Search

Drought is a serious constraint on crop growth and production of important staple crops such as maize. Improved understanding of the responses of crops to drought can be incorporated into cropping system models to support crop breeding, varietal selection, and management decisions for minimizing negative impacts. We investigate the impacts of different soil types (stony and silty) and water regimes (irrigated and rainfed) on hydraulic linkages between soil and plant, as well as root : shoot growth characteristics. Our analysis is based on a comprehensive dataset measured along the soil–plant–atmosphere pathway at field scale in two growing seasons (2017 and 2018) with contrasting climatic conditions (low and high vapor pressure deficit). Roots were observed mostly in the topsoil (10–20 cm) of the stony soil, while more roots were found in the subsoil (60–80 cm) of the silty soil. The difference in root length was pronounced at silking and harvest between the soil types. Total root length was 2.5–6 times higher in the silty soil than in the stony soil with the same water treatment. At silking time, the ratios of root length to shoot biomass in the rainfed plot of the silty soil (F2P2) were 3 times higher than those in the irrigated silty soil (F2P3), while the ratio was similar for two water treatments in the stony soil. With the same water treatment, the ratios of root length to shoot biomass of silty soil were higher than for stony soil. The seasonally observed minimum leaf water potential (ψleaf) varied from around -1.5 MPa in the rainfed plot in 2017 to around -2.5 MPa in the same plot of the stony soil in 2018. In the rainfed plot, the minimum ψleaf in the stony soil was lower than in the silty soil from -2 to -1.5 MPa in 2017, respectively, while these were from -2.5 to -2 MPa in 2018, respectively. Leaf water potential, water potential gradients from soil to plant roots, plant hydraulic conductance (Ksoil_plant), stomatal conductance, transpiration, and photosynthesis were considerably modulated by the soil water content and the conductivity of the rhizosphere. When the stony soil and silt soil are compared, the higher "stress" due to the lower water availability in the stony soil resulted in fewer roots with a higher root tissue conductance in the soil with more stress. When comparing the rainfed with the irrigated plot in the silty soil, the higher stress in the rainfed soil resulted in more roots with a lower root tissue conductance in the treatment with more stress. This illustrates that the "response" to stress can be completely opposite depending on conditions or treatments that lead to the differences in stress that are compared. To respond to water deficit, maize had higher water uptake rate per unit root length and higher root segment conductance in the stony soil than in the silty soil, while the crop reduced transpired water via reduced aboveground plant size. Future improvements in soil–crop models in simulating gas exchange and crop growth should further emphasize the role of soil textures on stomatal function, dynamic root growth, and plant hydraulic system together with aboveground leaf area adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dietary supplements play a reactive role in the human body; they perform the role of signaling molecules, which are important for the immune system, expression, and regulation of signal pathways. Conversely, depending on many parameters such as age, physical activity duration, training condition, intensity, and genetic summary can be a reason for the amassing and overproduction of oxidants/anti-oxidants, leading to muscle distress and structural impairment. The research was based on primary data analysis to determine whether the study used SPSS and AMOS software and generated results between them. Additionally, many sports happen in pre-seasons, and athletes have their training session on the same day, which leads to the formation of nitrogen and Oxygen reactive and inflammatory constituents. Therefore, there is a need for some ways to reduce these effects and increase the performance and recovery of athletes. There is an existing indication that using dietary supplements and dietary sources like fruits, cereals, and vegetables can reduce oxidative stress, post-exercise swelling, and immune defects and improve metabolic recovery and strength of muscles, thus all advantageous to what sports and athletes demand. Overall, the result was a direct and significant impact of dietary supplements on physical performance and muscle recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first example of intramolecular nucleophilic addition of 1,4-diazabutatriene to ester is disclosed. This approach provides a facile and versatile synthesis for functionalized 2H-1,4-benzoxazines under metal-, reagent-, and solvent-free conditions. Experimental and computational studies revealed the pivotal role of 1,5-acyl migration as the self-catalytic step in the reaction selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review examines the role of defective carbon‐based electrodes in sodium‐ion and vanadium flow batteries. Methods for introducing defects into carbon structures are explored and their effectiveness in improving electrode performance is demonstrated. In sodium‐based systems, research focuses primarily on various precursor materials and heteroatom doping to optimise hard carbon electrodes. Defect engineering increases interlayer spacing, porosity, and changes the surface chemistry, which improves sodium intercalation and reversible capacities. Heteroatom functionalisation and surface modification affect solid electrolyte interface formation and coulombic efficiencies. For flow batteries, post‐fabrication electrode enhancement methods produce defects to improve electrode kinetics, although these methods often introduce oxygen functional groups as well, making isolation of defect effects difficult. Continued research efforts are key to developing carbon‐based electrodes that can meet the unique challenges of future battery systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a highly efficient five‐step reaction sequence to BODIPYs is presented. The key step is the combination of transition metal‐catalyzed in‐situ generation of aldehydes and their subsequent organocatalytic activation to yield dipyrromethanes, which are further converted to the corresponding BODIPY. Classic syntheses towards BODIPYs have relied on aldehydes or acid chlorides, which are often not commercially available and rather sensitive to handle. The presented approach starts from readily available and stable alkenes or aryl‐bromides, which allows to extend the range of readily available BODIPYs that can be tailored for their specific use. The synthesis of 55 derivatives with overall yields of up to 78 % demonstrates the wide applicability and advantages of the presented method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In plant science, it is an established method to obtain structural parameters of crops using image analysis. In recent years, deep learning techniques have improved the underlying processes significantly. However, since data acquisition is time and resource consuming, reliable training data are currently limited. To overcome this bottleneck, synthetic data are a promising option for not only enabling a higher order of correctness by offering more training data but also for validation of results. However, the creation of synthetic data is complex and requires extensive knowledge in Computer Graphics, Visualization and High-Performance Computing. We address this by introducing Synavis , a framework that allows users to train networks on real-time generated data. We created a pipeline that integrates realistic plant structures, simulated by the functional–structural plant model framework CPlantBox, into the game engine Unreal Engine. For this purpose, we needed to extend CPlantBox by introducing a new leaf geometrization that results in realistic leafs. All parameterized geometries of the plant are directly provided by the plant model. In the Unreal Engine, it is possible to alter the environment. WebRTC enables the streaming of the final image composition, which, in turn, can then be directly used to train deep neural networks to increase parameter robustness, for further plant trait detection and validation of original parameters. We enable user-friendly ready-to-use pipelines, providing virtual plant experiment and field visualizations, a python-binding library to access synthetic data and a ready-to-run example to train models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is a serious constraint to crop growth and production of important staple crops such as maize. Improved understanding of the responses of crops to drought can be incorporated into cropping system models to support crop breeding, varietal selection and management decisions for minimizing negative impacts. We investigate the impacts of different soil types (stony and silty) and water regimes (irrigated and rainfed) on hydraulic linkages between soil and plant, as well as root: shoot growth characteristics. Our analysis is based on a comprehensive dataset measured along the soil-plant-atmosphere pathway at field scale in two growing seasons (2017, 2018) with contrasting climatic conditions (low and high VPD). Roots were observed mostly in the topsoil (10-20 cm) of the stony soil while more roots were found in the subsoil (60-80 cm) of the silty soil. The difference in root length was pronounced at silking and harvest between the soil types. Total root length was 2.5 - 6 times higher in the silty soil compared to the stony soil with the same water treatment. At silking time, the ratios of root length to shoot biomass in the rainfed plot of the silty soil (F2P2) were 3 times higher than those in the irrigated silty soil (F2P3) while the ratio was similar for two water treatments in the stony soil. With the same water treatment, the ratios of root length to shoot biomass of silty soil was higher than stony soil. The observed minimum leaf water potential (ψleaf) varied from around -1.5 MPa in the rainfed plot in 2017 to around -2.5 MPa in the same plot of the stony soil in 2018. In the rainfed plot, the mimimum ψleaf in the stony soil was lower than in silty soil from -2 to -1.5 MPa in 2017, respectively while these were from -2.5 to -2 MPa in 2018, respectively. Leaf water potential, water potential gradients from soil to plant roots, plant hydraulic conductance (Ksoil_plant), stomatal conductance, transpiration, and photosynthesis were considerably modulated by the soil water content and the conductivity of the rhizosphere. When the stony soil and silt soil are compared, the higher 'stress' due to the lower water availability in the stony soil resulted in less roots with a higher root tissue conductance in the soil with more stress. When comparing the rainfed with the irrigated plot in the silty soil, the higher stress in the rainfed soil resulted in more roots with a lower root tissue conductance in the treatment with more stress. This illustrates that the 'response' to stress can be completely opposite depending on conditions or treatments that lead to the differences in stress that are compared. To respond to water deficit, maize had higher water uptake rate per unit root length and higher root segment conductance in the stony soil than in the silty soil, while the crop reduced transpired water via reduced aboveground plant size. Future improvements of soil-crop models in simulating gas exchange and crop growth should further emphasize the role of soil textures on stomatal function, dynamic root growth, and plant hydraulic system together with aboveground leaf area adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non‐invasive imaging of processes within the soil–plant continuum, particularly root and soil water distributions, can help optimize agricultural practices such as irrigation and fertilization. In this study, in‐situ time‐lapse horizontal crosshole ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements and root images were collected over three maize crop growing seasons at two minirhizotron facilities (Selhausen, Germany). Root development and GPR permittivity were monitored at six depths (0.1–1.2 m) for different treatments within two soil types. We processed these data in a new way that gave us the information of the "trend‐corrected spatial permittivity deviation of vegetated field," allowing us to investigate whether the presence of roots increases the variability of GPR permittivity in the soil. This removed the main non‐root‐related influencing factors: static influences, such as soil heterogeneities and rhizotube deviations, and dynamic effects, such as seasonal moisture changes. This trend‐corrected spatial permittivity deviation showed a clear increase during the growing season, which could be linked with a similar increase in root volume fraction. Additionally, the corresponding probability density functions of the permittivity variability were derived and cross‐correlated with the root volume fraction, resulting in a coefficient of determination (R2) above 0.5 for 23 out of 46 correlation pairs. Although both facilities had different soil types and compaction levels, they had similar numbers of good correlations. A possible explanation for the observed correlation is that the presence of roots causes a redistribution of soil water, and therefore an increase in soil water variability. Core Ideas: Analying spatial and temporal belowground GPR signal variability and root images for maize crop roots.Root images and GPR data show differences for different treatments.Linking of root volume fraction and GPR permittivity variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein we report an improved self‐assembling phosphorus ligand based on hydrogen bonding between pyridone/hydroxypyridine in the ligand backbone. The N‐pyrrolyl substituents significantly improve the π‐backbonding properties of the ligand. Rhodium, iridium and platinum complexes of the ligand were prepared and analyzed by NMR spectroscopy and x‐ray crystal structure analysis. A catalyst based on this ligand showed very high catalytic activity and linear regioselectivity in rhodium‐catalyzed hydroformylation of 1‐octene. The same ligand was applied in linear regioselective iridium‐catalyzed hydroformylation of 1‐octene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]