the yield. The grain yields for Suijing-18, Longjing-21, Longdao-21, and Longdao-18 were 8.02%, 12.78%, 17.19%, and 20.53% higher in Harbin than those in Qiqihar, respectively in 2017, with a similar trend observed in 2018. At Harbin, a higher number of productive tillers was noticed in Suijing-18, with averages of 17 and 15 in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The grain-filling parameters of yield analysis showed that the filling duration in Harbin was conducive to increased yield but the low dry weight of inferior grains was a main factor limiting the yield in Qiqihar. The average protein content values in Harbin were significantly higher (8.54% and 9.13%) than those in Qiqihar (8.34% and 9.14%) in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The amylose content was significantly higher in Harbin (20.03% and 22.27%) than those in Qiqihar (14.44% and 14.67%) in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The chalkiness percentage was higher in Qiqihar, indicating that Harbin produced good quality rice. This study provides more direct evidence of the relative changes in rice grain yield due to changes in grain-filling associated with relative changes in environmental components. These self-adaptability mechanisms to climatic variability and the inter-relationships between grain-filling and grain yield underscore the urgent to investigate and explore measures to improve Japonica rice sustainability, with better adaptation to increasing climatic variabilities. These findings may also be a reference for other global rice regions at high latitudes in addressing the impacts of climate change on future rice sustainability.

Uncovering the Research Gaps to Alleviate the Negative Impacts of Climate Change on Food Security: A Review.

Climatic variability has been acquiring an extensive consideration due to its widespread ability to impact food production and livelihoods. Climate change has the potential to intersperse global approaches in alleviating hunger and undernutrition. It is hypothesized that climate shifts bring substantial negative impacts on food production systems, thereby intimidating food security. Vast developments have been made addressing the global climate change, undernourishment, and hunger for the last few decades, partly due to the increase in food productivity through augmented agricultural managements. However, the growing population has increased the demand for food, putting pressure on food systems. Moreover, the potential climate change impacts are still unclear more obviously at the regional scales. Climate change is expected to boost food insecurity challenges in areas already vulnerable to climate change. Human-induced climate change is expected to impact food quality, quantity, and potentiality to dispense it equitably. Global capabilities to ascertain the food security and nutritional reasonableness facing expeditious shifts in biophysical conditions are likely to be the main factors determining the level of global disease incidence. It can be apprehended that all food security components (mainly food access and utilization) likely be under indirect effect via pledged impacts on ménage, incomes, and damages to health. The corroboration supports the dire need for huge focused investments in mitigation and adaptation measures to have sustainable, climate-smart, eco-friendly, and climate stress resilient food production systems. In this paper, we discussed the foremost pathways of how climate change impacts our food production systems as well as the social, and economic factors that in the mastery of unbiased food distribution. Likewise, we analyze the research gaps and biases about climate change and food security. Climate change is often responsible for food insecurity issues, not focusing on the fact that food production systems have magnified the climate change process. Provided the critical threats to food security, the focus needs to be shifted to an implementation oriented-agenda to potentially cope with current challenges. Therefore, this review seeks to have a more unprejudiced view and thus interpret the fusion association between climate change and food security by imperatively scrutinizing all factors.

The characterization of wheat genotypes for salinity tolerance using morpho-physiological indices under hydroponic conditions.

Salinity affects plant growth, development, yield, and is a big challenge for wheat growth across the globe. Possible feasible solution is creation of salt-tolerant material, genetic variation is a criterion to developing genetically superior individuals. To assess the genetic variation for salt tolerance, nationally and internationally-derived 81 wheat genotypes were selected and evaluated in 0- and 150-mM salt in nutritional culture at seedling stage. Results indicate that salinity levels reveal significant (p ≤ 0.01) differences for fresh root weight (RW), shoot length (SL), fresh shoot weight (SW), total plant length (TL), total fresh weight (TW), root/shoot weight ratio (RSWR), root/shoot length ratio (RSLR), and relative growth rate for weight (RGR-Wt). While, there was no difference for root length (RL). Hierarchical Clustering and Pairwise correlation analysis showed TW, RGR-Wt, SL, SW, and RW were positively correlated among themselves, whereas RL had poor correlations with all the traits except TL and RSLR. Hence, selection of SL can improve the performance of other parameters. Based on PCA analysis, SW and RGR-Wt were the major discriminative components for wheat genotypes. Present study explained that shoot related parameters could be used as a selection criterion to categorize salt-tolerant genotypes. Outperforming genotypes 1104 and 1106 in saline conditions could be used as parents in creation of salt-tolerant wheat genotypes, and parameters such as SL, SW, TW, and RGR-Wt for early screening will be important for creating salt-tolerant and high yielding wheat genotypes.

Isolation, cloning and transgenic expression of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in Solanum lycopersicum L.

The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the most widespread viral infections of humans. HBV causes acute and chronic hepatitis. Chronic hepatitis leads to hepatocellular carcinoma, which is a significant cause of death. DNA-based immunization programs to control the spread of Hepatitis B in developing countries are costly and require special storage and transportation. The alternative way is to express Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in plants to develop oral vaccines. In this study, HBsAg gene was isolated, cloned, and then transformed in tomato plants. The transgenic tomato plants were confirmed through RT-qPCR. HBsAg expression was analysed in mature green and red stages of tomato fruit through quantitative real-time PCR. It was observed that expression of HBsAg was high in matured red tomato as compared to mature green. The present study is the first step to developing Solanum lycopersicum as an edible vaccine production system in this world region.