Water scarcity is a major limiting factor for crop yield production in arid and water-stressed areas worldwide. Cucumber plants have a high transpiration ratio and are vulnerable to drought. Grafting commercial genotypes onto selected strong rootstocks has been useful in mitigating the effects of drought. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the possibility of using a novel rootstock plant’s tolerance to water-deficit stress in inducing drought tolerance in cucumbers by activating the stress-response gene expression and the antioxidant system, which improved the cucumber quality and yield under water-deficit conditions. This field experiment was conducted for > 2 years, 2020 and 2021, with five drought stress tolerant genotypes (i.e., rootstock) and drought-sensitive genotype Luerans (i.e., a scion). They were subjected to various deficit irrigation levels for 12 days, and their agro-physiological and molecular responses to water-deficit stress were assessed. The results of the study showed that the agronomical parameters, including the leaf area (LA), leaf water content (LWC), number of leaves, plant height, root dry matter shoot dry matter, rates of leaf appearance and stem elongation, and total yield significantly increased with grafted cucumber plants than with non-grafted cucumber plants (control) under normal and stressful conditions.Similar results were observed in the physiological measurements in terms of antioxidant enzymes, abscisic acid levels, gibberellic acid content, and lower lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde, MDA). Grafting of Luerans (section) on five rootstocks significantly raised the activity of antioxidant enzymes (catalase and peroxidase), improved the gibberellic acid and proline accumulation, and reduced the content of lipid peroxidation and abscisic acid. Furthermore, the real-time polymerase chain reaction expression results revealed that transcript levels of the stress-response genes CsAGO1 and CsDCLs increased rapidly and continuously in five rootstock grafting. Concurrently, these findings suggest that grafting with local varieties of novel drought-tolerant rootstock genotypes could improve drought tolerance in drought-sensitive cucumber genotypes.

Experiments were conducted during the two winter seasons of 2018 and 2019 to investigate the response of two carrot cultivars (Chantenay and Nantes) to pre-and post-emergence linuron applications and different agronomic methods (broadcasting and drilling on raised rows and broadcasting in beds). The effect of factors on the vegetative growth and accumulation of nutrient compounds has been assessed. Pre emergence linuron treatment substantially increased the yield, dry matter and root physical characters (root length and weight, root and core diameter) compared to post emergence treatment. Chantenay accumulated more phenolics and antioxidants than Nantes, which was 14.73-16.59%, 7.64-8.15% and 12.37-15.66% greater (p < 0.05) than Cahantenay in carotenoids, total and reducing sugars in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In order to raise the productivity of feddan, broadcasting on raised rows (140 plant/ m 2 ) was correlated with higher yield and the sweet and darker root of carrot. Carrots were strongly influenced by linuron addition times in terms of yield or phytochemical status. Phenolic compounds and antioxidant strength were cultivar-dependent and Chantenay was the richest overall.

Bioinformatic study on Some Phenyl…. Olasupo, et al.

Water scarcity is a major limiting factor for crop yield production in arid and water-stressed areas worldwide. Cucumber plants have a high transpiration ratio and are vulnerable to water stress. Grafting commercial cultivars onto selected strong rootstocks has been useful in mitigating the effects of water stress. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the possibility of using a novel rootstock plant’s tolerance to water-deficit stress in inducing drought tolerance in cucumbers by activating the stress-response gene expression and the antioxidant system, which improved the cucumber quality and yield under water-deficit conditions. This field experiment was conducted for >2 years, 2020 and 2021, with five water stress cultivars (i.e., rootstock) and drought-sensitive cultivar Luerans (i.e., a scion). They were subjected to various deficit irrigation levels for 12 days, and their agro-physiological and molecular responses to water-deficit stress were assessed. Our results showed that the agronomical parameters, including the leaf area, leaf water content, number of leaves, plant height, root dry matter shoot dry matter, rates of leaf appearance and stem elongation, and total yield significantly increased with grafted cucumber plants than with nongrafted cucumber plants (control) under normal and stressful conditions. The physiological parameters revealed that higher catalase and peroxidase activities, abscisic acid levels, gibberellic acid accumulation, and lower lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde) significantly increased the plant growth rate in rootstock-grafted genotypes. Furthermore, the real-time polymerase chain reaction expression results revealed that transcript levels of the stress-response genes CsAGO1 and CsDCLs increased rapidly and continuously in five rootstock grafting. Concurrently, these findings suggest that grafting with local varieties of novel drought-tolerant rootstock genotypes could improve water stress tolerance in drought-sensitive cucumber cultivars.