Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and excessive application rates can decrease crop yield and increase N loss into the environment. Field experiments were carried out to understand the effects of N fertilizers on N utilization, crop yield and net income in wheat and maize rotation system of the North China Plain (NCP). Compared to farmers' N rate (FN), the yield of whe...

Feeding by Spodoptera exigua (beet armyworm) larvae on Zea mays (maize) induces expression of 9-lipoxygenases to a greater extent than 13-lipoxygenases. Whereas 13-lipoxygenases have an established role in the synthesis of jasmonates that serve as defense signaling molecules in many plant species, relatively little is known about the role of 9-lipoxygenases in herbivore defense. Phylogenetic an...

Interspecific interactions and recovery growth play an important role in crop growth, development ultimately yield intercropping systems. However, the impact of different water nitrogen levels on production, interspecific between intercrops, late-maturing crops is still unclear. A two-year field experiment was conducted Yangling, Shaanxi province, to investigate dynamics interactions, effects y...

Zea mays is an important genetic model for elucidating transcriptional networks. Uncertainties about the complete structure of mRNA transcripts limit the progress of research in this system. Here, using single-molecule sequencing technology, we produce 111,151 transcripts from 6 tissues capturing ∼70% of the genes annotated in maize RefGen_v3 genome. A large proportion of transcripts (57%) repr...

Recently developed methods for genome editing, representing a major breakthrough in the field of genetic engineering, will enable researchers to produce transgenic plants in a more convenient and safer way. Double-strand breaks (DSBs) are triggered by synthetic nucleases that later induce DNA repair mechanisms known as nonhomologous-end joining (NHEJ) or homology-directed repair (HDR) in the pr...

The aim was to investigate whether energy supplementation of gazing bulls can influence collagen concentration and solubility in three different muscles: longissimus dorsi (LD), semitendinosus (ST) and supraspinatus (SS). Thirty three Holstein bulls aged 15 months and reared on grass, were randomly assigned to three treatment groups for 85 days: fed grass ad libitum (G1-control); fed grass ad l...

degraded soils in northwest china are mostly nonproductive due to imbalanced nutrient and inadequate water supply. the effects of manure application at three different rates (7.5, 15.0, and 22.5 t ha–1) combined with chemical fertilizers on soil water and water-use efficiency in maize [compared with chemical fertilizers (control)], under semi-arid conditions in dark loessial soil and over a per...

The effects of maturity of maize at harvest, level of inclusion and potential interactions on the performance, carcass composition, meat quality and potential concentrate-sparing effect when offered to finishing beef cattle were studied. Two maize silages were ensiled that had dry matter (DM) concentrations of 217 and 304 g/kg and starch concentrations of 55 and 258 g/kg DM, respectively. Grass...

This study employed the quadratic classification function analysis to examine the influence of farmer's socio-demographic and varietal characteristics of maize on adoption of improved maize varieties (IMVs) in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West region of Ghana. The results showed that, farm labour, information availability about the variety, weed resistance, low yielding variety, early matur...

Plant-based oral vaccines are a promising emergent technology that could help alleviate disease burden worldwide by providing a low-cost, heat-stable, oral alternative to parenterally administered commercial vaccines. Here, we describe high-level accumulation of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) at a mean concentration of 0.51%TSP in maize T1 seeds using an improved version of the globuli...