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Water scarcity leads to significant ecological challenges for global farming production. Sustainable agriculture depends on developing strategies to overcome the impacts of drought on important crops, including soybean. In this present study, seven promising soybean genotypes were evaluated for their drought tolerance potential by exposing them to water deficit conditions. The control group was maintained at 100% field capacity (FC), while the drought-treated group was maintained at 50% FC on a volume/weight basis. This treatment was applied at the second trifoliate leaf stage and continued until maturity. Our results demonstrated that water shortage exerted negative impacts on soybean phenotypic traits, physiological and biochemical mechanisms, and yield output in comparison with normal conditions. Our results showed that genotype G00001 exhibited the highest leaf area plant−1 (483.70 cm2), photosynthetic attributes like stomatal conductance (gs) (0.15 mol H2O m−2 s−1) and photosynthetic rate (Pn) (13.73 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1), and xylem exudation rate (0.25 g h−1) under drought conditions. The G00001 genotype showed greater leaf greenness by preserving photosynthetic pigments (total chlorophylls (Chls) and carotenoids; 4.23 and 7.34 mg g−1 FW, respectively) in response to drought conditions. Soybean plants accumulated high levels of stress indicators like proline and malondialdehyde when subjected to drought stress. However, genotype G00001 displayed lower levels of proline (4.49 μg g−1 FW) and malondialdehyde (3.70 μmol g−1 FW), indicating that this genotype suffered from less oxidative stress induced by drought stress compared to the other investigated soybean genotypes. Eventually, the G00001 genotype had a greater yield in terms of seeds pod−1 (SP) (1.90) and 100-seed weight (HSW) (14.60 g) under drought conditions. On the other hand, BD2333 exhibited the largest decrease in plant height (37.10%), pod number plant−1 (85.90%), SP (56.20%), HSW (54.20%), gs (90.50%), Pn (71.00%), transpiration rate (59.40%), relative water content (34.40%), Chl a (79.50%), total Chls (72.70%), and carotenoids (56.70%), along with the maximum increase in water saturation deficit (290.40%) and malondialdehyde content (280.30%) under drought compared to control conditions, indicating its higher sensitivity to drought stress. Our findings suggest that G00001 is a promising candidate to consider for field trials and further evaluation of its molecular signature may help breeding other elite cultivars to develop drought-tolerant, high-yielding soybean varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice (Oryza sativa) is a major crop and a main food for a major part of the global population. Rice species have derived from divergent agro-climatic regions, and thus, the local germplasm has a large genetic diversity. This study investigated the relationship between phenotypic and genetic variabilities of yield and yield-associated traits in Aus rice to identify short-duration, high-yielding genotypes. Targeting this issue, a field experiment was carried out to evaluate the performance of 51 Aus rice genotypes, including 50 accessions in F5 generation and one short-duration check variety BINAdhan-19. The genotypes exhibited a large and significant variation in yield and its associated traits, as evidenced by a wide range of their coefficient of variance. The investigated traits, including days to maturity (DM), plant height (PH), panicle length (PL) and 1000-grain weight (TW) exhibited a greater genotypic coefficient of variation than the environmental coefficient of variation. In addition, the high broad-sense heritability of DM, PH, PL and TW traits suggests that the genetic factors significantly influence the observed variations in these traits among the F5 Aus rice accessions. This study also revealed that the grain yield per hill (GY) displayed a significant positive correlation with PL, number of filled grains per panicle (FG) and TW at both genotype and phenotype levels. According to the hierarchical and K-means cluster analyses, the accessions BU-R-ACC-02, BU-R-ACC-08 and R2-36-3-1-1 have shorter DM and relatively higher GY than other Aus rice accessions. These three accessions could be employed in the ongoing and future breeding programs for the improvement of short-duration and high-yielding rice cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is recognized as a paramount threat to sustainable agricultural productivity. This threat has grown more severe in the age of global climate change. As a result, finding a long-term solution to increase plants' tolerance to drought stress has been a key research focus. Applications of chemicals such as zinc (Zn) may provide a simpler, less time-consuming, and effective technique for boosting the plant's resilience to drought. The present study gathers persuasive evidence on the potential roles of zinc sulphate (ZnSO4·7H2O; 1.0 g Kg−1 soil) and zinc oxide (ZnO; 1.0 g Kg−1 soil) in promoting tolerance of cotton plants exposed to drought at the first square stage, by exploring various physiological, morphological, and biochemical features. Soil supplementation of ZnSO4 or ZnO to cotton plants improved their shoot biomass, root dry weight, leaf area, photosynthetic performance, and water-use efficiency under drought stress. Zn application further reduced the drought-induced accumulations of H2O2 and malondialdehyde, and electrolyte leakage in stressed plants. Antioxidant assays revealed that Zn supplements, particularly ZnSO4, reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation by increasing the activities of a range of ROS quenchers, such as catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione S-transferase, and guaiacol peroxidase, to protect the plants against ROS-induced oxidative damage during drought stress. Increased leaf relative water contents along with increased water-soluble protein contents may indicate the role of Zn in improving the plant's water status under water-deficient conditions. The results of the current study also suggested that, in general, ZnSO4 supplementation more effectively increased cotton drought tolerance than ZnO supplementation, thereby suggesting ZnSO4 as a potential chemical to curtail drought-induced detrimental effects in water-limited soil conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil salinity, a major environmental concern, significantly reduces plant growth and production all around the world. Finding solutions to reduce the salinity impacts on plants is critical for global food security. In recent years, the priming of plants with organic chemicals has shown to be a viable approach for the alleviation of salinity effects in plants. The current study examined the effects of exogenous ethanol in triggering salinity acclimatization responses in soybean by investigating growth responses, and numerous physiological and biochemical features. Foliar ethanol application to saline water-treated soybean plants resulted in an enhancement of biomass, leaf area, photosynthetic pigment contents, net photosynthetic rate, shoot relative water content, water use efficiency, and K+ and Mg2+ contents, leading to improved growth performance under salinity. Salt stress significantly enhanced the contents of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde, and electrolyte leakage in the leaves, suggesting salt-induced oxidative stress and membrane damage in soybean plants. In contrast, ethanol treatment of salt-treated soybean plants boosted ROS-detoxification mechanisms by enhancing the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase, catalase, and glutathione S-transferase. Ethanol application also augmented the levels of proline and total free amino acids in salt-exposed plants, implying a role of ethanol in maintaining osmotic adjustment in response to salt stress. Notably, exogenous ethanol decreased Na+ uptake while increasing K+ and Mg2+ uptake and their partitioning to leaves and roots in salt-stressed plants. Overall, our findings reveal the protective roles of ethanol against salinity in soybean and suggest that the use of this cost-effective and easily accessible ethanol in salinity mitigation could be an effective approach to increase soybean production in salt-affected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is a major environmental threat to agricultural productivity and food security across the world. Therefore, addressing the detrimental effects of drought on vital crops like soybean has a significant impact on sustainable food production. Priming plants with organic compounds is now being considered as a promising technique for alleviating the negative effects of drought on plants. In the current study, we evaluated the protective functions of ethanol in enhancing soybean drought tolerance by examining the phenotype, growth attributes, and several physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Our results showed that foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content, all of which contributed to the improved growth performance of soybean under drought circumstances. Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde, as well as an increase of electrolyte leakage in the leaves, underpinning the evidence of oxidative stress and membrane damage in soybean plants. By comparison, exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden by boosting the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase, and ascorbate peroxidase, and the content of total flavonoids in soybean leaves exposed to drought stress. Additionally, ethanol supplementation increased the contents of total soluble sugars and free amino acids in the leaves of drought-exposed plants, implying that ethanol likely employed these compounds for osmotic adjustment in soybean under water-shortage conditions. Together, our findings shed light on the ethanol-mediated protective mechanisms by which soybean plants coordinated different morphophysiological and biochemical responses in order to increase their drought tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]