Agricultural Production In China Research Articles

Trends and Factors Influencing the Evolution of Spatial Patterns of Cropland toward Large-Scale Agricultural Production in China

Considering the essential expansion of agricultural production, current research primarily focuses on static factors, such as the distribution of fine-grained arable land, omitting an in-depth analysis of its developmental dynamics and key drivers. Addressing this knowledge gap is crucial for enhancing the scalability of agricultural production. This research utilizes landscape ecology techniques, correlation analysis, random forest algorithms, and structural equation modeling to explore spatial pattern trends of arable land in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Its objective is to clarify how the expansion of agricultural production scale affects food production through changes in arable land patterns and to determine the impact of socio-economic factors on these configurations. The results show that: (1) the landscape pattern of arable land is transitioning to a more fragmented arrangement with complex contours, (2) grain yield per unit area correlates positively with the landscape pattern index in Beijing, negatively in Hebei, and exhibits no significant correlation in Tianjin, and (3) land ownership plays a crucial role in land fragmentation, alterations in land morphology, and influences other socio-economic variables. Analyzing the spatial pattern of arable land in conjunction with socio-economic factors is essential for developing holistic land management approaches, improving resource efficiency, minimizing external inputs, and mitigating food security challenges.

Drying Over Eastern China Driven by the Depletion of Arctic Stratospheric Ozone During Boreal Spring

AbstractGiven the significant importance of spring precipitation for agricultural production in China and the presence of the spring predictability barrier, scientists have dedicated extensive efforts to understand the factors influencing spring precipitation variability and explore new predictors. However, the effects of Arctic stratospheric ozone (ASO) on precipitation in China during boreal spring, if any, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We found the robust influences of March ASO on the differences in the precipitation and evaporation in April over Eastern China during 1980–2020. When ASO decreases in March, it tends to result in a higher and colder tropopause in the polar, a stronger subtropical jet stream, an intensified local Hadley circulation accompanied by anomalous downward motion over Eastern China, and consequently, drying in this region, and vice versa. These findings suggest that the likelihood of April moistening over East Asia may be potentially predicted by employing the ASO index.

Meteorological disaster disturbances on the main crops in the north‒south transitional zone of China

Global climate change, with warming as its main feature, has altered the spatial-temporal evolution of factors such as precipitation and temperature that can cause meteorological disasters. The complex and changeable climate has led to frequent natural disasters, while the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events have also significantly increased, posing an enormous threat to societal production and human life. As the most important geoecological transitional zone of mainland China, the stability of agricultural production in China’s north–south transitional zone is crucial for ensuring food security under climate change. With the use of daily precipitation and potential evapotranspiration data from 1961 to 2018, this study focused on analysing disturbances such as extreme precipitation and drought disasters at different time scales during the winter wheat and summer maize growing seasons in the north–south transitional zone of China from an agricultural production perspective and attempted to answer the following questions: first, from an agricultural production perspective, what are the temporal and spatial distribution patterns of extreme precipitation and arid climate events in the north–south transitional zone? Second, which areas are at high risk of being disturbed by different types of meteorological disasters and require increased attention? The results indicated that (1) in terms of the overall temporal variation, the degree of extreme precipitation and drought stress faced by agricultural production in the region is decreasing. However, the temporal variation at each station in the north–south transitional zone was not completely consistent with the overall trend, and both increasing and decreasing trends were observed. The sites exhibiting an increase overlapped with typical regions of the north–south transitional zone to varying degrees, indicating that the typical regions represented not only theoretical potential risk areas under climate change but also suffered from meteorological disaster disturbances. (2) The precipitation distribution during the winter wheat growth period in the south–north transitional zone was uneven and varied significantly. High values of extreme precipitation indices during the winter wheat growth period were mainly concentrated in the southern part of the eastern section of the north‒south transitional zone. The precipitation distribution during the summer maize growth period significantly differed, with the highest amount of heavy rain and largest number of rainstorm days concentrated in the southeastern part of the north‒south transitional zone. The spatial distribution of the drought frequency in the north–south transitional zone, as indicated by the monthly standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI1), showed that the areas with high total drought frequencies were mainly concentrated in northeast Jiangsu, southeast Henan, and north Anhui, which primarily experienced light drought. The central part of Jiangsu Province exhibited a high frequency of moderate drought, while southern Jiangsu Province and southwestern Shaanxi Province were prone to severe drought. Additionally, southeastern Hebei and eastern Henan were identified as areas with a high frequency of extreme drought. Finally, the central region of Sichuan Province was characterized by both severe and extreme drought conditions. Based on the SPEI12-derived spatial distribution of the drought frequency in the north–south transitional zone, the areas with a high total drought frequency were mainly concentrated in central and eastern Henan, southeast Shaanxi, southeast Shandong, and central Sichuan, which primarily experienced light to moderate drought. The northwestern part of Jiangsu, the southern part of Hebei, and the western part of Shandong are regions with a high frequency of severe drought, while the eastern part of Henan is an area with high frequencies of both severe and extreme drought. (3) High-value areas of extreme precipitation and drought disturbance in the north–south transitional zone overlapped with the edge of the transitional zone to varying degrees. Approximately 63.58% of the north‒south transitional zone of China was characterized by moderate or high stress levels, primarily concentrated along the southern boundary and central core area, and nearly 39.5% of all counties experienced two or more types of disaster stresses.

Review of Research on the Development of Cold-Chain Logistics of Agricultural Products in China

The growth of cold-chain logistics of agricultural products in China has become a central issue from all walks of life. With the constant growth of the economy and the growth in the standard of living, it has become increasingly prominent as a key link to ensure food safety and enhance the added value of agricultural products. Although the acceleration of urbanization and the trend of consumption upgrading have facilitated the rapid growth of the market needs for cold-chain logistics of agricultural goods, the government has accordingly entered a series of support policies to stimulate the application of modern information technology in cold-chain logistics of farm products, compared to developed nations, a significant disparity exists in terms of infrastructure, technical level, and management system in China. Therefore, it has become urgent to enhance the cold-chain logistics of farm produce in China to strengthen infrastructure construction, enhance the degree of data technology utilization, and facilitate the application of new technologies and models. This paper conducts and analyzes the rising status of cold-chain logistics of agricultural goods nationally and internationally, conducts an in-depth analysis of existing problems by existing scholars, finds out the deep-seated reasons behind it, and points out the direction for the continuous improvement and innovative development of cold-chain logistics of agricultural products in China.

A study on fruit classification using convolutional neural network for image recognition technology

Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into more aspects of our daily lives. Agricultural production in China is at a critical juncture due to the rising fruit production and dwindling labor force, necessitating the adoption of mechanization and intelligent systems. Image processing is particularly suitable for this field. Image classification technologies in fruit categorization are examined in this research. The results of this study can help improve the development of intelligent, lightweight machinery for agricultural output. This, in turn, will enhance the efficiency of fruit cultivation, harvesting, and trading and alleviate labor constraints. Two popular convolutional neural network models, namely ResNet50 and MobileNetV2, were employed in this study. The study utilized two optimizers: SGD and Adam. The evaluation results revealed that the ResNet50 model, employing SGD optimization, achieved the highest accuracy of 95.57%. Despite its lower accuracy of 92.19%, the MobileNetV2 model demonstrates higher efficiency than ResNet50 due to its lower hardware requirements, rendering it suitable for operation on compact devices.

Discussion and Analysis of Agricultural Cold Chain Logistics Issues

With the advancement of socialist marketisation, the demand for cold chain logistics for agricultural products is expanding. This not only accelerates the development of cold chain logistics system, but also brings a lot of convenience to the residents' life. This paper takes the current situation of supply and demand of cold chain logistics of agricultural products in China as the starting point, analyses the current problems in the development of cold chain logistics of agricultural products, and puts forward corresponding countermeasures in this regard, with a view to improving the efficiency of cold chain logistics transport in China to meet the daily needs of the people.

Classification of soybeans from different habitats based on metabolomic–transcriptomic integration

Soybeans are a significant agricultural product in China, with certain geographical locations often yielding higher quality, and thus more expensive, soybean crops. In this study, metabolomics and transcriptomics analyses were conducted on soybean samples from nine regions in Heilongjiang and Liaoning Provinces using untargeted liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) and Illumina sequencing technologies. The primary objective was to devise an effective and unbiased method for determining the geographical origin of each soybean variety to mitigate potential fraudulent practices. Through multidimensional and unidimensional analyses, successful identification of differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was achieved, yielding statistically significant outcomes. Integration of the metabolomics and transcriptomics datasets facilitated the construction of a correlation network model capable of distinguishing soybeans originating from different geographical locations, leading to the identification of significant biomarkers exemplifying noteworthy distinctions. To validate the feasibility of this method in practical applications, partial least squares discriminant analysis was employed to differentiate soybean samples from the nine regions. The results convincingly showcased the applicability and reliability of this approach in accurately pinpointing the geographical origin of soybeans. Distinguishing itself from prior research in soybean traceability, this study incorporates an integrated analysis of metabolomics and transcriptomics data, thereby unveiling biomarkers that offer a more precise differentiation of soybean traits across distinct regions, thereby bridging a critical research gap within the soybean traceability domain. This innovative dual-data integration analysis methodology is poised to enhance the accuracy of soybean traceability tools and lay a new foundation for future agricultural product identification research.

Exploring the characteristics and drivers of virtual cropland trade of major agricultural products in China

The trade volume of agricultural products can be used to measure the global flow of virtual cropland. This paper measures the virtual cropland contained in 68 major agricultural products in China, analyzes the changes in China's virtual cropland from 2001 to 2020, and examines the main import and export agricultural product categories of virtual cropland and the main trading countries of virtual cropland. Meanwhile, according to the LMDI model, the driving factors of virtual cropland trade are categorized into five effects, and the driving factors of virtual cropland trade are discussed in depth. The main findings are as follows: the net value of virtual cropland trade is growing rapidly, the import of legume crops is the main source of the net value of virtual cropland trade, and the virtual cropland importing countries are dominated by European and American countries, and the exporting countries are dominated by Asian countries. As for the driving factors, the quality effect and the structural effect play a dampening effect on the net imports of virtual cropland, however, the dampening effect is relatively weak and cannot offset the promotion brought by the other effects. The economic effect is the main driver of virtual net imports of cropland, and the amount of trade in agricultural products also has an important role in promoting virtual imports of cropland, while the demand effect is not significant. It is suggested that China should correctly formulate reasonable cropland management policies and trade strategies, optimize the structure of virtual cropland trade, guarantee national food security and promote sustainable development.

The Legal Status and Selection of a Model for Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products in China: a Study

As a traditional agricultural country, China produces a wide range of diverse agricultural products. However, China's legislation on geographical indications (GI) for agricultural products is incomplete, existing in three different legal documents. Although China appears to be ready for an independent GI law, it has not yet been enacted, and the method of its administration remains unclear. China is faced with the choice of whether to adopt ‘strong protection’ or ‘weak protection’ in its GI legislation. This question is also directly related to the relationship between international GI treaties and domestic legislation. The protection of geographical indications of agricultural products in China lacks strategic design. The main legislative and administrative bodies are confused, and the specific legal documents at the national, provincial and municipal levels are imbalanced. The recommendation of this article is that, China should choose ‘strong protection’ for primary agricultural products and processed agricultural products with key characteristics, and ‘weak protection’ for other general agricultural products.

Distinguishing tea stalks of Wuyuan green tea using hyperspectral imaging analysis and Convolutional Neural Network

Wuyuan green tea is a famous agricultural product in China and a product protected by national geo-graphical indications. The processed green tea also needs to remove impurities, such as stones, tea stalks, etc. However, tea stalks cannot be classified from Wuyuan green tea using photoelectric sorting and 2D image recognition technology since they have similar colors. This paper adopts hyperspectral imaging technology to solve the problem of inaccurate sorting caused by their similar colors. Green tea containing tea stalks was imaged using a visible and near-infrared camera with a wavelength of 400nm-1000nm. What’s more, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was adopted to reduce the dimension of the col-lected hyperspectral image. And the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was used constructively to identify tea stalks in hyperspectral image, the CNN can automatically learn the corresponding features, avoid the complex feature extraction process. The experimental results showed that the recognition accuracy for tea stalks reaches 98.53%. The method has a high recognition rate and can meet the actual production requirements. After field testing, the selection rate is as high as 97.05%.

The impact of industrial sulfur dioxide emissions regulation on agricultural production in China

When environmental regulations do not explicitly target agriculture, it becomes difficult to predict if and how this sector will react. In this study, we delve into this issue by scrutinizing China's flagship program designed to control industrial sulfur dioxide emissions. We employ the difference-in-differences method to analyze extensive agricultural data, quantifying the policy's impact on agriculture from both the intensive and extensive margins. Our results indicate that the policy led to an approximately 9% increase in agricultural value added. This growth mainly stemmed from shifts in land allocation and subsequent changes in fertilizer use, rather than from crop yield improvements. Variations in composite grain yields occurred due to shifts in the crop mix, not from yield improvements in specific crops. Overall, our study found that the policy boosted rural per capita net income by 11.6%.

Analysis of the development of China's fresh agricultural products e-commerce platform based on Marx's production and circulation theory

The key problem of agricultural production is to realize the value of agricultural products. At present, the actual circulation of agricultural products in China is restricted by various problems. In response to the question of how to better smooth the circulation system of agricultural products in the context of the normalized management of the epidemic and the digital economy, Chinese academics are currently more inclined to use economic principles to study and answer it. This paper uses an indirect research method, combined with the theory of production and circulation in Marxist political economy, to try to analyze the development direction of China's agricultural products circulation system under digital inclusion. The critical factor for advancing the transformation and upgrading of China's agricultural goods circulation system is in the reduction of circulation time and costs, hence enhancing the efficiency of agricultural product circulation.  Hence, it is imperative to proactively cultivate novel rural e-commerce models alongside enhancing the conventional agricultural product circulation system. This entails encouraging diverse stakeholders to actively engage in the establishment of a contemporary agricultural product circulation system under government guidance, while also enhancing the organization and digitization of agricultural product distribution.

Innovative measurement, trade-off-synergy relationship and influencing factors for agricultural net carbon emissions and effective supply of agricultural products in China

Sensitive zone of global climate change has been formed in China, and it has become a hot topic how can agriculture ensure food security and the supply of important agricultural products while achieving the “Dual Carbon” goal in the country. Based on such background, this paper uses the IPCC carbon emission calculation method, environmental input-output model and economic-water-carbon coefficient method to measure agricultural net carbon emissions, adopts bivariate spatial auto-correlation analysis and SYS-GMM to explore separately the relationship between agricultural net carbon emissions and effective supply of agricultural products, as well as the carbon reduction effect, growth effect and reasonable range of green technology innovation. The results show that: (1) China's agricultural net carbon emissions reveal a spatial distribution of “higher in the east than in the west than in the center” and a temporal characteristic of increasing year by year; China's effective supply of agricultural products shows an increasing trend and a spatial distribution of “higher in the east than in the center than in the west” in 2006–2012 and “higher in the east than in the west than in the center” in 2013–2020. (2) In 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2020, the number of provinces that belong to low-low agglomeration trade-off zone, low-high agglomeration synergy zone, non-significant zone, high-low agglomeration non-trade-off-synergy zone and high-high agglomeration trade-off zone averagely accounted for 12.500 %, 30.000 %, 26.667 %, 9.167 % and 21.667 % of the totality, respectively. (3) The carbon reduction and production growth effects of green technology innovation both show an inverted “U-shape”, and green technology innovation is conducive to both reducing agricultural net carbon emissions and improving supply of agricultural products when it is within a reasonable range of greater than 0.930. (4) Green technology innovation not only has significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity impact, but also exhibits a differential effect on productive agricultural carbon emissions, agricultural trade carbon emissions, agricultural carbon sinks, total output of agricultural products and agricultural net imports in international trade. Therefore, it is proposed that China should establish and improve green technology innovation incubation platforms, guide all participants to ensure the investment and application of green technology products within a reasonable range, formulate and implement regional differential policies and plan in accordance with local conditions, drive ultimately coordinated promotion of agricultural carbon emission reduction and product supply guarantee and lay an important foundation for achieving high-quality economic development and efficient ecological protection.

The nexus of foreign direct investment and agricultural productivity: does absorptive capacity matter?

PurposeThis study aims to examine the complex effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on China’s agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) from 2005 to 2020. It also explores the role of absorptive capacity as a moderating factor during this period.Design/methodology/approachEmploying provincial panel data from China, this research measures agricultural TFP using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA)-Malmquist method. The impact of FDI on agricultural productivity is further analyzed using a nondynamic panel threshold model.FindingsThe results highlight technological progress as the main driver of agricultural TFP growth in China. Agricultural FDI (AFDI) seems to impede TFP development, whereas nonagricultural FDI (NAFDI) shows a distinct positive spillover effect. The study reveals a threshold in absorptive capacity that affects both the direct and spillover impacts of FDI. Provinces with higher absorptive capacity are less negatively impacted by AFDI and more likely to benefit from FDI spillovers (FDISs).Originality/valueThis study provides new insights into the intricate relationship between FDI, absorptive capacity and agricultural productivity. It underscores the importance of optimizing technological progress and research and development (R&D) to enhance agricultural productivity in China.

Governance mechanism of quality and safety of imported agricultural products in China based on grounded theory

With the continuous improvement of economic development and people’s living standards, Chinese consumers are placing higher demands on the quality of imported agricultural products. The study adopts Grounded Theory to derive a theoretical model of the governance mechanism of quality and safety of imported agricultural products from the perspective of multiple subjects involved in governance and uses structural equation modeling to empirically validate the hypothesis. The results show that government regulation has a positive influence on the quality and safety of imported agricultural products. Importer regulation and consumer supervision can indirectly affect the quality and safety of imported agricultural products through government regulation. Consumer supervision positively affects the level of importer and government regulation and indirectly influences the quality and safety of imported agricultural products through active monitoring of the government and importers. Therefore, the government, importers, and consumers are the three parties who need to optimize their respective governance paths and enhance the quality and safety of imported agricultural products through collaborative governance.

Research on China’s agricultural product sales transformation: online marketing mix strategy and performance on post pandemic area

At the end of 2019, the sudden outbreak of the pandemic brought a significant impact on the sales of agricultural products in China and all over the world. To reduce the unmarketable problem caused by the pandemic in the agricultural industry, operators who used to focus on offline sales changed their marketing strategy and began to build online sales channels through e-commerce platforms and adopt various online marketing strategies to improve their marketing performance. Furthermore, the performance of online marketing of agricultural products is affected by the interaction of multiple factors in the complex environment. This study aims to distinguish between the performance of different online marketing strategies by using necessary comparative analysis (NCA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method, to help operators to grasp the critical elements of the online marketing of agricultural products, and how configuration effective impact the online marketing performance. The results show that: (1) NCA’s results show that a single online marketing dimension cannot constitute the necessary conditions for producing high marketing performance of agricultural products, but e-commerce broadcasting, visual effects and government cooperation play an obvious role in improving marketing performance. (2) online marketing performance is influenced by the interaction of various strategies, and no single factor has a significant effect on it. (3) a good online marketing performance configuration path is divided into four, namely “the government cooperation—e-commerce broadcasting” domination; “the government cooperation—visual effects—e-commerce broadcasting” leading; “customer relationship—the government cooperation—visual effects—e-commerce broadcasting” leading; “platform number—visual effects—e-commerce broadcasting” leading. (4) There are four driving paths with no-good online marketing performance, and there is a causal asymmetric relationship of the driving paths with good online marketing performance. This study provides management enlightenment for agricultural operators on how to effectively improve the performance of online marketing, help operators to solve practical problems, and facilitate the development of agricultural e-commerce.

Factors Influencing Users’ Satisfaction with Online Agricultural Products in China’s First and Second-Tier Cities Under the Epidemic

The Covid-19 crisis brought with it significant changes to human lives including changes to behaviour. Particularly, the Coronavirus lockdowns and other restrictions contributed to the rise of online shopping for agricultural products in China’s first and second-tier cities. The core aim of the investigation is to evaluate the factors that influence the satisfaction of users with online agricultural products in first and second-tier cities in China during the pandemic. The research methodology is qualitative and relies on interpretivism to examine the experiences regarding the satisfaction of users with online agricultural products in first and second- tier cities in China during the crisis. An inductive approach is applied and the specific data collection instrument in this research entails semi-structured interviews to facilitate a comprehensive inquiry and gain rich insights. Semi-structured interview sessions are conducted with 30 participants including Chinese shoppers who used online agricultural products between 2019 and 2022 just before the Covid-19 crisis or during the pandemic. The research findings indicate that optimism was found to be crucial to the increased consumption of online agricultural products and high quality emerged as the most influential factor behind users’ satisfaction with online agricultural products. However, online agricultural product sellers in China need to ensure excellence in their operations to succeed in the competitive online marketplace. Conclusively, this investigation achieved its overarching aim of evaluating the factors that influence the satisfaction of users with online agricultural products in first and second-tier cities in China during the pandemic.

Research on the Influencing Factors of Cross-border E-commerce Development of Fresh Agricultural Products under the Internet Environment

Abstract This paper analyzes the current situation of cross-border e-commerce of fresh agricultural products in China regarding import and export trade, e-commerce development and logistics services, and summarizes the existing problems and influencing factors. Through the establishment of AHP-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model, according to the established index system, the weight of each index factor is determined by using hierarchical analysis, and the importance degree of the influencing factors is calculated using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. The results show that among the primary indicators, the supply of fresh agricultural products has the highest influence, with a score of 4.49. Among the secondary indicators, the quality of new farm products and cross-border e-commerce trading platforms have a very high degree of influence, with scores of 4.714 and 4.518, respectively. The study provides a vital decision-making support for optimizing the development of cross-border e-commerce for fresh agricultural products.

First Report of Vacuiphoma oculihominis Causing Fruit Rot on Navel Orange (Citrus sinensis) in China.

Newhall navel orange [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck] is an economically important agricultural product in China. In February 2022, a rare lesion symptom was observed on Newhall navel oranges that were harvested from an orchard Ganzhou city, Jiangxi province, China (25.53° N, 114.79° E) and stored for 90 days (18±2℃, 80 to 90% RH) at the Jiangxi Key Laboratory for Postharvest Technology and Non-destructive Testing of Fruits and Vegetables (28.68° N, 115.85° E). Approximately 2% (15/750) of the oranges exhibited symptoms, with normal appearance but ink-black flesh and juice, yellowish lesions on edges of the symptoms, and no unusual odor. To isolate the pathogen, three 5 × 5 mm pieces of symptomatic tissue from a diseased orange were disinfected in 75% ethanol for 30 s, rinsed three times with sterile water, and inoculated on potato dextrose agar (PDA) at 25±1℃ and a 12:12 h photoperiod for 7 days. A pure isolate named ND-hsp was obtained. The colony was light yellow center with pale edge on the top and brown on the bottom. Conidia and pycnidia were observed on PDA medium after 2 months. Conidia were long oval, no septa, 2.9 × 3.4 μm (n = 50), and pycnidia were solitary, 39.4 × 43.9 μm (n = 20), with one or no orifice, brown to dark brown. The morphological characteristics of ND-hsp strain on PDA, oatmeal agar and malt extract agar were similar to those of the Didymellaceae (Aveskamp et al. 2010). Ulteriorly, the genomic DNA of the ND-hsp isolate was extracted from its mycelia using a fungal genomic DNA extraction kit (Solarbio, Beijing, China) for subsequent phylogenetic analyses. Four primer sets, LR0R (Rehner and Samuels 1994) /LR7 (Vilgalys and Hester 1990), V9G (Hoog and Gerrits 1998) /ITS4 (White et al. 1990), Btub2Fd/Btub4Rd (Woudenberg et al. 2009) and RPB2-5F2 (Sung et al. 2007)/RPB2-7cR (Liu et al. 1999) were used to amplify the corresponding DNA fragments of large subunit ribosomal RNA (LSU), internal transcribed spacer region (ITS), beta-tubulin gene (TUB2) and RNA polymerase Ⅱ second largest subunit (RPB2), respectively. The obtained sequences were assigned GenBank accession numbers and showed 99 to 100% identity with their counterparts of Vacuiphoma oculihominis UTHSC DI16-308. A phylogenetic tree was constructed in MEGA 7.0 using the concatenated sequences, placing the isolate within the V. oculihominis clade by 100% bootstrap support. Pathogenicity experiments were performed in triplicate. Ten Newhall navel oranges were surface sterilized with 75% ethanol and inoculated with 15μL of a spore suspension (2×106 spores/ml) into a 3 mm-diameter wound on the equator. The control group received sterile water instead of the spore suspension. Treated and control oranges were incubated at 25±1 ℃ and about 90% relative humidity for 20 days. All oranges were cut longitudinally or transversely through the inoculated wound and examined internally. The oranges inoculated with ND-hsp exhibited ink-black flesh and juice symptoms consistent with the initial oranges. The control oranges remained asymptomatic. Under the Koch's rule, V. oculihominis was reisolated from diseased oranges and kept in Collaborative Innovation Center of Postharvest Key Technology and Quality Safety of Fruits and Vegetables in Jiangxi Province. GenBank database analysis confirms that V. oculihominis has been found in human eye secretions and decayed trees. This is the first report of V. oculihominis as a pathogen on navel oranges in China. Our findings contribute to understanding of citrus fruit pathogens.

Calamitous weather, yield risk and mitigation effect of harvest mechanisation: Evidence from China's winter wheat

AbstractStable agricultural production has been substantially challenged by increasingly frequent calamitous weather conditions. For winter wheat, continuous precipitation during the harvest season is particularly detrimental. This study utilises a county‐level panel dataset of agricultural production in China for the period of 1998–2016 to evaluate the impact of continuous precipitation on the downside risk of winter wheat yield. Results show that the continuous precipitation during the harvest season remarkably increases the downside risk of winter wheat yield. At the same time, the progressive adoption of harvest machinery in recent decades has effectively mitigated the downside risk of winter wheat yield driven by continuous precipitation. The mitigation effects of harvest mechanisation are more pronounced for plain areas with better‐developed transportation infrastructure.