Identification of a bio-signature for barley resistance against Pyrenophora teres infection based on physiological, molecular and sensor-based phenotyping.

Necrotic and chlorotic symptoms induced during Pyrenophora teres infection in barley leaves indicate a compatible interaction that allows the hemi-biotrophic fungus Pyrenophora teres to colonise the host. However, it is unexplored how this fungus affects the physiological responses of resistant and susceptible cultivars during infection. To assess the degree of resistance in four different cultivars, we quantified visible symptoms and fungal DNA and performed expression analyses of genes involved in plant defence and ROS scavenging.

Extension of Plant Phenotypes by the Foliar Microbiome.

The foliar microbiome can extend the host plant phenotype by expanding its genomic and metabolic capabilities. Despite increasing recognition of the importance of the foliar microbiome for plant fitness, stress physiology, and yield, the diversity, function, and contribution of foliar microbiomes to plant phenotypic traits remain largely elusive. The recent adoption of high-throughput technologies is helping to unravel the diversityand spatiotemporal dynamics of foliar microbiomes, but we have yet to resolve their functional importance for plant growth, development, and ecology.

Ecologically sustainable weed management: How do we get from proof-of-concept to adoption?

Weed management is a critically important activity on both agricultural and non-agricultural lands, but it is faced with a daunting set of challenges: environmental damage caused by control practices, weed resistance to herbicides, accelerated rates of weed dispersal through global trade, and greater weed impacts due to changes in climate and land use. Broad-scale use of new approaches is needed if weed management is to be successful in the coming era. We examine three approaches likely to prove useful for addressing current and future challenges from weeds: diversifying weed management strategies with multiple complementary tactics, developing crop genotypes for enhanced weed suppression, and tailoring management strategies to better accommodate variability in weed spatial distributions.

Plant phenomics and the need for physiological phenotyping across scales to narrow the genotype-to-phenotype knowledge gap.

Plants are affected by complex genome×environment×management interactions which determine phenotypic plasticity as a result of the variability of genetic components. Whereas great advances have been made in the cost-efficient and high-throughput analyses of genetic information and non-invasive phenotyping, the large-scale analyses of the underlying physiological mechanisms lag behind. The external phenotype is determined by the sum of the complex interactions of metabolic pathways and intracellular regulatory networks that is reflected in an internal, physiological, and biochemical phenotype.

OvaSpec - A vision-based instrument for assessing concentration and developmental stage of Trichuris suis parasite egg suspensions.

Background: OvaSpec is a new, fully automated, vision-based instrument for assessing the quantity (concentration) and quality (embryonation percentage) of Trichuris suis parasite eggs in liquid suspension. The eggs constitute the active pharmaceutical ingredient in a medicinal drug for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases such as Crohn׳s disease, ulcerative colitis, and multiple sclerosis.

Methods: This paper describes the development of an automated microscopy technology, including methodological challenges and design decisions of relevance for the future development of comparable vision-based instruments.

Deconstructing crop processes and models via identities.

This paper is part review and part opinion piece; it has three parts of increasing novelty and speculation in approach. The first presents an overview of how some of the major crop simulation models approach the issue of simulating the responses of crops to changing climatic and weather variables, mainly atmospheric CO2 concentration and increased and/or varying temperatures. It illustrates an important principle in models of a single cause having alternative effects and vice versa.

[Complicated course after conservative treatment of incarcerated inguinal hernia].

We report a case of intestinal perforation due to manual reduction of incarcerated inguinal hernia. Explorative laparotomy was delayed and first attempted after 21 hours. The patient died as a result of peritonitis.