Polyploidy has the utmost importance in horticulture for the development of new ornamental varieties with desirable morphological traits referring to plant size and vigor, leaf thickness, larger flowers with thicker petals, intense color of leaves and flowers, long lasting flowers, compactness, dwarfness and restored fertility. Polyploidy may occur naturally due to the formation of unreduced gametes or can be artificially induced by doubling the number of chromosomes in somatic cells. Usually, natural polyploid plants are unavailable, so polyploidy is induced synthetically with the help of mitotic inhibitors. Colchicine is a widely used mitotic inhibitor for the induction of polyploidy in plants during their cell division by inhibiting the chromosome segregation. Different plant organs like seeds, apical meristems, flower buds, and roots can be used to induce polyploidy through many application methods such as dipping/soaking, dropping or cotton wool. Flow cytometry and chromosome counting, with an observation of morphological and physiological traits are routine procedures for the determination of ploidy level in plants.

European hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is a major species of interest for nutritional use within the Betulaceae family and its nuts are widely used throughout the world in the chocolate, confectionery, and bakery industries. Recently its cultivation has been expanded in traditional producer countries and established in new places in the southern hemisphere, including Chile, South Africa, and Australia. Introducing hazelnut in new environments could reduce its productivity, lead the trees to experience eco‐physiological disorders, and expose the crop to high pressure from common and new pests and diseases. Thus, new approaches in cultivar choice guidance, in the sustainable orchard management and even in nut storage and kernel quality evaluation are urgently required to improve the hazelnut production and processing chain. The main objective of this study was to systematize the published information regarding recent findings about the cultural operations that directly influence nut and kernel quality, support varietal choice for new plantations, and list the recent advances in nut storage and in quality and safety evaluation. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry

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Research on biologically active compounds has been increased in order to improve plant protection against various environmental stresses. Among natural sources, plants are the fundamental material for studying these bioactive compounds as their immune system consists of many peptides, proteins, and hormones. Osmotin is a multifunctional stress-responsive protein belonging to pathogenesis-related 5 (PR-5) defense-related protein family, which is involved in inducing osmo-tolerance in plants. In this scenario, the accumulation of osmotin initiates abiotic and biotic signal transductions. These proteins work as antifungal agents against a broad range of fungal species by increasing plasma membrane permeability and dissipating the membrane potential of infecting fungi. Therefore, overexpression of tobacco osmotin protein in transgenic plants protects them from different stresses by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, limiting lipid peroxidation, initiating programmed cell death (PCD), and increasing proline content and scavenging enzyme activity. Other than osmotin, its homologous proteins, osmotin-like proteins (OLPs), also have dual function in plant defense against osmotic stress and have strong antifungal activity.

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