Recent Advances in Seed Enhancements

Seed quality is vital to sustainable crop production and food security. Seed enhancements include physical, physiological and biological treatments to overcome germination constraints by uniform stands, earlier crop development and better yields. Improved germination rates and seedling vigour are due to reduced emergence time by earlier start of metabolic activities of hydrolytic enzymes and resource mobilization. Nutrient homeostasis, ion uptake, hormonal regulation, activation of antioxidant defence system, reduced lipid peroxidation and accumulation of compatible solutes are some mechanisms conferring biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Several transcription factors for aquaporins, imbibitions, osmotic adjustment, antioxidant defence and phenylpropanoid pathway have been identified. However, the knowledge of molecular pathways elucidating mode of action of these effects, reduced longevity of primed or other physical and biological agents for seed treatments and market availability of high-quality seeds are some of the challenges for scientists and seed industry. In this scenario, there is need to minimize the factors associated with reduced vigour during seed production, improve seed storage and handling, develop high-tech seeds by seed industry at appropriate rates and integrate agronomic, physiological and molecular seed research for the effective regulation of high-quality seed delivery over next generations

Machine-Vision-Based Plastic Bottle Inspection for Quality Assurance

With the increasing utilization of plastic bottles in the fast-moving consumer goods industry, the efficiency and accuracy of the bottle defect inspection process becomes very important for quality assurance. Deep-learning-based inspection is accurate and robust, but at the same time data hogging and computationally expensive. Thus, it is not feasible for fast inspection. Therefore, this paper presents an efficient and fast machine-vision-based system for inspecting plastic bottle defects. The system is composed of a chamber which has a camera and illuminators to capture high-resolution images in controlled lighting conditions. Captured images are processed by using simple image processing techniques to identify multiple defects such as seated cap, dents on the body and label alignment on the plastic. The experimental results show that the proposed system is 95% accurate in determining a range of bottle defects. It is highly feasible for fast inspection and does not require high computation power and a large amount of training data

A Deep Learning-Based Framework for Visual Inspection of Plastic Bottles

This paper presents a deep learning-based framework for automating the visual inspection of plastic bottles in an Industry 4.0 context, detecting surface defects to enhance product quality. Our contributions include the acceleration of model development through knowledge transfer learning, an inventive data generation strategy that combines physical samples with synthetic data augmentation techniques, an extensive evaluation of pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks, and a user-friendly interface for real-time quality inspection reporting and making the information easily accessible and actionable. In comparison to existing methods, our proposed method outperforms with a higher Accuracy to Size Ratio of 7.0. This characteristic underscores its capacity to efficiently and accurately classify and detect defects across multiple classes while maintaining a low area utilization. This feature not only demonstrates its exceptional performance but also positions it as a practical solution for real-world scenarios with resource constraints

Trends and Limits for Quinoa Production and Promotion in Pakistan

Quinoa is known as a super food due to its extraordinary nutritional qualities and has the potential to ensure future global food and nutritional security. As a model plant with halophytic behavior, quinoa has potential to meet the challenges of climate change and salinization due to its capabilities for survival in harsh climatic conditions. The quinoa crop has received worldwide attention due to its adoption and production expanded in countries out of the native Andean region. Quinoa was introduced to Pakistan in 2009 and it is still a new crop in Pakistan. The first quinoa variety was registered in 2019, then afterward, its cultivation started on a larger scale. Weed pressure, terminal heat stress, stem lodging, bold grain size, and an unstructured market are the major challenges in the production and promotion of the crop. The potential of superior features of quinoa has not been fully explored and utilized. Hence, there is a need to acquire more diverse quinoa germplasm and to establish a strong breeding program to develop new lines with higher productivity and improved crop features for the Pakistan market. Mechanized production, processing practices, and a structured market are needed for further scaling of quinoa production in Pakistan. To achieve these objectives, there is a dire need to create an enabling environment for quinoa production and promotion through the involvement of policymakers, research institutions, farmers associations, and the private sector

Influence of Seed Priming on Performance and Water Productivity of Direct Seeded Rice in Alternating Wetting and Drying

Direct seeded rice is promising alternative to traditional transplanting, but requires appropriate crop and water management to maintain yield performance and achieve high water productivity. Present study evaluated the effect of seed priming and irrigation on crop establishment, tillering, agronomic traits, paddy yield, grain quality and water productivity of direct seeded rice in alternate wetting and drying (DSR-AWD) in comparison with direct seeded rice at field capacity (DSR-FC). Seed priming treatments were osmo-priming with KCl (2.2%), CaCl2 (2.2%) and moringa leaf extracts (MLE, 3.3%) including hydro-priming as control. Among the treatments, seed osmo-primed with MLE emerged earlier and had higher final emergence, followed by osmo-priming with CaCl2. Tillering emergence rate and number of tillers per plant were the highest for seed priming with CaCl2 in DSR-AWD. Total productive and non-productive tillers, panicle length, biological and grain yields, harvest index were highest for seed priming with MLE or CaCl2 in DSR-AWD. Similarly, grain quality, estimated in terms of normal grains, abortive and chalky grains, was also the highest in DSR-AWD with MLE osmo-priming. Benefit cost ratio and water productivity was also the highest in DSR-AWD for seed priming with MLE. In conclusion, seed priming with MLE or CaCl2 can be successfully employed to improve the direct seeded rice performance when practiced with alternate wetting and drying irrigation

Evaluation of Physiological and Morphological Traits for Improving Spring Wheat Adaptation to Terminal Heat Stress

Wheat crop experiences high temperature stress during flowering and grain-filling stages, which is termed as “terminal heat stress”. Characterizing genotypes for adaptive traits could increase their selection for better performance under terminal heat stress. The present study evaluated the morpho-physiological traits of two spring wheat cultivars (Millet-11, Punjab-11) and two advanced lines (V-07096, V-10110) exposed to terminal heat stress under late sowing. Early maturing Millet-11 was used as heat-tolerant control. Late sowing reduced spike length (13%), number of grains per spike (10%), 1000-grain weight (13%) and biological yield (15–20%) compared to timely sowing. Nonetheless, higher number of productive tillers per plant (19–20%) and grain yield (9%) were recorded under late sowing. Advanced lines and genotype Punjab-11 had delayed maturity and better agronomic performance than early maturing heat-tolerant Millet-11. Advanced lines expressed reduced canopy temperature during grain filling and high leaf chlorophyll a (20%) and b (71–125%) contents during anthesis under late sowing. All wheat genotypes expressed improved stem water-soluble carbohydrates under terminal heat stress that were highest for heat-tolerant Millet-11 genotype during anthesis. Improved grain yield was associated with the highest chlorophyll contents showing stay green characteristics with maintenance of high photosynthetic rates and cooler canopies under late sowing. The results revealed that advanced lines and Punjab-11 with heat adaptive traits could be promising source for further use in the selection of heat-tolerant wheat genotypes

Assessment of phenotypic diversity in the USDA collection of quinoa links genotypic adaptation to germplasm origin

Quinoa’s germplasm evaluation is the first step towards determining its suitability under new environmental conditions. The aim of this study was to introduce suitable germplasm to the lowland areas of the Faisalabad Plain that could then be used to introduce quinoa more effectively to that region. A set of 117 quinoa genotypes belonging to the USDA quinoa collection was evaluated for 11 phenotypic quantitative traits (grain yield (Y), its biological and numerical components plus phenological variables) in a RCBD during two consecutive growing seasons at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan under mid-autumn sowings. Genotypic performance changed across the years, however most phenotypic traits showed high heritability, from 0.75 for Harvest Index (HI) to 0.97 for aerial biomass (B) and Y. Ordination and cluster analyses differentiated four Academic Editors: Cataldo Pulvento and Didier Bazile Received: 28 January 2022 Accepted: 3 March 2022 Published: 10 March 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). groups dominated by genotypes from: Peru and the Bolivian Highlands (G1); the Bolivian Highlands (G2); the Ballón collection (regarded as a cross between Bolivian and Sea Level (Chilean) genotypes) plus Bolivian Highlands (G3); and Ballón plus Sea Level (G4), this latter group being the most differentiated one. This genetic structure shared similarities with previous groups identified using SSR markers and G×Edata from an international quinoa test. G4 genotypes showed the highest Y associated with higher B and seed numbers (SN), while HI made a significant contribution to yield determination in G2 and seed weight (SW) in G3. G1 and G2 showed the lowest Y associated with a lower B and SN. Moreover, SW showed a strongly negative association with SN in G2. Accordingly, G4followed by G3 are better suited to the lowland areas of Faisalabad plain and the physiological traits underlying yield determination among genotypic groups should be considered in future breeding programs.Fil: Hafeez, Muhammad Bilal. University Of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Iqbal, Shahid. University Of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Li, Yuanyuan. Shandong Normal University. College of Life Science. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Research; ChinaFil: Saddiq, Muhammad Sohail. Ghazi University. Department of Agronomy; PakistánFil: Basra, Shahzad M. A.. University Of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Zhang, Hui. Shandong Normal University. College of Life Science. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Research; ChinaFil: Zahra, Noreen. University Of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Akram, Muhammad Z.. University Of Agriculture; PakistánFil: Bertero, Hector Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Producción Vegetal. Cátedra de Producción Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Curti, Ramiro Nestor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales. Escuela de Agronomía. Laboratorio de Investigaciones Botánicas; Argentin