Free proline accumulation in rice plants under different leaf water potential

Seedlings of drought-tolerance rice varieties Han 501and Han A03,and the drought sensitive varietiesNanjing 11 and Yanjing 2 were raised in a paddyfield and transplanted into pots at the age of 8leaves.Water stress started at the tillering stage byholding water from 0 MPa of the soil water potentialin pots till the leaves showed seriously wilting.

Anther culture of Transgenic rice plants

Anther culture is widely used in rice improve-ment and genome research.It is useful forgene transformation to stabilize foreign gene(s)and estimate the integrated copy number.We used two transgenic plants JB-3 andJB-4 as donors for anther culture.Their originwas a japonica cultivar Jingyin 119,whose im-mature embryos were transformed by particlebombardment with plasmid pCB1(a cecropin B

Father of Hybrid Rice Plants Corn

New joint venture strengthens China’s position against international seed companies Yuan Longping Hi-Tech Agriculture Co.Ltd.(Longping Hi-Tech),named after the father of hybrid rice in China,announced on February 10 the establishment of a joint venture(JV) with a subsidiary of Vilmorin & Cie.

Imidacloprid-induced transference effect on some elements in rice plants and the brown planthopper Nilaparvata lugens （Hemiptera： Delphacidae）

The widespread use ofimidacloprid against insect pests has not only increased the rate of the development of target pest resistance but has also resulted in various negative effects on rice plants and Nilaparvata lugens resurgence. However, the effect of imidacloprid on elements in rice plants and the transference of these element changes between rice and N. lugens are currently poorly understood. The present study investigated changes ofCu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Ca, K, Mg and Na contents in rice plants following imidacloprid foliar sprays in the adult female ofN./ugens that develops from nymphs that feed on treated plants and honeydew produced by females. The results indicated that imidacloprid foliar spray significantly increased Fe and K contents in leaf sheaths. Generally, Fe, Mn, K and Na contents in leaf blades were noticeably decreased, but Ca contents in leaf blades for ! 0 and 30 mg/kg imidacloprid treatments were significantly increased. The contents of most elements except K and Mg in the adult females and honeydew were significantly elevated. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that Fe, Mn and Na in leaf blades and Fe and Mn in leaf sheaths could be proportionally transferred to N. lugens. The relationship between most elements in adult female bodies and in the honeydew showed a positive correlation coefficient. There were significant differences in the contents of some elements in rice plants and N. lugens from different regions.

Towards Intelligent Detection and Classification of Rice Plant Diseases Based on Leaf Image Dataset

The detection of rice leaf disease is significant because,as an agricultural and rice exporter country,Pakistan needs to advance in production and lower the risk of diseases.In this rapid globalization era,information technology has increased.A sensing system is mandatory to detect rice diseases using Artificial Intelligence(AI).It is being adopted in all medical and plant sciences fields to access and measure the accuracy of results and detection while lowering the risk of diseases.Deep Neural Network(DNN)is a novel technique that will help detect disease present on a rice leave because DNN is also considered a state-of-the-art solution in image detection using sensing nodes.Further in this paper,the adoption of the mixed-method approach Deep Convolutional Neural Network(Deep CNN)has assisted the research in increasing the effectiveness of the proposed method.Deep CNN is used for image recognition and is a class of deep-learning neural networks.CNN is popular and mostly used in the field of image recognition.A dataset of images with three main leaf diseases is selected for training and testing the proposed model.After the image acquisition and preprocessing process,the Deep CNN model was trained to detect and classify three rice diseases(Brown spot,bacterial blight,and blast disease).The proposed model achieved 98.3%accuracy in comparison with similar state-of-the-art techniques.

An efficient culture procedure for micro-propagation of rice regeneration plants

In this paper,we describe briefly an efficientculture procedure for micro-propagation of riceregeneration plants.The procedure consists ofthe following steps: 1.Preparation of materials Calli wereinduced from mature seeds of an indica rice lineG67 by culturing the husked and disinfectedseeds on agar medium,consisting of Nbasalelements,3％ sucrose,1000mg/L proline,and 32mg/L 2,4-D.After one month＇s in- duction culture and 3 wk subculture,compactand nodular calli were picked out and trans- ferred into liquid medium for suspension cul-tures.The liquid medium contained the same

Molecular identification of plants regenerated from somatic hybridization between rice and apomictic Panicum

We attempted to introduce apomictic gene(s)into rice via somatic hybridization by usingapomictic Panicum maximum Jacq.as thedonor of apomictic gene(s).Protoplasts of rice derived from suspen-sion cells were inactivated with indoacetamide(IOA)and protoplasts of Panicum maximum

Spatio-Temporal Changes in the Rice Planting Area and Their Relationship to Climate Change in Northeast China: A Model-Based Analysis

Rice is one of the most important grain crops in Northeast China （NEC） and its cultivation is sensitive to climate change. This study aimed to explore the spatio-temporal changes in the NEC rice planting area over the period of 1980-2010 and to analyze their relationship to climate change. To do so, the CLUE-S （conversion of land use and its effects at small region extent） model was ifrst updated and used to simulate dynamic changes in the rice planting area in NEC to understand spatio-temporal change trends during three periods： 1980-1990, 1990-2000 and 2000-2010. The changing results in individual periods were then linked to climatic variables to investigate the climatic drivers of these changes. Results showed that the NEC rice planting area expanded quickly and increased by nearly 4.5 times during 1980-2010. The concentration of newly planted rice areas in NEC constantly moved northward and the changes were strongly dependent on latitude. This conifrmed that climate change, increases in temperature in particular, greatly inlfuenced the shift in the rice planting area. The shift in the north limit of the NEC rice planting area generally followed a 1＆#176;C isoline migration pattern, but with an obvious time-lag effect. These ifndings can help policy makers and crop producers take proper adaptation measures even when exposed to the global warming situation in NEC.

Rice plant growth and yield: foliar application of plasma activated water

Plasma activated water(PAW)was prepared for 10 min to be applied one tofive times as a foliar spray to rice plants,to investigate plant growth,yield and the concentrations of total soluble protein and sugar in the rice grains produced.The results reveal that(1)the plant height,stem diameter,dry weight,chlorophyll and total carotene concentrations were improved by∼15%,∼25%,∼24%,∼47%and∼45%,respectively,with respect to control,(2)defense mechanisms of the plants treated with PAW were improved,(3)concentrations of total soluble protein and sugar were enhanced in the rice grains of PAW treated plants and(4)yield was increased by∼14%.

An Optimal Classification Model for Rice Plant Disease Detection

Internet of Things(IoT)paves a new direction in the domain of smart farming and precision agriculture.Smart farming is an upgraded version of agriculture which is aimed at improving the cultivation practices and yield to a certain extent.In smart farming,IoT devices are linked among one another with new technologies to improve the agricultural practices.Smart farming makes use of IoT devices and contributes in effective decision making.Rice is the major food source in most of the countries.So,it becomes inevitable to detect rice plant diseases during early stages with the help of automated tools and IoT devices.The development and application of Deep Learning(DL)models in agriculture offers a way for early detection of rice diseases and increase the yield and profit.This study presents a new Convolutional Neural Network-based inception with ResNset v2 model and Optimal Weighted Extreme Learning Machine(CNNIR-OWELM)-based rice plant disease diagnosis and classification model in smart farming environment.The proposed CNNIR-OWELM method involves a set of IoT devices which capture the images of rice plants and transmit it to cloud server via internet.The CNNIROWELM method uses histogram segmentation technique to determine the affected regions in rice plant image.In addition,a DL-based inception with ResNet v2 model is engaged to extract the features.Besides,in OWELM,the Weighted Extreme Learning Machine(WELM),optimized by Flower Pollination Algorithm(FPA),is employed for classification purpose.The FPA is incorporated into WELM to determine the optimal parameters such as regularization coefficient C and kernelγ.The outcome of the presented model was validated against a benchmark image dataset and the results were compared with one another.The simulation results inferred that the presented model effectively diagnosed the disease with high sensitivity of 0.905,specificity of 0.961,and accuracy of 0.942.

Relationship Between Plant Type and Grain Quality of Japonica Hybrid Rice in Northern China

Plant type and grain quality are two major aspects in rice breeding. Using canonical correlation analysis and canonical redundancy analysis, the relationship between plant type traits and rice grain quality traits was studied with 100 crosses derived from 10 sterile lines × 10 restorer lines. There was a complex relationship between parts of the traits of the two aspects. The angle of the 2nd leaf from the top and single panicle weight played important roles in plant type system and amylose content and grain length in grain quality system. The angle of the 2nd leaf from the top, plant height and single panicle weight had a great effect on grain quality traits, and amylose content, brown rice rate and translucency were easily influenced by plant type traits. Selection index model indicated that japonica hybrid rice in Northern China with good quality was characterized by broad flag leaf and 2nd leaf from the top, narrow and short 3rd leaf from the top, low plant height, short culm, long and more panicles and low single panicle weight.

RDA- CNN: Enhanced Super Resolution Method for Rice Plant Disease Classification

In thefield of agriculture,the development of an early warning diagnostic system is essential for timely detection and accurate diagnosis of diseases in rice plants.This research focuses on identifying the plant diseases and detecting them promptly through the advancements in thefield of computer vision.The images obtained from in-field farms are typically with less visual information.However,there is a significant impact on the classification accuracy in the disease diagnosis due to the lack of high-resolution crop images.We propose a novel Reconstructed Disease Aware–Convolutional Neural Network(RDA-CNN),inspired by recent CNN architectures,that integrates image super resolution and classification into a single model for rice plant disease classification.This network takes low-resolution images of rice crops as input and employs the super resolution layers to transform low-resolution images to super-resolution images to recover appearance such as spots,rot,and lesion on different parts of the rice plants.Extensive experimental results indicated that the proposed RDA-CNN method performs well under diverse aspects generating visually pleasing images and outperforms better than other con-ventional Super Resolution(SR)methods.Furthermore,these super-resolution images are subsequently passed through deep classification layers for disease classi-fication.The results demonstrate that the RDA-CNN significantly boosts the clas-sification performance by nearly 4–6%compared with the baseline architectures.

Advanced Backcross QTL Analysis for the Whole Plant Growth Duration Salt Tolerance in Rice(Oryza sativa L.)

Salinity is a major factor limiting rice yield in coastal areas of Asia. To facilitate breeding salt tolerant rice varieties, the wholeplant growth duration salt tolerance（ST） was genetically dissected by phenotyping two sets of BC2F5 introgression lines（ILs） for four yield traits under severe natural salt stress and non-stress filed conditions using SSR markers and the methods of advanced backcross QTL（AB-QTL） analysis and selective introgression. Many QTLs affecting four yield traits under salt stress and nonstress conditions were identified, most（〉90%） of which were clustered in 13 genomic regions of the rice genome and involved in complex epistasis. Most QTLs affecting yield traits were differentially expressed under salt stress and non-stress conditions. Our results suggested that genetics complementarily provides an adequate explanation for the hidden genetic diversity for ST observed in both IL populations. Some promising Huanghuazhan（HHZ） ILs with favorable donor alleles at multiple QTLs and significantly improved yield traits under salt stress and non-stress conditions were identified, providing excellent materials and relevant genetic information for improving rice ST by marker-assisted selection（MAS） or genome selection.

Temperature and solar radiation utilization of rice for yield formation with different mechanized planting methods in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River,China

Several studies have demonstrated the effect of planting methods on rice yield, but information on the climate resources is limited. This study aims to reveal the effects of planting methods on climate resources associated with rice yield in a rice-wheat rotation system in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China. Field experiments were conducted in 2014 and 2015 with two japonica, two indica hybrid, and two japonica-indica hybrid varieties grown under three mechanized planting methods： carpet seedling of mechanical transplanting（CT）, mechanical direct seeding（DS）, and pot-hole seedling of mechanical transplanting（PT）. The rice yield and total dry matter under PT were greater than those under CT and DS methods. Besides, the entire growth duration and daily production showed significant positive relations with rice yield. Compared with CT and DS, the effective accumulated temperature and cumulative solar radiation of rice under PT were higher in phenological phases. In addition, the dry matter/effective accumulated temperature and solar energy utilization of rice under CT and DS were higher during vegetative phase and lower during reproductive and grain filling phases in contrast to PT. The mean daily temperature and mean daily solar radiation in the entire growth duration showed significant positive correlation with rice yield, total dry matter, and harvest index. This study demonstrated that when the mean daily temperature is 〈25.1°C in vegetative phase and 〉20.1°C in grain filling phase, rice yield could be increased by selecting mechanized planting methods. Most varieties under PT method exhibited high yield and climate resources use efficiency compared with CT and DS. In conclusion, the PT method could be a better cultivation measure for high rice yield, accompanied with high temperature and solar radiation use efficiency in a rice-wheat rotation system in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China.

Comparison of Effect of Brassinosteroid and Gibberellin Biosynthesis Inhibitors on Growth of Rice Seedlings

Brassinosteroid（BR） and gibberellin（GA） are two predominant plant hormones that regulate plant cell elongation. Mutants disrupt the biosynthesis of these hormones and display different degrees of dwarf phenotypes in rice. Although the role of each plant hormone in promoting the longitudinal growth of plants has been extensively studied using genetic methods, their relationship is still poorly understood. In this study, we used two specific inhibitors targeting BR and GA biosynthesis to investigate the roles of BR and GA in growth of rice seedlings. Yucaizol, a specific inhibitor of BR biosynthesis, and Trinexapac-ethyl, a commercially available inhibitor of GA biosynthesis, were used. The effect of Yucaizol on rice seedlings indicated that Yucaizol significantly retarded stem elongation. The IC_（50） value was found to be approximately 0.8 μmol/L. Yucaizol also induced small leaf angle phenocopy in rice seedlings, similarly to BR-deficient rice, while Trinexapac-ethyl did not. When Yucaizol combined with Trinexapac-ethyl was applied to the rice plants, the mixture of these two inhibitors retarded stem elongation of rice at lower doses. Our results suggest that the use of a BR biosynthesis inhibitor combined with a GA biosynthesis inhibitor may be useful in the development of new technologies for controlling rice plant height.

Research progress on the divergence and genetic basis of agronomic traits in xian and geng rice

The Asian cultivated rice Oryza sativa can be classified into two major subspecies:japonica/geng and indica/xian.There are large physiological and phenotypic differences between the two subspecies,with each having its advantages and disadvantages.Understanding the differences between xian and geng could provide a foundation for cultivar improvement based on hybridization between subspecies in order to synthesize favorable traits.We review the origin and domestication of xian and geng rice,compare their differences in terms of physiological and phenotypical traits,and describe the molecular mechanism differences between the subspecies.Based on this knowledge,we propose an ideal plant architecture of geng rice varieties for northern regions.

THE INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZERS, NaHCO_3,SOIL TYPE ON CHEMISTRY OF FLOODED SOILS AND RICE PLANT GROWTH

This research was conducted to study the influence of NaHCO3and fertilizer treatments on flooded soils tothe chemistry of soil and rice plant growth.The experiment was done in a greenhouse using a split-split plot design ofthree factors: two types of soil,three doses of fertilizers and three levels of NaHCO3with three replications.The firstfactor was two kind of soils Fluvaquent and Calciquert,the factor was without nutrient(blank),macro nutrients,andcompletely nutrients(second macro and micro nutrients),and the third factor was 0 mg/kg,200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kgof NaHCO3or equivalent with 0 mg,1 200 mg and 2 400 mg NaHCO3per pot.Each experimental unit used a pot of 10L capacity and filled with soil mud equivalent with 6 kg of dried soil.After each of treatment combination mixed into themud soil,two plants of IR-32 variety were grown,and flooded at5 cm high accordingly with growth period.Parametersobserved were the growth of tillers,electrical conductivity(E.C.) and pH.The experiment results showed that the treatment of NaHCO3increased the soluble salt content(E.C.) and soilacidity(pH) during flooding on Calciquerts and Fluvaquents.The content of soluble salt decreased to 2.0 mmhos/cm,while pHon Calciquert decreased towards the neutral pH.Anyhowthe pHon Fluvaquents increased approach to neutral.The treatments of NaHCO3inhibited the tiller growth,either macro fertilizer and completely fertilizer increased thetillers,but did not improve the negative effect of alkalinity due to of NaHCOtreatment.