Soybean is one of the most valuable commercial crops because of its high protein, carbohydrate, and oil content. The land area cultivated with soybean in subtropical regions, such as Brazil, is continuously expanding, in some instances at the expense of carbon storing natural habitats. Strategies to decrease yield/seed losses and increase production efficiency are urgently required to meet global demand for soybean in a sustainable manner. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of an Ascophyllum nodosum extract (ANE), SealicitTM, in increasing yields of different soybean varieties, in two geographical regions (Canada and Brazil). In addition, we investigated the potential of SealicitTM to reduce pod shattering at the trials in Brazil. Three different concentrations of SealicitTM were applied to pod shatter-susceptible (SS) UFUS 6901 and shatter-resistant (SR) UFUS 7415 varieties to assess their impact on pod firmness. SS variety demonstrated a significant decrease in pod shattering, which coincided with deregulation of GmPDH1.1 and GmSHAT1-5 expression, genes that determine pod dehiscence, and higher seed weight per pod. SealicitTM application to the SR variety did not significantly alter its inherent pod shatter resistance, but provided higher increases in seed yield at harvest. This yield increase maybe associated with to other yield components stimulated by the biostimulant. This work demonstrates that SealicitTM, which has previously been shown to improve pod firmness in Arabidopsis and selected commercial oilseed rape varieties through IND gene down-regulation, also has the potential to improve pod resistance and seed productivity in soybean, a member of the legume family sharing a similar strategy for seed dispersal.Real-time, nondestructive, and accurate estimation of plant water status is important to the precision irrigation of winter wheat. The objective of this study was to develop a method to estimate plant water content (PWC) by using canopy spectral proximal sensing data. Two experiments under different water stresses were conducted in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. The PWC and canopy reflectance of winter wheat were collected at different growth stages (the jointing, booting, heading, flowering, and filling stages in 2015 and the jointing, booting, flowering, and filling stages in 2016). The performance of different spectral transformation approaches was further compared. Based on the optimal pretreatment, partial least squares regression (PLSR) and four combination methods [i.e., PLSR-stepwise regression (SR), PLSR-successive projections algorithm (SPA), PLSR-random frog (RF), and PLSR-uninformative variables elimination (UVE)] were used to extract the sensitive bands of PWC. The results showed that all transformed spectra were closely correlated to PWC. The PLSR models based on the first derivative transformation method exhibited the best performance (coefficient of determination in calibration, R 2 C = 0.96; root mean square error in calibration, RMSEC = 20.49%; ratio of performance to interquartile distance in calibration, RPIQC = 9.19; and coefficient of determination in validation, R 2 V = 0.86; root mean square error in validation, RMSEV = 46.27%; ratio of performance to interquartile distance in validation, RPIQV = 4.34). Among the combination models, the PLSR model established with the sensitive bands from PLSR-RF demonstrated a good performance for calibration and validation (R 2 C = 0.99, RMSEC = 11.53%, and RPIQC = 16.34; and R 2 V = 0.84, RMSEV = 44.40%, and RPIQV = 4.52, respectively). This study provides a theoretical basis and a reference for estimating PWC of winter wheat by using canopy spectral proximal sensing data.Variations in antioxidant compounds were examined in seedlings of two rice cultivars (Qiutianxiaoting and 93-11) exposed to low temperature (4°C) for 0, 12, 36, and 48 h. Antioxidant activity was identified by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. The concentrations of total phenols, flavonoids, chlorophyll, and anthocyanins (ACNs) were determined by spectrophotometry. In addition, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to reveal the changes in phenolic compound concentrations in rice seedlings under chilling treatment. Results showed that antioxidant concentrations and antioxidant activity after chilling treatment were higher in 93-11 compared to Qiutianxiaoting, reaching the highest level at 36 h chilling treatment in 93-11. Phenolic compounds in Qiutianxiaoting decreased between 12 and 36 h but then increased at 48 h, whereas the corresponding levels in 93-11 increased as chilling time increased. Moreover, 10 phenolic compounds were detected and quantified by HPLC, of which gallic acid and caffeic acid tended to only exist in 93-11, whereas rutin was observed only in Qiutianxiaoting. The results of this study could be leveraged to optimize the antioxidant potential of rice in the context of healthy food choices.Large panicle rice cultivars often fail to fulfill their high-yield potential due to the poor grain filling of inferior spikelets (IS), which appears as initially stagnant development and low final seed weight. Understanding the mechanism of the initial stagnancy is important to improve IS grain filling. In this study, superior spikelets (SS) were removed from two homozygous japonica rice varieties (W1844 and CJ03) with the same sink capacity in an attempt to force photosynthate transport to the IS. The results showed that SS removal increased the grain weight, sucrose content, starch accumulation, and endogenous IAA levels of IS during the initial grain-filling stage. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/cariprazine-rgh-188.html SS removal also improved the patterns of vascular cells in the dorsal pericarp and the expression levels of genes involved in sucrose transport (OsSUTs and OsSWEETs) and IAA metabolism (OsYUCs and OsPINs). Exogenous IAA application advanced the initiation of grain filling by increasing the sucrose content and the gene expression levels of sucrose transporters. These results indicate that auxin may act like a signal substance and play a vital role in initial grain filling by regulating dorsal vascular cell development and sucrose phloem unloading into caryopsis.