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The guava (Psidium guajava L.), known as ‘Apple of the Tropics’ is a rich source of polyphenols, pectin, dietary fiber, and carotenoids. Guava comes under climacteric types of fruits; due to its high transpiration and respiration rate it experiences high post-harvest losses. Giloy leaf and ajwain seed herbal extracts-based nano-formulations (NFs) were synthesized using biopolymer sodium alginate and CaCl2, viz., T1 (Alginate: CaCl2), T2 (Alginate: CaCl2: Ajwain extract), and T3 (Alginate: CaCl2: Giloy extract). Antibacterial and antioxidant activity of the NFs were examined to check their efficacy as antibacterial agents, which was checked against E. coli, P. aeruginosa and B. cereus bacterial culture. The zone of inhibition against bacteria ranged from 6 ± 0.42 mm to 14 ± 0.92 mm. Antioxidant activity was 93.27%, 71.67%, and 67.04% for T2, T3 and T1 NFs and 89.90% and 67.05% for ajwain and giloy extracts. NFs treated fruits showed minimum loss in physiological weight, firmness, and color change compared to control fruit (uncoated). Physiological loss in weight ranged from 3.16 to 17.21% and 3.23 to 15.57% and fruit firmness ranged from 4.47 to 8.41 kg/cm2 and 4.84 to 8.37 kg/cm2 during storage at 25 ± 2 °C (incubation) and 32 ± 2 °C (room temperature), respectively. Among NFs, T2 showed the best results in preventing ripening and maximum loss of quality was observed in control (uncoated) fruits. Thus, NFs are an effective method of extending the shelf-life of fruits and ajwain based NFs increased shelf life of guava from 4–5 days to 7–8 days. Fruits storage at 25 ± 2 °C showed better results compared to storage at 32 ± 2 °C. Thus, NFs treated fruits storage at lower temperature controls the ripening related changes maximally.

Salinity stress has become a significant concern to global food security. Revealing the mechanisms that enable plants to survive under salinity has immense significance. Sorghum has increasingly attracted researchers interested in understanding the survival and adaptation strategies to high salinity. However, systematic analysis of the DEGs (differentially expressed genes) and their relative expression has not been reported in sorghum under salt stress. The de novo transcriptomic analysis of sorghum under different salinity levels from 60 to 120 mM NaCl was generated using Illumina HiSeq. Approximately 323.49 million high-quality reads, with an average contig length of 1145 bp, were assembled de novo. On average, 62% of unigenes were functionally annotated to known proteins. These DEGs were mainly involved in several important metabolic processes, such as carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, cell wall biogenesis, photosynthesis, and hormone signaling. SSG 59-3 alleviated the adverse effects of salinity by suppressing oxidative stress (H2O2) and stimulating enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant activities (SOD, APX, CAT, APX, POX, GR, GSH, ASC, proline, and GB), as well as protecting cell membrane integrity (MDA and electrolyte leakage). Significant up-regulation of transcripts encoding the NAC, MYB, and WRYK families, NHX transporters, the aquaporin protein family, photosynthetic genes, antioxidants, and compatible osmolyte proteins were observed. The tolerant line (SSG 59-3) engaged highly efficient machinery in response to elevated salinity, especially during the transport and influx of K+ ions, signal transduction, and osmotic homeostasis. Our data provide insights into the evolution of the NAC TFs gene family and further support the hypothesis that these genes are essential for plant responses to salinity. The findings may provide a molecular foundation for further exploring the potential functions of NAC TFs in developing salt-resistant sorghum lines.