The aim of this study was to identify leaf physiological traits, which could be used in selecting high yielding genotypes among 12 sugar beet cultivars grown in two contrasting pedo-climatic environments. In the stressful Site 1 (high temperatures, low rainfall, heavy-textured soil), high yielders had cooler leaves (lower ΔT) and thus, transpired (E) and photosynthesized (A) more. Also, these c...

  In a three-year (2004-2006), field experiment, we aimed to study changes in leaf physiological traits (leaf water potential-Ψleaf, leaf water content-LWC, carbon isotope discrimination-Δ, specific leaf area-SLA, chlorophyll content as assessed by SPAD and modified SPAD-MSPAD) and elemental composition (K, Na, Ca, Mg, K/Na, Ca/Mg, total leaf salinity-TLS) of sugar beets (cv. Rizor) grown unde...

Late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans is a destructive disease in potato production, which can lead to crop failure severe cases. This study combined visible/near-infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy with machine learning (ML) and chemometric methods for rapid detection of late blight. The determination severity was accomplished two directly or indirectly based on differences reflectance. One...

In the Ericaceae family, blueberries are most commercially important species. Estimating nutritional and physiological status of plants is a common practice carried out by producers. However, conventional methods destructive, costly time consuming. recent years, methodologies such as measurements with SPAD chlorophyll index have become available, which has proven to be an easy, fast non-destruc...

Single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) techniques are now widely used to address outstanding problems in biology and biophysics. In order to study freely diffusing molecules, current approaches consist in exciting a low concentration (<100 pM) sample with a single confocal spot using one or more lasers and detecting the induced single-molecule fluorescence in one or more spe...

The quantum yield of photosystem II, determined by chlorophyll fluorescence and the quantum yield of CO2 uptake, determined from gas exchange, are two physiologically important measurements in clarifying the response to environmental stress. Both measurements, however, require an accurate assessment of leaf light absorption in the photosynthetically active radiation wavelength range (400–700 nm...

BACKGROUND This study examines whether leaf spectra can be used to measure damage to cassava plants from whitefly (Bemisia tabaci), and the potential to translate measurements from leaf to landscape scale in eastern Africa. Symptoms of the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) and cassava mosaic disease (CMD) viruses, and sooty mould (SM) blackening of lower leaves from whiteflies feeding on the ...

Iron deficiency in plants is caused by a low availability of iron in the soil, and its main visual symptom is leaf yellowing due to a decrease in chlorophyll content, along with a reduction in plant growth and fruit quality. Foliar sprays with Fe compounds are an economic alternative to the treatment with expensive synthetic Fe-chelates applied to the soil, although the efficacy of foliar treat...

Using a function algebra characterization of exponential time due to Monien 5], in the style of Bellantoni-Cook 2], we characterize exponential time functions of linear growth via a safe course-of-values recursion scheme.