Atmospheric CO concentration affects the life cycle, yield, and fruit quality of early maturing edible legume cultivars.

Background: Elevated CO usually reduces levels of proteins and essential micronutrients in crops. The adoption of early maturing varieties may minimize the deleterious effect of climate change on farming activities. Legumes stand out for their high nutritional quality, so the objective was to study whether the atmospheric CO concentration affected the growth, yield, and food quality of early maturing cultivars of peas, snap beans, and faba beans.

Optimum growth and quality of the edible ice plant under saline conditions.

Background: Ice plant is a halophyte, known for its antioxidant activity and for being a highly functional food. It is capable of increasing its contents of health-promoting compounds when subjected to certain stresses such as salinity. The objective of this work was to determine the plant's best growing conditions to achieve both an optimal production of bioactive metabolites and high crop yield.

Nutritional properties of Tempranillo grapevine leaves are affected by clonal diversity, mycorrhizal symbiosis and air temperature regime.

Tempranillo grapevine is widely cultivated in Spain and other countries over the world (Portugal, USA, France, Australia, and Argentina, among others) for its wine, but leaves are scarcely used for human or animal nutrition. Since high temperatures affect quality of fruits and leaves in grapevine and the association of Tempranillo with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) enhances the antioxidant properties of berries and leaves, we assessed the effect of elevated air temperature and mycorrhization, separately or combined, on the nutritional properties of Tempranillo leaves at the time of fruit harvest. Experimental assay included three clones (CL-260, CL-1048, and CL-1089) and two temperature regimes (24/14 °C or 28/18 °C day/night) during fruit ripening.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) improved growth and nutritional quality of greenhouse-grown lettuce.

Lettuce can be associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). This symbiosis involves a molecular dialogue between fungus and plant that includes the activation of antioxidant, phenylpropanoid, or carotenoid pathways. The objective of this study was to test if the association of lettuce with AMF benefited plant growth and increased the contents of compounds potentially beneficial for human health.

Moderate drought influences the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as biocontrol agents against Verticillium-induced wilt in pepper.

Previous studies have shown that the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF) Glomus deserticola (Trappe, Bloss and Menge) can diminish the negative effect of Verticillium dahliae Kleb. on pepper yield. On the other hand, it is known that AMF can be more beneficial for plant growth and physiology under dry conditions than when soil moisture is plentiful.