The modular design of plants enables individual plant organs to manifest autonomous functions and continue aspects of metabolism, such as respiration, even after separation from the parent plant. Therefore, we hypothesized that harvested vegetables and fruits may retain capacity to perceive and respond to external stimuli. For example, the fitness advantage of plant circadian clock function is ...

Klebsiella variicola strain DX120E (=CGMCC 1.14935) is an endophytic nitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from sugarcane crops grown in Guangxi, China and promotes sugarcane growth. Here we summarize the features of the strain DX120E and describe its complete genome sequence. The genome contains one circular chromosome and two plasmids, and contains 5,718,434 nucleotides with 57.1% GC content, 5,...

Biofuels developed from biomass crops have the potential to supply a significant portion of our transportation fuel needs. To achieve this potential, however, it will be necessary to develop improved plant germplasm specifically tailored to serve as energy crops. Liquid transportation fuel can be created from the sugars locked inside plant cell walls. Unfortunately, these sugars are inherently ...

One of the least understood areas in the environmental risk assessment of genetically modified crops is their impact on soil and plant-associated microbial communities. In a review of literature, Dunfield and Germida (2004) found that transgenic plants and plant litter can influence the composition of the plant-associated microbial communities. Their review also points to such effects having be...

B. rALANCE is a fundamental part of nature's law. But man's activities have a way of upsetting nature's balance and usually.it takes a serious unbalance to make us see the situation and try to correct it. Our increased concern over our own diets exemplifies an unbalance. The variety of foods that comprise the average normal diet should provide enough of the essential minerals and vitamins to me...

4 See http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/acrylamide-fact-sheet.

Dickeya spp. are bacterial pathogens causing soft-rot and blackleg diseases on a wide range of ornamental plants and crops. In this paper, we announce the PacBio complete genome sequences of the plant pathogens Dickeya solani RNS 08.23.3.1.A (PRI3337) and Dickeya dianthicola RNS04.9.

Transgenic crops, a new product of agricultural biotechnology has its own share of environmental risks and benefits. Present agricultural management practices and new ecosystems have their own impacts on the environment and further any additional negative effect of transgenic crops may mitigate their positive impacts as well as increase the background value of negative impacts due to new agricu...

THERE is a restricted range of boron concentration in soil water that is beneficial to plants. At lower concentrations, plants exhibit boron deficiency, whereas at higher concentration, phytotoxicity occurs. The specific range of favorable response varies by species but has been characterized as 0.028 to 0.093 mmol L 1 for sensitive crops and 0.37 to 1.39 mmol L 1 for tolerant crops (Keren and ...

Climate change leading to increased periods of low water availability as well as increasing demands for food in the coming years makes breeding for drought tolerant crops a high priority. Plants have developed diverse strategies and mechanisms to survive drought stress. However, most of these represent drought escape or avoidance strategies like early flowering or low stomatal conductance that ...