Boron effectuation on barley (Hordeum vulgare) growth, metabolomics, protein profile, and antioxidant system during seedling growth stage

Aims: The objectives of this study were to evaluate maize genotypes of different maturity groups for seedling and grain filling water use efficiency and determine relationship that exist between the water use efficiency traits and yield of different maize maturity groups.
 Study Design: Sixteen maize genotypes were planted in Randomized Complete Block Design in three replicates for emergence, vegetative, water use efficiency traits at the seedling and grain-filling growth stages and yield.
 Place and Duration of Study: The sixteen maize genotypes of different maturity groups were evaluated during the early and late cropping seasons of 2016 at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching and Research Farm, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
 Methodology: Data collected were subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), correlation analysis among water use efficiency traits and yield for each of the maturity groups.
 Results: There was no significant difference among the genotypes within each maturity groups for water use efficiency at seedling and grain filling growth stages.
 The late maturity group of maize used more water at the seedling growth stage than the other maturity groups in the early season of this study while in the late season, the early and extra-early maturity groups used more water than the other maturity groups. Increase in emergence percentage, reduction in speed of germination, and minimal days to complete germination increased water use efficiency at the seedling stage only during the early cropping season.
 Efficiency of water usage at the seedling growth stage was more among the late and intermediate maturing groups than the extra-early and early maturing groups in the early season while in the late season, the extra-early and early maturing groups used water more efficiently than the late and Intermediate maturing groups
 Conclusion: Maturity group played a significant role in the expression and manifestation of water use efficiency traits under different environmental conditions.

Accurately identifying the growth stages of rice seedlings is crucial for managing factory nurseries and ensuring consistent seedling quality. This study introduces PGL-ShuffleNetV2, a lightweight and advanced model designed for efficient and accurate recognition of rice seedling growth stages. The proposed model achieves a streamlined architecture by: 1). removing the second 1 × 1 convolution in the downsampling block’s right branch. 2) Reducing the repetition of basic units for improved efficiency. Additionally, the GELU activation function replaces ReLU to enhance nonlinear representation capabilities, and a parallel weighted hybrid attention module (PWMAM) is incorporated to improve feature extraction. Experimental results demonstrate that PGL-ShuffleNetV2 achieves a remarkable 98.80% recognition accuracy and a 98.82% F1 score, with a compact model size of just 0.84 MB. Its optimal balance between accuracy and parameter efficiency makes it highly suitable for deployment on resource-constrained devices, enabling effective monitoring and management of rice seedlings in factory nursery environments. Based on the advantages of this model, this study further applied it to rice seedlings under laser supplementary lighting conditions to investigate the impact of laser on the growth stages of seedlings, providing technical support for the application of laser technology in intelligent seedling cultivation.

Pot trial experiments were conducted with the aim of determining organic matter composition and the influence on the growth of spring barley of different types of composts. The plants were grown in 6 l vegetative pots on the experimental site of the LRCAF Agrochemical Research Laboratory. Compost with soil were mixed by the following volume – 10, 20, 30 and 40%. Spring barley was grown for two years – in 2015 and 2016. This experiment investigated green waste and food waste, sewage sludge and biogas production waste. The largest amounts of organic matter, organic and total carbon, and total nitrogen were found in the biogas production waste compost. The minimum contents of organic matter and other nutrients were estimated in the green waste compost. The following biometric measurements on spring barley were taken: plant height, 1 000 grain weight and grain yield. The best growth of barley was in the substrate with biogas production waste in 2015 – plant height 43.7–53.7 cm, 1 000 grain weight 45.6–49.2 g, grain yield per pot 19.1–23.0 g, and the minimum contents were in the green waste substrate. In 2016, the best results were obtained in the substrates with green and food waste compost. The nitrogen content was determined in spring barley grain and straw. In 2015, the total nitrogen content in plant grains and straw was increased by the substrate of biogas production waste, and in 2016 it was increased by the substrate of food waste, sewage sludge and biogas production waste.

Two nitrate reductase (NR)‐deficient mutants, Az 12 and Az 13, and the ‘Steptoe’ control were grown in the field to determine the effect of NR upon growth, N utilization, yield, and grain protein in barley (Hordeum vulgate L.). Although seasonal in vitro and in vivo NR activities in the mutants were less than 10% of the control, total vegetative dry weight, total reduced N, and percent grain protein in the mutants and Steptoe were not significantly different at maturity. Grain yields of both mutants, however, were significantly lower than the control. A greenhouse study indicated that Az 12 could utilize nitrate as a nitrogen source, although not as effectively as the control. These results indicate that harley mutants with very low levels of apparent NR can utilize nitrate as a N source and that NR activity is not closely associated with percent grain protein. At present it is not known whether the low level of NR in the mutants is sufficient to account for the nitrate reduced or whether there is another mechanism for reducing nitrate in plants that is not detected by conventional NR assay techniques.

Evaluation of resistance to Pyrenophora teres f. maculata in barley breeding populations via association mapping revealed a complex genetic architecture comprising a mixture of major and minor effect genes. In the search for stable resistance to spot form of net blotch (Pyrenophora teres f. maculata, SFNB), association mapping was conducted on four independent barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) breeding populations comprising a total of 898 unique elite breeding lines from the Northern Region Barley Breeding Program in Australia for discovery of quantitative trait loci (QTL) influencing resistance at seedling and adult plant growth stages. A total of 29 significant QTL were validated across multiple breeding populations, with 22 conferring resistance at both seedling and adult plant growth stages. The remaining 7 QTL conferred resistance at either seedling (2 QTL) or adult plant (5 QTL) growth stages only. These 29 QTL represented 24 unique genomic regions, of which five were found to co-locate with previously identified QTL for SFNB. The results indicated that SFNB resistance is controlled by a large number of QTL varying in effect size with large effects QTL on chromosome 7H. A large proportion of the QTL acted in the same direction for both seedling and adult responses, suggesting that phenotypic selection for SFNB resistance performed at either growth stage could achieve adequate levels of resistance. However, the accumulation of specific resistance alleles on several chromosomes must be considered in molecular breeding selection strategies.

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), an important food and fodder crop, is potentially tolerant to salinity. To identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) controlling salt tolerance, the population of 162 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from F8 generation of Arigashar (an extremely salt tolerant Iranian six-rowed barley landrace) crossed with Igri (a salt semi-sensitive two-rowed cultivar) were evaluated. The growth of shoots, roots, and coleoptiles, and root numbers are four important growth characteristics severely affected by salt stress at seedling growth stages. A linkage map was constructed using 106 AFLP and SSR markers spanning six barley chromosomes including 2(2H), 3(3H), 4(4H), 7(5H), 6(6H), and 1(7H). Out of totally 26 detected QTLs, 17 QTLs were found effective for salt tolerance at 250 and 350 mM NaCl which localized on chromosomes 2H, 3H, 4H, 6H, 7H, and linkage group L1, whereas considering equivalent overlapped QTLs with a pleiotropic effect led to detection of totally 9 distinctive QTLs (QClgH2.1b, QSdgH2.1b, QSlgH2.1c, QNrgH2.1b, QTwgH2.2c, QSdg3Hb, QSlg4Hb1, QClg4Hb, and QSlg6Hc2) effective for salinity tolerance. 2(2H), 4(4H), and 6(6H) were major chromosomes harboring QTLs which effectively controlled salt tolerance in the Igri×Arigashar population. An interesting QTL, QTwg4Hc, was localized on chromosome 4H in the XE41-M61 marker distance that controls several traits including shoot and coleoptile lengths and shoot fresh mass under salt stress. A dense marker cluster around a resistance gene could offer a starting point for positional cloning.

Salinity is a critical challenge facing productivity of barley around the world, necessitating the development of salinity tolerant varieties. Screening genotypes of two barley species during germination and seedling growth stages was conducted to identify genotypes with superior performance under saline stress conditions. Five genotypes of domestic barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and six of wild barley (H. bulbosum) were used in this study. Genotypes were germinated in solutions of 0, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0% NaCl (0, 171, 257, and 342 mM NaCl). Shoot and root length were recorded 10 d after germination. Upon reaching the three‐leaf stage, seedlings were irrigated with 500 mM NaCl solution for 3 wk to evaluate salt tolerance using the growth index. The analysis of variance showed there was a high genetic variation among genotypes. Only genotypes PI220054, PI227242, and PI420909 of wild barley species germinated at the 2% NaCl salinity level. All domestic barley genotypes failed to germinate at 2% NaCl salinity and showed reduction of root and shoot length greater than wild barley genotypes under saline conditions. Mean root and shoot lengths decreased as the level of NaCl increased for all genotypes. This condition was more intense in domestic than wild barley genotypes. Seedling screening showed PI268243 had the greatest growth index compared with the other genotypes. The PI227242 genotype had the greatest growth index among wild barley genotypes. Regression analysis indicated that there was no relationship between salt tolerance at germination and seedling growth stages.

Calcium (Ca++) is known to stimulate potassium (K+) and ammonium (NH+4) absorption rates by plants. Increased NH+4 absorption stimulates plant growth and development. However, little is known about the effect of Ca++ with NH+4 on small‐grain crops. The objective of this research was to examine the effect of Ca++/NH+4 on growth and development of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), oat (Avena sativa L.), and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Treatments consisted of growing small grains using complete nutrient solutions with a molar ratio of 0, 0.30, 0.60, 1.20, and 1.80 Ca++/NH+4, and a check with NO‐3‐N. Plants were grown in the greenhouse to seedling (30 d), intermediate (elongating, 60 d), and mature (booting, 90 d) growth stages on a NO‐3 nutrient solution and then treated for 7 d with the Ca++/NH+4 fertilizer solutions. One set of plants was fertilized solely with the Ca++/NH+4 solution and another with a NO‐3 fertilizer solution. The addition of Ca++ with NH+4 to small grains resulted in increased N absorption, grain yield, tiller formation, dry matter, and grain weight per unit of plant dry matter, but the extent varied with the crop. Calcium apparently caused a redirection of foliar metabolites to grains. Short‐term treatments with Ca++/NH+4 at different growth stages showed the least results at the seedling stage, whereas maximum results were obtained at the intermediate growth stage (initiation of jointing) and good stimulation of plant growth and tillering at the mature (booting) stage. Calcium increased NH+4 absorption, leading to increased tillering, increased weight per head of grain produced, and consequently higher grain yields. Calcium added with NH+4‐N increases plant N use efficiency by more rapid absorption, greater rates of tillering, greater metabolite deposition in seeds, and possibly increases in photosynthesis.

Four different grass swards were grown on a sandy loam for 3 years, and then incorporated into the soil through rotovation in the spring. The treatments differed in the proportion of white clover ( Trifolium repens) and ryegrass (Lolium perenne), both through seeding in pure stand or mixture and through N fertilization (0 or 150 kg N ha 1 yr 1 ) for the white clover-ryegrass mixtures. A control treatment (fallow), differing from the others in that the grass sward had been incorporated one year earlier, was also included. A spring barley (Hordeum vulgarecv. texane) crop was established in half of the experimental site and the other half was left unplanted. Carbon and nitrogen mineralization from the residues was measured as soil surface CO2 flux and soil inorganic N accumulation in unplanted plots under non-leaching conditions. Residue decomposition processes, barley dry matter production and N uptake showed clear differences between the five treatments, due especially to the differences in amount of residue N incorporated. Incorporated residue N was highest in the white clover in pure stand (C150), and lowest in the ryegrass in pure stand (G150) treatments, with non-fertilized and fertilized white clover-ryegrass residues (CG0 and CG150, respectively) intermediate and similar in both amount and quality of the residues. However, in spite of this similarity the treatments differed greatly with respect to both C and N mineralization, indicating that other factors than the measured quality parameters (i.e. C, N, C-to-N ratio, water solubles, cellulose, lignin) influenced their decomposition pattern. The highest crop dry matter production and N uptake was measured in the C150 treatment, followed by the CG0 and the fallow treatment, with considerable lower yields in the CG150 and G150 treatments. There was a significantly higher inorganic N content, 60 kg N ha 1 , in the planted C150 and CG0 treatments during the seedling and tillering barley growth stages, with no significant difference between treatments during the later barley growth stages. Apparent net N mineralization measured in the unplanted CG0 treatment exceeded that of the C150, whereas the other treatments ranked similar to the barley N uptake rates. This indicated that availability of soil inorganic N at the early tillering stage was a key determining factor for the final barley dry matter yield and N uptake, with later N mineralization rates having lesser influence.

Genetic studies were conducted on an European winter wheat cultivar, Beaver, to determine the mode of inheritance of leaf rust resistance at seedling and adult plant growth stages using a recombinant doubled haploid population, Beaver/Soissons. Greenhouse studies indicated the involvement of genes Lr13 and Lr26 in governing leaf rust resistance at seedling growth stages, whereas, adult plant resistance (APR) in the field with pathotypes carrying virulence individually for Lr13 and Lr26 showed trigenic inheritance for the population. Marker regression analysis of adult plant field data indicated the involvement of six significant QTLs (chromosomes 1B, 3B, 3D, 4B, 4D and 5A) in year 2005, four QTLs (1B, 3B, 4B and 5A) in 2006, and six QTLs (1A, 1B, 3B, 4A, 4B and 5A) in 2007 for reducing leaf rust severity. QTLs on chromosomes 1B, 4B and 5A were considered the most important because of their detection across years, whereas QTLs on chromosomes 1A, 3B, 3D and 4A were either inconsistent or non-significant and unexplained. Based on an association of closely linked markers with phenotypic data, putative single gene stocks were identified for each consistent QTL and crossing was initiated to develop populations segregating for each to permit fine mapping of the identified regions.

Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass) cultivars (‘Alamo’, ‘Cimarron’, ‘Kanlow’, ‘NL 94C2-3’, ‘NSL 2009-1’, and ‘NSL 2009-2’) were evaluated for salt tolerance in two separate greenhouse experiments. In experiment (Expt.) 1, switchgrass seedlings were irrigated with a nutrient solution at an electrical conductivity (EC) of 1.2 dS·m−1 (control) or a saline solution (spiked with salts) at an EC of 5.0 dS·m−1 (EC 5) or 10.0 dS·m−1 (EC 10) for four weeks, once a week. Treatment EC 10 reduced the tiller number by 32% to 37% for all switchgrass cultivars except ‘Kanlow’. All switchgrass cultivars under EC 10 had a significant reduction of 50% to 63% in dry weight. In Expt. 2, switchgrass was seeded in substrates moistened with either a nutrient solution of EC 1.2 dS·m−1 (control) or a saline solution of EC of 5.0, 10.0, or 20.0 dS·m−1 (EC 5, EC 10, or EC 20). Treatment EC 5 did not affect the seedling emergence, regardless of cultivar. Compared to the control, EC 10 reduced the seedling emergence of switchgrass ‘Alamo’, ‘Cimarron’, and ‘NL 94C2-3’ by 44%, 33%, and 82%, respectively. All switchgrass cultivars under EC 10 had a 46% to 88% reduction in the seedling emergence index except ‘NSL 2009-2’. No switchgrass seedlings emerged under EC 20. In summary, high salinity negatively affected switchgrass seedling emergence and growth. Dendrogram and cluster of six switchgrass cultivars indicated that ‘Alamo’ was the most tolerant cultivar, while ‘NSL 2009-2’ was the least tolerant cultivar at both seedling emergence and growth stages. A growth-stage dependent response to salinity was observed for the remaining switchgrass cultivars. ‘NSL 2009-1’ and ‘NL 94C2-3’ were more tolerant to salinity than ‘Cimarron’ and ‘Kanlow’ at the seedling emergence stage; however, ‘Kanlow’ and ‘Cimarron’ were more tolerant to salinity than ‘NSL 2009-1’ and ‘NL 94C2-3’ at the seedling growth stage.

نقش رشد ریشه در افزایش عملکرد محصولات زراعی موضوع شناخته‌شده و مهمی است که امروزه بیش از پیش مورد توجه متخصصان اصلاح نباتات قرار گرفته است. به‌منظور مطالعه ریشه 18 ژنوتیپ جو (Hordeum vulgare) در مرحله گیاهچه‌ای آزمایشی در سال 1391 در دانشکده کشاورزی دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد در قالب طرح کاملاً تصادفی و با سه تکرار انجام شد. ابتدا بذرها در پتری دیش جوانه دار شدند. نیمی از بذرهای جوانه زده به اتاقک ژل انتقال داده شدند. سایر بذرها نیز درون کاغذ صافی به‌صورت رول درون آب مقطر قرار گرفتند. ژنوتیپ‌ها از لحاظ مجموع طول ریشه، وزن خشک ریشه، وزن خشک اندام هوایی، میانگین قطر ریشه و برخی پارامترهای دیگر مورد مقایسه قرار گرفتند. نتایج نشان داد که لاین C-87-10 با 283 میلی‌متر طول ریشه در کاغذ صافی و با 226 میلی‌متر طول در اتاقک ژل بیشترین مجموع طول ریشه را به‌خود اختصاص داد، درحالی‌که در کاغذ صافی رقم نیمروز با 3/139 میلی‌متر طول و در اتاقک ژل رقم سهند با 39 میلی‌متر طول کمترین طول ریشه را در بین ژنوتیپ‌ها دارا بودند. از لحاظ وزن خشک ریشه در هر دو محیط رشد ژنوتیپ‌های یوسف، DC-85-5، C-87-10 و نصرت در رده‌های نخست و ارقام والفجر، سهند و نیمروز در رده‌های انتهایی قرار گرفتند. همچنین در آزمایش اول، لاین DC-85-5 و رقم سهند به‌ترتیب بیشترین و کمترین مقدار طول برگ را دارا بودند. از نظر مساحت کل برگ‌ها در آزمایش دوم، لاین C-87-19 بیشترین سطح برگ و رقم سهند کمترین سطح برگ را به‌خود اختصاص داد.

The author Studied of the chlorophyll content of barley plant, in order to find the relation to growth, and differences between the spring and winter growing habit of barley. The materials used were selected 15 varieties of typical spring and winter barley, as well as intermediate. The seeds were sown in the fall and spring of 1929 in the experiment field. Samples were collected at intervals of approximately one month from September 5th to June 6th. For the determination of chlorophyll (α+β) content, the WILLSTATTER'S colorimetric method modified by SCHERTZ was used, and the results were given either in the percentage to the fresh-or dry-weight, as well as to the definite leaf area, or to the definite volume of dry tissue powder. The chief results of the experiments may be summarlized as follows. 1) The chlorophyll content of the plant appears to related closely with the growth of barley, namely the content increases rapidly from early stages of development in September to the active growing period in October, and then decreases again gradually to December. It remains at this level until next March and begins a sharp rise in April when the new leaves start to grow. 2) Therefore, the content found to be correlated with the rate of growth. The higher the growth rate of plant is, the richer the pigment of the leaf is contained. This fact also agrees with the case of rice plant previously stated by the auther. 3) The relations existing between the content and the growing habit of barley differs more or less influenced by temperature. On a condition of mild climate in early autumn the differences do not look as marked as in severe cold in winter. Thus, the content ratio found to be: winter barley 100: intermediate barley 106: spring barley 97 on september 5th, while on January 10th the relations become 100: 96: 64 respectively. This is believed to be due to the cold resistance of these varieties of barley, because the former two are much resistant than the latter. 4) On the contrary, the chlorophyll content of winter barley seems to be less than the spring and intermediate barley under such a condition of hot early summer. For example, the ratio of content indicates: spring barley 100: intermediate barley 103: winter barley 72 on June 6th. This is probably due to the varietal differences of plant to the high temperature and high light intensity. 5) From the foregoing data, it is difficult to see a definite correlations between the chlorophyll content and the photoperiodic responces upon the barley plant. 6) There seems to be a close relation between the chlorophyll content and the cold resistance of barley, because the winter and intermediate barley which much resistant to cold, contains more chlorophyll than the latter.

According to current scenarios, atmospheric CO2 -concentration ([CO2]) and average air temperature will rise in the future. The predicted longer growing season in Finland would imply that more productive cultivars and even new crop species could be grown. Moreover, higher [CO2] is also likely to increase dry matter production of crops. This study analyzed the growth of spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) under ambient and suggested future conditions, and its response to N fertilization. Model simulations of soil temperature and of snow accumulation and melting were also studied. The calibration and validation results showed that the model performed well in simulating snow dynamics, soil temperature, the growth of barley, and the response of crop growth to N fertilization under present conditions. According to the simulation runs, if a cultivar was adapted to the length of the growing period, the increase in dry matter production was 23% in a low estimate scenario of climate change, and 56% in a high estimate scenario under a high level of nitrogen fertilization. The simulation study showed that the shoot dry weight increased by 43%, on average, under high N fertilization (150-200 kg N/ha), but by less (20%) under a low level of N (25-50 kg N/ha) when the conditions under a central scenario for the year 2050 were compared with the present ones.

Effects of soil‐moisture stress at three different stages of growth (jointing, flowering, and dough) on grain yield, grain quality, and plant growth of Spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L. emend Lam.) planted in November were studied under the field conditions at Mesa, Ariz. The experiment was conducted to determine the limitations to irragation water conservation in a semi arid environment. Four by four Latin square designs were used to compare four irrigation treatments. Effects of soil‐moisture stress for 7 days at the jointing, flowering, and dough stages of growth and/or until 100% of available water in the first 3 feet of soil was depleted were compared with plants not stressed. Withholding irrigation water during the jointing stage of growth did not reduce and in some cases increased grain yields. Moisture stress at the flowering and dough stages of growth decreased grain yield. Moisture stress at the dough lowered grain bushel‐weight. Stressing barley for water at jointing resulted in shorter plants, less lodging, more tillering, and more heads per unit area. Moisture stress at flowering and the dough stage decreased seeds per head and seed weight, respectively. Cultivars differed in response to soil‐moisture stress. Adequate soil‐moisture must be provided throughout the growing season for maximum yields of high quality grain from Spring barley grown as a Winter‐annual under irrigation.