Nanoscience emerged in the late 1980s and is developed and applied in China since the middle of the 1990s. Although nanotechnologies have been less developed in agronomy than other disciplines, due to less investment, nanotechnologies have the potential to improve agricultural production. Here, we review more than 200 reports involving nanoscience in agriculture, livestock, and aquaculture. The major points are as follows: (1) nanotechnologies used for seeds and water improved plant germination, growth, yield, and quality. (2) Nanotechnologies could increase the storage period for vegetables and fruits. (3) For livestock and poultry breeding, nanotechnologies improved animals immunity, oxidation resistance, and production and decreased antibiotic use and manure odor. For instance, the average daily gain of pig increased by 9.9-15.3 %, the ratio of feedstuff to weight decreased by 7.5-10.3 %, and the diarrhea rate decreased by 55.6-66.7 %. (4) Nanotechnologies for water disinfection in fishpond increased water quality and increased yields and survivals of fish and prawn. (5) Nanotechnologies for pesticides increased pesticide performance threefold and reduced cost by 50 %. (6) Nano urea increased the agronomic efficiency of nitrogen fertilization by 44.5 % and the grain yield by 10.2 %, versus normal urea. (7) Nanotechnologies are widely used for rapid detection and diagnosis, notably for clinical examination, food safety testing, and animal epidemic surveillance. (8) Nanotechnologies may also have adverse effects that are so far not well known.

The group of polyhydroxysteroid phytohormones referred to as the brassinosteroids (BRs) is known to act on plant development and the stress response. BR signal transduction relies largely on protein phosphorylation. By employing a label-free, MS (Mass Spectrometry)-based phosphoproteomic approach, we report here the largest profiling of 4,034 phosphosites on 1,900 phosphoproteins from rice young seedlings and their dynamic response to BR. 1,821 proteins, including kinases, transcription factors and core components of BR and other hormone signaling pathways, were found to be differentially phosphorylated during the BR treatment. A Western blot analysis verified the differential phosphorylation of five of these proteins, implying that the MS-based phosphoproteomic data were robust. It is proposed that the dephosphorylation of gibberellin (GA) signaling components could represent an important mechanism for the BR-regulated antagonism to GA, and that BR influences the plant architecture of rice by regulating cellulose synthesis via phosphorylation.

PKA (protein lysine acetylation) is a critical post-translational modification that regulates various developmental processes, including seed development. However, the acetylation events and dynamics on a proteomic scale in this process remain largely unknown, especially in rice early seed development. We report the first quantitative acetylproteomic study focused on rice early seed development by employing a mass spectral-based (MS-based), label-free approach. A total of 1817 acetylsites on 1688 acetylpeptides from 972 acetylproteins were identified in pistils and seeds at three and seven days after pollination, including 268 acetyproteins differentially acetylated among the three stages. Motif-X analysis revealed that six significantly enriched motifs, such as (DxkK), (kH) and (kY) around the acetylsites of the identified rice seed acetylproteins. Differentially acetylated proteins among the three stages, including adenosine diphosphate (ADP) -glucose pyrophosphorylases (AGPs), PDIL1-1 (protein disulfide isomerase like 1-1), hexokinases, pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC) and numerous other regulators that are extensively involved in the starch and sucrose metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and photosynthesis pathways during early seed development. This study greatly expanded the rice acetylome dataset, and shed novel insight into the regulatory roles of PKA in rice early seed development.

Since hybrid rice was planted, rice false smut (RFS) caused by Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke) Takah has risen from a sporadic secondary disease to a major devastating and common disease, due to the changes in climatic conditions, cultivation system, fertilization and water management and cultivar replacement, and has become one of the new three major rice diseases in China. In addition to cause rice yield decrease and economic losses, RFS also causes toxic effects on humans and animals, due to the fact that the pathogen has color, produces toxins, affects rice appearance, and reduces rice quality. Therefore, RFS has attracted great attention from various governmental agencies, research institutions and scientists. More than 300 papers related to RFS composed over the past 100 years were reviewed. In this part, the occurrence, epidemiology of RFS, the relationship between occurrence sverity of RFS and yield loss, field distribution pattern and sampling method of RFS and disease severity classification were discussed.

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In this part, the history of the study on RFS pathogen U. virens was reviewed, including the pathogen naming and the change process, morphological characteristics of U. virens and culture characters both of asexual and sexual stages, and mycelium, chlamydospore, conidiophore and sclerotium germination. Genetic diversity, pathogenicity, the strain-host interaction, host range of U. virens and it’s early detection were also discussed. The research of Ustiloxins of RFS, including biological activity, toxicity to plants and animal, the potential possibility utilization of Ustiloxins, for example use as screening agent for rice varieties resistance to RFS, and anticancer drugs.

Based on the theory of green building, through introducing green building and green techniques showed in World Expo of Shanghai, put forward some proposals to green building's development of our country.