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Maize yield is mostly determined by its grain size. Although numerous quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified for kernel-related traits, the application of these QTL in breeding programs has been strongly hindered because the populations used for QTL mapping are often different from breeding populations. However, the effect of genetic background on the efficiency of QTL and the accuracy of trait genomic prediction has not been fully studied. Here, we used a set of reciprocal introgression lines (ILs) derived from 417F × 517F to evaluate how genetic background affects the detection of QTLassociated with kernel shape traits. A total of 51 QTL for kernel size were identified by chromosome segment lines (CSL) and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) methods. These were subsequently clustered into 13 common QTL based on their physical position, including 7 genetic-background-independent and 6 genetic-background-dependent QTL, respectively. Additionally, different digenic epistatic marker pairs were identified in the 417F and 517F ILs. Therefore, our results demonstrated that genetic background strongly affected not only the kernel size QTL mapping via CSL and GWAS but also the genomic prediction accuracy and epistatic detection, thereby enhancing our understanding of how genetic background affects the genetic dissection of grain size-related traits.

Maize lethal necrosis (MLN), one of the most important maize viral diseases, is caused by maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) infection in combination with a potyvirid, such as sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV). However, the resistance mechanism of maize to MLN remains largely unknown. In this study, we obtained isoform expression profiles of maize after SCMV and MCMV single and synergistic infection (S + M) via comparative analysis of SMRT- and Illumina-based RNA sequencing. A total of 15,508, 7567, and 2378 differentially expressed isoforms (DEIs) were identified in S + M, MCMV, and SCMV libraries, which were primarily involved in photosynthesis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging, and some pathways related to disease resistance. The results of virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) assays revealed that silencing of a vitamin C biosynthesis-related gene, ZmGalDH or ZmAPX1, promoted viral infections, while silencing ZmTAT or ZmNQO1, the gene involved in vitamin E or K biosynthesis, inhibited MCMV and S + M infections, likely by regulating the expressions of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. Moreover, the relationship between viral infections and expression of the above four genes in ten maize inbred lines was determined. We further demonstrated that the exogenous application of vitamin C could effectively suppress viral infections, while vitamins E and K promoted MCMV infection. These findings provide novel insights into the gene regulatory networks of maize in response to MLN, and the roles of vitamins C, E, and K in conditioning viral infections in maize.

Salinity has become a crucial environmental factor seriously restricting maize (

Drought stress during the reproductive period of cereal crops leads to significant yield reductions, therefore, exploring effective methods to improve tolerance to post-anthesis drought is necessary. Pot experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of pre-drought priming on physiological characteristics and grain yield with drought stress at post-anthesis. Moderate water deficits (60–65% of the field capacity) were imposed to prime wheat plants during either the tillering or jointing stages, while severe drought stress (40–45% of the field capacity) was applied during the grain filling stage. The priming treatments significantly improved grain yield resulting in higher biomass. Compared to the control, the grain yield and biomass of the non-priming, tillering priming, and jointing priming treatments were reduced by 15.7, 9.1, and 9.3% and by 11.1, 6.1, and 10.5%, respectively. The primed plants exhibited higher adaptability to subsequent severe drought stress during grain filling, showing...

Gathering and managing the data of taxi receipts in reimbursement process consumes a lot of manpower. Due to the bad painting and the irregular arrangement of the taxi receipts, the automatic taxi receipt character recognition task has not been solved yet. This paper proposes an automatic taxi receipt text recognition application system based on a recognition system and a communication system. In the recognition system, a Single Shot Multi-Box Detector(SSD) neural network is used to determine the data region, and a CNN (convolution neural network)-GRU (gated recurrent unit) combined neural network is designed for character recognition. For the networks, our data set contains 1800 images of taxi receipts, and the cross validation results show that the accuracy reaches 94.36%. The communication system is deployed on a multimedia server and the system can be used on both computers and phones.

The establishment of female inflorescence morphology is of great significance to the formation of final maize yield. defective ear1 (dea1) is a novel maize mutant with developmental defect of female inflorescence caused by natural variation. Morphological analysis revealed that the mutant dea1 was characterized as a “scar-like” crack on the adaxial side of the top of the ear, accounting for 28.6-100.0% of the ear length, with an average of 32.4%. The results of scanning electron microscope showed that there was collapse in the formation of paired spikelet primordium at the base of the axillary meristem. Most of investigated botanical and agronomical traits of dea1 were lower than those of wild type, except for ear length and hundred grain weight. The grain yield per ear of mutant dea1 was 35.93% lower than that of wild type, and the width of mutation crack contributed the most to the yield loss per ear. The identification of the mutant dea1 and the characteristically phenotypic analysis provide a theoretical basis for the study of the molecular regulation mechanism of ear development and the application of high-yield breeding in maize.The establishment of female inflorescence morphology is of great significance to the formation of final maize yield. defective ear1 (dea1) is a novel maize mutant with developmental defect of female inflorescence caused by natural variation. Morphological analysis revealed that the mutant dea1 was characterized as a “scar-like” crack on the adaxial side of the top of the ear, accounting for 28.6-100.0% of the ear length, with an average of 32.4%. The results of scanning electron microscope showed that there was collapse in the formation of paired spikelet primordium at the base of the axillary meristem. Most of investigated botanical and agronomical traits of dea1 were lower than those of wild type, except for ear length and hundred grain weight. The grain yield per ear of mutant dea1 was 35.93% lower than that of wild type, and the width of mutation crack contributed the most to the yield loss per ear. The identification of the mutant dea1 and the characteristically phenotypic analysis provide a theoretical basis for the study of the molecular regulation mechanism of ear development and the application of high-yield breeding in maize.

Wheat crop endures a considerable penalty of yield reduction to escape the drought events during post-anthesis period. Drought priming under a pre-drought stress can enhance the crop potential to tolerate the subsequent drought stress by triggering a faster and stronger defense mechanism. Towards these understandings, a set of controlled moderate drought stress at 55-60% field capacity (FC) was developed to prime the plants of two wheat cultivars namely Luhan-7 (drought tolerant) and Yangmai-16 (drought sensitive) during tillering (Feekes 2 stage) and jointing (Feekes 6 stage), respectively. The comparative response of primed and non-primed plants, cultivars and priming stages was evaluated by applying a subsequent severe drought stress at 7 days after anthesis. The results showed that primed plants of both cultivars showed higher potential to tolerate the post-anthesis drought stress through improved leaf water potential, more chlorophyll, and ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase contents, enhanced photosynthesis, better photoprotection and efficient enzymatic antioxidant system leading to less yield reductions. The primed plants of Luhan-7 showed higher capability to adapt the drought stress events than Yangmai-16. The positive effects of drought priming to sustain higher grain yield were pronounced in plants primed at tillering than those primed at jointing. In consequence, upregulated functioning of photosynthetic apparatus and efficient enzymatic antioxidant activities in primed plants indicated their superior potential to alleviate a subsequently occurring drought stress, which contributed to lower yield reductions than non-primed plants. However, genotypic and priming stages differences in response to drought stress also contributed to affect the capability of primed plants to tolerate the post-anthesis drought stress conditions in wheat.

Elucidating the growth responses of roots to water status will reveal physiological mechanisms underlying drought tolerance and water conservation in plants. Hydroponic experiments were conducted using two winter wheat cultivars, Wangshuibai (drought-sensitive) and Luohan 7 (drought-tolerant), and a water deficit was induced using a 20 % (m/v) aqueous solution of polyethylene glycol 6000 (−0.6 MPa). The lack of water significantly reduced the plant dry weight, leaf area, total root length (TRL) and surface area in seminal (SRs) and nodal roots (NRs), but the effects were less pronounced in Luohan 7 than in Wangshuibai. After re-watering, leaf area, TRL and surface area of Luohan 7 increased significantly, as compared to the controls, due to rapid compensatory growth of SRs, while those of Wangshuibai were still significantly reduced. Under water-deficit conditions, the concentrations of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and cytokinin (CTK) and their ratio (IAA/CTK) in SRs and NRs of both cultivars were significantly lower than those of controls, but increased after re-watering. However, Luohan 7 showed significantly increases in IAA/CTK of SRs as compared to the control. Net photosynthetic rate was much lower during water deficit in both cultivars, but it was enhanced significantly after re-watering, especially for Luohan 7. Moreover, sucrose content was significantly increased in leaves while reduced in roots under water-deficit conditions. After re-watering, sucrose content in leaves of both cultivars and in roots of Wangshuibai was severely reduced, while the values in roots of Luohan 7 were significantly increased as compared to the control. These results indicate that the drought-tolerant cultivar has a greater ability to maintain plant growth under water deficit and greater compensatory growth in SRs associated with higher IAA/CTK and photosynthetic products supply after re-watering.

Abid M, Tian Z, Hu J, Ullah A, Cui Y, Ali S, Jiang S, Zahoor R, Fan Y, Dong J and Dai T Activities of carbohydrate-metabolism enzymes in pre-drought primed wheat plants under drought stress during grain filling. J Integr Plant Biol Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/jipb.12628 The above article from Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, published online on 20 December, 2017, in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) as Accepted Article, has been withdrawn by agreement among the authors, the journal Editors-in-Chief and John WileySons Australia, Ltd on behalf of the JIPB Board, after noticing an overlap of a figure from a previously published article, from the same laboratory.Abid M, Tian Z, Hu J, Ullah A, Cui Y, Ali S, Jiang S, Zahoor R, Fan Y, Dong J and Dai T Activities of carbohydrate-metabolism enzymes in pre-drought primed wheat plants under drought stress during grain filling. J Integr Plant Biol Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/jipb.12628.

Efficient nitrogen (N) nutrition has the potential to alleviate drought stress in crops by maintaining metabolic activities even at low tissue water potential. This study was aimed to understand the potential of N to minimize the effects of drought stress applied/occur during tillering (Feekes stage 2) and jointing (Feekes stage 6) growth stages of wheat by observing the regulations and limitations of physiological activities, crop growth rate during drought periods as well as final grain yields at maturity. In present study, pot cultured plants of a wheat cultivar Yangmai-16 were exposed to three water levels [severe stress at 35–40% field capacity (FC), moderate stress at 55–60% FC and well-watered at 75–80% FC] under two N rates (0.24 g and 0.16 g/kg soil). The results showed that the plants under severe drought stress accompanied by low N exhibited highly downregulated photosynthesis, and chlorophyll (Chl) fluorescence during the drought stress periods, and showed an accelerated grain filling rate with shortened grain filling duration (GFD) at post-anthesis, and reduced grain yields. Severe drought-stressed plants especially at jointing, exhibited lower Chl and Rubisco contents, lower efficiency of photosystem II and greater grain yield reductions. In contrast, drought-stressed plants under higher N showed tolerance to drought stress by maintaining higher leaf water potential, Chl and Rubisco content; lower lipid peroxidation associated with higher superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase activities during drought periods. The plants under higher N showed delayed senescence, increased GFD and lower grain yield reductions. The results of the study suggested that higher N nutrition contributed to drought tolerance in wheat by maintaining higher photosynthetic activities and antioxidative defense system during vegetative growth periods.

Determining the effect of water deficit during vegetative growth periods on grain yield will provide reasonable strategy for water-saving management of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Pot experiment was conducted using winter wheat cultivar (Yangmai16) to investigate the effects of water deficit during vegetative periods on post-anthesis photosynthetic capacity and the relationship with grain yield formation during the growing season of 2013–2014. Water deficit consisted of moderate (leaf water potential of −1.20 to −1.40 MPa) and severe (leaf water potential of −1.80 to −2.20 MPa) levels during tillering and jointing growth stages, respectively. Moderate water deficit during tillering significantly increased grain yield through an enhanced yield capacity per stem and moderate water deficit during jointing resulted in similar grain yields as compared to control, while severe water deficit during both periods significantly reduced grain yield due to strong reduction in number of spikes as compared to control. Moderate or severe water deficit during tillering had no effect on flag leaf area but reduced it significantly when it occurred during jointing. Water deficit treatments during jointing and tillering increased net photosynthetic rate (P n) of flag leaves, the treatment during jointing being the most stimulatory. The maximum photochemical efficiency of Photosystem II, actual photochemical efficiency, the maximum carboxylation rate and photosynthetic electron transport rate increased in ways similar to P n in response to water deficit but non-photochemical quenching decreased. We conclude that improved photosynthetic capacity by moderate water deficit during vegetative growth period highly contributes to grain yield, especially during tillering period, while grain yield decreased by the limitation of leaf area and spikes under severe water deficit.