Synergistic and antagonistic interactions between potassium and magnesium in higher plants
April 2021
Magnesium (Mg) affects various critical physiological and biochemical processes in higher plants, and its deficiency impedes plant growth and development. Although potassium (K)-induced Mg deficiency...
PlantGaussian: Exploring 3D Gaussian splatting for cross-time, cross-scene, and realistic 3D plant visualization and beyond
April 2025
Observing plants across time and diverse scenes is critical in uncovering plant growth patterns. Classic methods often struggle to observe or measure plants against complex backgrounds and at different...
Salt tolerance in rice: Physiological responses and molecular mechanisms
February 2022
Crop yield loss due to soil salinization is an increasing threat to agriculture worldwide. Salt stress drastically affects the growth, development, and grain productivity of rice (Oryza sativa L.),...
RNAi technologies for insect control in crop protection
August 2025
RNA interference (RNAi) has been used for agricultural insect pest control based on silencing of targeted insect genes. However, the effectiveness of RNAi and its applications in insect pest control...
Beyond dwarfism: Green Revolution gene Rht-D1b orchestrates tiller angle and canopy architecture in wheat
April 2026
The Green Revolution genes Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b encode truncated DELLA proteins that confer gibberellin (GA)-insensitive semi-dwarfism in wheat. Their roles in reducing plant height and enhancing lodging...
The impact of high-temperature stress on rice: Challenges and solutions
October 2021
Heat stress (HS) caused by rapidly warming climate has become a serious threat to global food security. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a staple food crop for over half of the world’s population, and its...
Plant aquaporins: Their roles beyond water transport
June 2024
Compared to other organisms, plants have evolved a greater number of aquaporins with diverse substrates and functions to adapt to ever-changing environmental and internal stimuli for growth and development....
High-throughput phenotyping: Breaking through the bottleneck in future crop breeding
June 2021
With the rapid development of genetic analysis techniques and crop population size, phenotyping has become the bottleneck restricting crop breeding. Breaking through this bottleneck will require phenomics,...
Magnesium deficiency in plants: An urgent problem
April 2016
Although magnesium (Mg) is one of the most important nutrients, involved in many enzyme activities and the structural stabilization of tissues, its importance as a macronutrient ion has been overlooked...
Far-red light: A regulator of plant morphology and photosynthetic capacity
April 2022
Plant photosynthetic capacity directly determines crop yield. Light quality regulates photosynthetic capacity. This review discusses plant responses to far-red light from the phenotypic to the molecular...
ZmNAC16 increases drought tolerance in maize seedlings via ABA-mediated stomatal closure
Available online 9 April 2026
Stomatal movement is a crucial response of plants to drought stress. Several NAC transcription factors have been implicated in drought tolerance in maize seedlings, whereas the molecular mechanism by...
Advances in the study of auxin early response genes: Aux/IAA, GH3, and SAUR
August 2024
Auxin plays a crucial role in all aspects of plant growth and development. Auxin can induce the rapid and efficient expression of some genes, which are named auxin early response genes (AERGs), mainly...
An efficient machine-learning framework for genomic selection of optimal crosses in soybean germplasm population
Available online 2 April 2026
Genomic selection (GS) has provided a comprehensive framework for efficient breeding by linking phenotypes to genome-wide markers. However, research on GS has predominantly focused on improving genotype-to-phenotype...
Origin, evolution, and molecular function of DELLA proteins in plants
April 2022
Gibberellic acid (GA), a ubiquitous phytohormone, has various effects on regulators of plant growth and development. GAs promote growth by overcoming growth restraint mediated by DELLA proteins (DELLAs)....
Biological nitrogen and carbon fixation: Bridging the gap between synthetic symbioses and synthetic biology
February 2026
Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) and photosynthetic carbon fixation underpin food production and climate mitigation, yet natural systems are constrained by oxygen sensitivity, high energy demand,...
JAZ proteins: Key regulators of plant growth and stress response
December 2024
The jasmonate ZIM-domain (JAZ) family of proteins serves as co-receptors and transcriptional repressors of jasmonic acid (JA) in plants. Their functional diversity and multiple roles make them important...
OsIAA8-OsARF12 module regulates deep rooting in rice by modulating expression of auxin transport genes
April 2026
Deep rooting is an important factor affecting rice drought avoidance. However, few genes that control this trait have been identified in rice. In the present work, we cloned a gene, OsIAA8, associated...
The regulatory network behind maize seed germination: Effects of temperature, water, phytohormones, and nutrients
August 2021
Seed germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed. It requires suitable conditions and environmental factors. Maize is one of the most important crops worldwide. Germination influences...
Interplay of light and nitrogen for plant growth and development
June 2025
Light and nitrogen (N) are two critically environmental factors essential for plant survival, as they constitute the fundamental molecular framework of plant cells and significantly influence patterns...
Physiology of medicinal and aromatic plants under drought stress
April 2024
Drought poses a significant challenge, restricting the productivity of medicinal and aromatic plants. The strain induced by drought can impede vital processes like respiration and photosynthesis, affecting...
CRISPR/Cas genome editing in nonregenerative cotton using sexual hybridization
June 2026
Sexual transfer of the CRISPR/Cas genome-editing system to targeted cotton cultivars could bypass their recalcitrance to regeneration from tissue culture. We used sexual hybridization to transmit a...
Genomic selection and genome-wide association studies using UAV-derived plant height and aboveground biomass of maize
Available online 27 March 2026
Plant height (PH) and aboveground biomass (AGB) are critical agronomic traits that determine the yield potential of maize (Zea mays L.). However, the application of genomic selection (GS) and genome-wide...
Canopy structure outweighs photosynthetic capacity in determining maize adaptation to dense planting
Available online 11 April 2026
The objectives of this study were to identify canopy-level strategies for maximizing maize yield under high-density planting and to establish a 3D simulation framework for evaluating density-tolerant...
One-step strategy for developing wheat haploid inducer lines with efficient markers for haploid identification
Available online 11 April 2026
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important staple crops globally. Doubled haploid technology enables rapid development of pure lines and has been extended from maize to several other...
QTL IciMapping: Integrated software for genetic linkage map construction and quantitative trait locus mapping in biparental populations
June 2015
QTL IciMapping is freely available public software capable of building high-density linkage maps and mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) in biparental populations. Eight functionalities are integrated...