Abiotic factors in nutrient solutions (NSs), such as salinity and high electrical conductivity (EC), may adversely alter plant growth crop performance. However, there are medicinal/aromatic plants which can not only withstand these adverse conditions, but also increase their productivity or even enhance quality conditions. As fresh water sources suitable for irrigation becoming more limited, th...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can be beneficial for horticultural crops due to their nutrient acquisition properties and stimulation of the plant metabolism. The present work focuses on the prospects of AM fungi a) to solve plant nutritional problems, b) to induce flower development of ornamental plants, and c) to improve the health potential of crop plants for humans. Contribution of AM fu...

Background In numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic reviews such as those published by the Cochrane Collaboration, Pelargonium sidoides extract EPs® 7630 was shown to be effective in acute respiratory tract infections (aRTI) in all investigated age-groups. This narrative review focuses on recently published results from RCTs investigating the clinical efficacy and safety o...

Pelargonium sidoides is a medical herb and respective extracts are used very frequently for the treatment of respiratory tract infections. However, the effects of Pelargonium sidoides and a special extract prepared from its roots (EPs 7630) on human immune cells are not fully understood. Here we demonstrate that EPs 7630 induced a rapid and dose-dependent production of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-10 by...

The chloroplast genome of Pelargonium x hortorum has been completely sequenced. It maps as a circular molecule of 217,942 bp and is both the largest and most rearranged land plant chloroplast genome yet sequenced. It features 2 copies of a greatly expanded inverted repeat (IR) of 75,741 bp each and, consequently, diminished single-copy regions of 59,710 and 6,750 bp. Despite the increase in siz...