Plant densities and modulation of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in soybean

Soybean nitrogen (N) demands can be supplied to a large extent via biological nitrogen fixation, but the mechanisms of source/sink regulating photosynthesis/nitrogen fixation in high yielding cultivars and current crop management arrangements need to be investigated. We investigated the modulation of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] at different plant densities. A field trial was performed in southern Brazil with six treatments, including non-inoculated controls without and with N-fertilizer, both at a density of 320,000 plants ha−1, and plants inoculated with Bradyrhizobium elkanii at four densities, ranging from 40,000 to 320,000 plants ha−1. Differences in nodulation, biomass production, N accumulation and partition were observed at stage R5, but not at stage V4, indicating that quantitative and qualitative factors (such as sunlight infrared/red ratio) assume increasing importance during the later stages of plant growth. Decreases in density in the inoculated treatments stimulated photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation per plant. Similar yields were obtained at the different plant densities, with decreases only at the very low density level of 40,000 plants ha−1, which was also the only treatment to show differences in seed protein and oil contents. Results confirm a fine tuning of the mechanisms of source/sink, photosynthesis/nitrogen fixation under lower plant densities. Higher photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation rates are capable of sustaining increased plant growth

Feasibility of lowering soybean planting density without compromising nitrogen fixation and yield

Adjusting soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] density can be critical to reduce inter-plant competition for water, nutrients, and sunlight, and to increase intercepted radiation, photosynthesis, and biomass production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of soybean-population density on soybean nodulation, plant nutrient status, yield, and grain quality. Three field experiments were performed in southern Brazil with soybean cultivar BRS 284, of indeterminate growth type and maturity group 6.6, at 80,000 and 320,000 plants ha–1. For N supply plants were dependent either largely on biological fixation of atmospheric N—with a naturalized population of Bradyrhizobium or inoculated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain CNPSo 2050—or largely on N fertilizer—200 kg N ha–1, split-applied at sowing and R1 growth stage. The lower plant density resulted in increased nodulation parameters (number and mass), but plant nutritional status—evaluated by the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (DRIS) method—in general was not affected. Seed oil content increased by 3.4%, but protein decreased by 4.5% at the lower plant density. The N source affected nodulation, but not nutritional status or grain yield. Although plant density was reduced by 75%, yield decreased by 16% during only one of the three cropping seasons. These results indicate a high plasticity of soybean to adapt photosynthesis and N fixation to different plant densities. Furthermore, planting at the lower density has the advantages of lower input costs and less susceptibility to environmental and plant nutritional stresses.Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos VegetalesFil: De Luca, Marcos Javier. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; Argentina. Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Departamento Microbiologia; Brasil. Embrapa Soja; BrasilFil: Nogueira, Marco Antonio. Embrapa Soja; Brasil. Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Departamento Microbiologia; BrasilFil: Hungria, Mariangela. Embrapa Soja; Brasil. Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Departamento Microbiologia; Brasi

Evaluation of bradyrhizobia strains isolated from field-grown soybean plants in Argentina as improved inoculants

Bradyrhizobium strains were isolated from nodules obtained from field-grown soybean plants sampled in 12 soybean production locations in Argentina. These fields had been annually cropped with soybean and did not show decreases in yields even though they had been neither N-fertilized nor inoculated for at least the last 5 years. We hypothesized that the isolated strains maintained high competitiveness and efficiency in fixing adequate N2 levels. A set of strains that showed the highest nodular occupancy in each sampling location were assayed for symbiotic performance under greenhouse and field conditions and comparatively evaluated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum E109, the strain officially recommended for inoculant formulation in Argentina. An inoculant pool, formed by four strains obtained from nodules collected from Cañada Rica, developed higher nodular biomass than B. japonicum E 109 in assays carried out in greenhouses under well irrigated conditions. Additionally, neither nodule production nor specific nitrogenase activity decreased with respect to B. japonicum E 109 when plants were drought stressed during 7 days from sowing. The mean yields obtained under field conditions and plotted against the principal component one (CP1) obtained with an additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) model showed that the inoculant pool from Cañada Rica had higher contribution to yield than strain E 109, although with lower environmental stability. The inoculant pool from Cañada Rica could be considered an improved inoculant and be used for preliminary assays, to formulate inoculants in Argentina.Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos VegetalesFil: Melchiorre, Mariana. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; ArgentinaFil: De Luca, Marcos Javier. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez Anta, Gustavo. Universidad Nacional del Noroeste de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Suarez, Paola Alejandra. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; ArgentinaFil: Lopez, Carlos. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Manfredi. Agencia De Extensión Rural Río Primero; ArgentinaFil: Lascano, Hernán Ramiro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Lascano, Hernán Ramiro. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; ArgentinaFil: Racca, Roberto Walter. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales; Argentin

Evaluation of bradyrhizobia strains isolated from field-grown soybean plants in Argentina as improved inoculants

Bradyrhizobium strains were isolated from nodules obtained from field-grown soybean plants sampled in 12 soybean production locations in Argentina. These fields had been annually cropped with soybean and did not show decreases in yields even though they had been neither N-fertilized nor inoculated for at least the last 5 years. We hypothesized that the isolated strains maintained high competitiveness and efficiency in fixing adequate N2 levels. A set of strains that showed the highest nodular occupancy in each sampling location were assayed for symbiotic performance under greenhouse and field conditions and comparatively evaluated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum E109, the strain officially recommended for inoculant formulation in Argentina. An inoculant pool, formed by four strains obtained from nodules collected from Cañada Rica, developed higher nodular biomass than B. japonicum E 109 in assays carried out in greenhouses under well irrigated conditions. Additionally, neither nodule production nor specific nitrogenase activity decreased with respect to B. japonicum E 109 when plants were drought stressed during 7 days from sowing. The mean yields obtained under field conditions and plotted against the principal component one (CP1) obtained with an additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) model showed that the inoculant pool from Cañada Rica had higher contribution to yield than strain E 109, although with lower environmental stability. The inoculant pool from Cañada Rica could be considered an improved inoculant and be used for preliminary assays, to formulate inoculants in Argentina. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.Fil: Melchiorre, Mariana Noemi. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigaciones Agropecuarias. Unidad de Estudios Agropecuarios - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Unidad de Estudios Agropecuarios; ArgentinaFil: de Luca, Marcos Javier. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Fitopatología y Fisiología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: González Anta, Gustavo Gabriel. Universidad Nacional del Noroeste de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Suarez, Paola. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Fitopatología y Fisiología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Lopez, Carlos. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Cordoba. Estacion Experimental Agropecuaria Manfredi. Agencia de Extension Rural Rio Primero.; ArgentinaFil: Lascano, Hernan Ramiro. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigaciones Agropecuarias. Unidad de Estudios Agropecuarios - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Unidad de Estudios Agropecuarios; ArgentinaFil: Racca, Roberto Walter. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Fitopatología y Fisiología Vegetal; Argentin

Study of exclusive two-photon production of W+W− in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings

A search for exclusive or quasi-exclusive W+W− production by photon-photon interactions, pp → p(*)W+W−p(*), at s√=7 TeV is reported using data collected by the CMS detector with an integrated luminosity of 5.05 fb−1. Events are selected by requiring a μ ±e∓ vertex with no additional associated charged tracks and dilepton transverse momentum p T(μ ±e∓) > 30 GeV. Two events passing all selection requirements are observed in the data, compared to a standard model expectation of 2.2 ± 0.4 signal events with 0.84 ± 0.15 background. The tail of the dilepton p T distribution is studied for deviations from the standard model. No events are observed with p T  > 100 GeV. Model-independent upper limits are computed and compared to predictions involving anomalous quartic gauge couplings. The limits on the parameters aW0,C/Λ2 with a dipole form factor and an energy cutoff Λcutoff = 500 GeV are of the order of 10−4.We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC and thank the technical and administrative staffs at CERN and at other CMS institutes for their contributions to the success of the CMS effort. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the computing centres and personnel of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for delivering so effectively the computing infrastructure essential to our analyses. Finally, we acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC and the CMS detector provided by the following funding agencies: the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research and the Austrian Science Fund; the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, and Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; the Brazilian Funding Agencies (CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP); the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science; CERN; the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, and National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Colombian Funding Agency (COLCIENCIAS); the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport; the Research Promotion Foundation, Cyprus; the Ministry of Education and Research, Recurrent financing contract SF0690030s09 and European Regional Development Fund, Estonia; the Academy of Finland, Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and Helsinki Institute of Physics; the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules / CNRS, and Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives / CEA, France; the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren, Germany; the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Greece; the National Scientific Research Foundation, and National Office for Research and Technology, Hungary; the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, India; the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, Iran; the Science Foundation, Ireland; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the World Class University program of NRF, Republic of Korea; the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; the Mexican Funding Agencies (CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI); the Ministry of Science and Innovation, New Zealand; the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Centre, Poland; the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Portugal; JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the Federal Agency of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research; the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of Serbia; the Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación and Programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010, Spain; the Swiss Funding Agencies (ETH Board, ETH Zurich, PSI, SNF, UniZH, Canton Zurich, and SER); the National Science Council, Taipei; the Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics, the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology of Thailand and the National Science and Technology Development Agency of Thailand; the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, and Turkish Atomic Energy Authority; the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; the US Department of Energy, and the US National Science Foundation. Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie programme and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the HOMING PLUS programme of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced by EU, Regional Development Fund; and the Thalis and Aristeia programmes cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF

Measurement of the relative prompt production rate of χc2 and χc1 in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

A measurement is presented of the relative prompt production rate of χc2 and χc1 with 4.6 fb−1 of data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV. The two states are measured via their radiative decays χc → J/ψ + γ , with the photon converting into an e+e− pair for J/ψ rapidity |y(J/ψ)| 0.5 GeV/c. The measurement is given for six intervals of pT(J/ψ) between 7 and 25 GeV/c. The results are compared to theoretical predictions.The authors would like to thank Sergey Baranov for providing theoretical calculations in the k T-factorization scheme and Kuang-Ta Chao and Yan-Qing Ma for their NRQCD predictions. We wish to congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC machine. We thank the technical and administrative staff at CERN and other CMS institutes. This work was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research; the Belgium Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, and Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; the Brazilian Funding Agencies (CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP); the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science; CERN; the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, and National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Colombian Funding Agency (COLCIENCIAS); the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport; the Research Promotion Foundation, Cyprus; the Estonian Academy of Sciences and NICPB; the Academy of Finland, Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and Helsinki Institute of Physics; the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules / CNRS, and Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives / CEA, France; the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren, Germany; the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Greece; the National Scientific Research Foundation, and National Office for Research and Technology, Hungary; the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, India; the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, Iran; the Science Foundation, Ireland; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the World Class University program of NRF, Korea; the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; the Mexican Funding Agencies (CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI); the Ministry of Science and Innovation, New Zealand; the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Centre, Poland; the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal; JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the Federal Agency of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research; the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of Serbia; the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and Programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010, Spain; the Swiss Funding Agencies (ETH Board, ETH Zurich, PSI, SNF, UniZH, Canton Zurich, and SER); the National Science Council, Taipei; the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, and Turkish Atomic Energy Authority; the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; the US Department of Energy, and the US National Science Foundation. Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie programme and the European Research Council (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; and the HOMING PLUS programme of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund

Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair in pp collisions at the LHC

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair is presented using data samples corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb?1 (5.1 fb?1 ) collected in pp collisions at the center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV (8 TeV). Events are considered where the top-quark pair decays to either one lepton+jets (tt ? `?qq 0bb) or dileptons (tt ? ` +?`??bb), ` being an electron or a muon. The search is optimized for the decay mode H ? bb. The largest background to the ttH signal is top-quark pair production with additional jets. Artificial neural networks are used to discriminate between signal and background events. Combining the results from the 7 TeV and 8 TeV samples, the observed (expected) limit on the cross section for Higgs boson production in association with top-quark pairs for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV is 5.8 (5.2) times the standard model expectation

Search for supersymmetry in hadronic final states with missing transverse energy using the variables a T and b-quark multiplicity in pp collisions at root s = 8 TeV

An inclusive search for supersymmetric processes that produce final states with jets and missing transverse energy is performed in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 11.7 fb-1 collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. In this search, a dimensionless kinematic variable, ? T, is used to discriminate between events with genuine and misreconstructed missing transverse energy. The search is based on an examination of the number of reconstructed jets per event, the scalar sum of transverse energies of these jets, and the number of these jets identified as originating from bottom quarks. No significant excess of events over the standard model expectation is found. Exclusion limits are set in the parameter space of simplified models, with a special emphasis on both compressed-spectrum scenarios and direct or gluino-induced production of third-generation squarks. For the case of gluino-mediated squark production, gluino masses up to 950-1125 GeV are excluded depending on the assumed model. For the direct pair-production of squarks, masses up to 450 GeV are excluded for a single light first- or second-generation squark, increasing to 600 GeV for bottom squarks

Search for supersymmetry in final states with missing transverse energy and 0, 1, 2, or 3 b-quark jets in 7 TeV pp collisions using the variable a T

A search for supersymmetry in final states with jets and missing transverse energy is performed in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s=7 TeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 fb-1 collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. In this search, a dimensionless kinematic variable, a T, is used as the main discriminator between events with genuine and misreconstructed missing transverse energy. The search is performed in a signal region that is binned in the scalar sum of the transverse energy of jets and the number of jets identified as originating from a bottom quark. No excess of events over the standard model expectation is found. Exclusion limits are set in the parameter space of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model, and also in simplified models, with a special emphasis on compressed spectra and third-generation scenarios

Measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel cross section in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

A measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel production cross section in pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC is presented. Two different and complementary approaches have been followed. The first approach exploits the distributions of the pseudorapidity of the recoil jet and reconstructed top-quark mass using background estimates determined from control samples in data. The second approach is based on multivariate analysis techniques that probe the compatibility of the candidate events with the signal. Data have been collected for the muon and electron final states, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.17 and 1.56 fb−1 , respectively. The single-topquark production cross section in the t-channel is measured to be 67.2±6.1 pb, in agreement with the approximate next-to-next-to-leading-order standard model prediction. Using the standard model electroweak couplings, the CKM matrix element |Vtb| is measured to be 1.020 ± 0.046 (meas.) ± 0.017 (theor.).We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC machine. We thank the technical and administrative staff at CERN and other CMS institutes, and acknowledge support from BMWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); MEYS (Czech Republic); MoER, SF0690030s09 and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MSI (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MON, RosAtom, RAS and RFBR (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); SEIDI and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (U.S.A.). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie programme and the European Research Council (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Austrian Science Fund (FWF); the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); and the HOMING PLUS programme of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund