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Fermented chopped chili pepper (FCCP) is the most important fermented and processed chili pepper product, and most pepper varieties can be processed with obvious flavor differences. Many studies have tried to explain these differences using the results of component analysis, processing technology, the microbes involved, etc., but few have examined the characteristics of these varieties along with the flavor of products. We conducted a physiochemical characteristic analysis of 35 kinds of fresh chili peppers with different genotypes and made fermented products from 17 varieties, using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) to correlate their components with FCCP products. The results were as follows: (1) Protein, total acids, a* (representation of the object’s red and green color), protopectin, and fruit thickness are the five key indexes that affect the quality of fresh chili peppers the most. (2) Protein, total acids, a*, protopectin, and fruit thickness are also the key indexes that affect the quality of FCCP. (3) Suitable ranges of fresh chili pepper to manufacture FCCP are 1.3–2.0 g/100 g for protein, 2.5–4.0 g/kg for total acids, 10–15 g/100 g for protopectin, 30–39 for a*, and 1.2–2.0 mm for fruit thickness. (4) Sensory appraisal shows crispness is the most important mouthfeel sensation and can decrease during the process. The varieties with the top three scores were A12 (21G675), A13 (20Z663), and A14 (21Z698) with scores of 87.92, 74.08, and 74.15, respectively. The varieties in the top three scores are pod peppers. The PCA and CA showed that pod peppers were the most suitable materials for making FCCP. Our results will benefit others in selecting fresh chili peppers for making FCCP and provide data support for directing processable variety breeding.

From connected sensors in soils, on animals or crops, and on drones, to various software and services that are available, “smart” technologies are changing the way farming is carried out. These technologies allow producers to look beyond what the eye can see by collecting non-traditional data and then using analytics tools to improve both food sustainability and profitability. “Smart Agriculture/farming” (SA) or “Digital Agriculture” (DA), often used interchangeably, refer to precision agriculture that is thus connected in a network of sensing and acting. It is a concept that employs modern information technologies, precision climate information, and crop/livestock developmental information to connect production variables to increase the quantity and quality of agricultural and food products. This is achieved by measuring and analyzing variables accurately, feeding the information into the cloud from edge devices, extracting trends from the various data, and subsequently providing information back to the producer in a timely manner. Smart agriculture covers many disciplines, including biology, mechanical engineering, automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and information technology-digital platforms. Minimum standards have been proposed for stakeholders with the aim to move toward this highly anticipated and ever-changing revolution. These foundational standards encompass the following general categories, including precise articulation of objectives, and baseline standards for the Internet of Things (IoT), including network infrastructure (e.g., stable 4G or 5G networks or a wireless local area network (WLAN) are available to end users). To sum up, SA aims to improve production efficiency, enhance the quality and quantity of agricultural products, reduce costs, and improve the environmental footprint of the industry. SA’s ecosystem should be industry self-governed and collaboratively financed. SA stakeholders and end-users’ facilities should meet standard equipment requirements, such as sensor accuracy, end data collectors, relevant industry compliant software, and trusted data analytics. The SA user is willing to be part of the SA ecosystem. This short perspective aims to summarize digital/smart agriculture concept in plain language.

Pepper is a horticultural crop that does not tolerate low temperatures. To investigate how the grafted pepper responds to low temperature stress in the short term, transcriptome analysis was performed on grafted seedlings treated with low temperature for 1 h, 4 h, 12 h and 24 h compared with those treated for 0 h. The results showed that genes related to CAM4, MPK8, RbohD and OXI1 might be related to the response of grafted seedlings to low temperature stress in the short term. To investigate how low temperature tolerant rootstocks can improve the low temperature tolerance of grafted peppers, morphological and physiological indices of self-rooted and grafted seedlings were analyzed under low temperature conditions for different days. The results showed that the degree of wilting, REL and MDA content of grafted seedlings were significantly lower than those of self-rooted seedlings, and the antioxidant enzyme activities were significantly higher than those of self-rooted seedlings under low temperature stress. The results indicated that grafted pepper would activate ROS-related genes in a short period of time after low temperature stress and produce a large amount of ROS in response to the low temperature stress. When ROS accumulated to a certain level, the grafted pepper could increase the enzyme activity of antioxidant system to remove the ROS produced in the body, and help the pepper seedlings adapt to low temperature stress through osmoregulation mechanism, so as to resist the damage caused by low temperature. The results of the study provide ideas for growing pepper in low temperature environment.

Light is vital for plant growth and development, and the germination of many plant seeds and the development of seedlings are very sensitive to the light environment. Under no or low light conditions, pepper seedlings will accelerate the elongation of the hypocotyl to obtain light. To elucidate the molecular mechanism by which light regulates hypocotyl elongation in pepper, RNA sequencing was performed to analyze the hypocotyls and cotyledons of the yellowing mutant R24 under three different light intensity treatments. A total of 35,341 gene were identified; moreover, during the treatment, 9695 new genes and 13,123 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were observed, respectively. Some genes related to brassino-lide receptor protein kinase BRI1, light capture proteins LHCA and LHCB, and auxin response factor may regulate the response of hot pepper cotyledons and hypocotyls to different light intensity. KEGG functional enrichment analysis revealed that the most abundant pathways were phenylpropane biosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction, and carbon metabolism. This study provides a valuable reference for understanding the molecular mechanism of pepper’s response to different light intensities at the seedling stage and for improving the local light environment to overcome the hypocotyl elongation of pepper crop under low light conditions.

With increasingly frequent extreme weather events, lodging has become an important limiting factor for crop yield and quality and for mechanical harvesting. Lodging resistance is a precondition for “super high yield” crops, and the question of how to achieve lodging resistance to guarantee high yield is an urgent scientific problem. Here, we summarize the anatomical results of lodging resistance stems and find that the lodging resistance of stems is closely related to stem components. Therefore, we focus on the roles of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, which provide stem rigidity and strength, in crop lodging resistance. By combing the synthetic regulatory molecular network of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, we find that only some of the genes involved in the biosynthesis and regulation of lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose have been shown to significantly affect lodging resistance. However, many relevant genes remain to be studied in sufficient detail to determine whether they can be applied in breeding for lodging resistance. This work provides valuable information for future studies of lodging resistance.