Effects of different organic materials and reduced nitrogen fertilizer application on sorghum yield and soil nutrients.

Rapeseed and sorghum, important economic crops in China, generate abundant straw resources. However, studies examining the effects of straw return combined with reduced nitrogen fertilization on soil quality are still insufficient to meet the precise fertilization needs, necessitating further research. This study employed two treatments: rapeseed straw plus sorghum straw (LT) and rapeseed green manure plus sorghum straw (YGT) returned to the soil.

Determination of internal controls for quantitative gene expression of Spodoptera litura under microbial pesticide stress.

Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) has become a commonly used method for the quantification of gene expression. However, accurate qRT-PCR analysis requires a valid internal reference for data normalization. To determine the valid reference characterized with low expression variability among Spodoptera litura samples after microbial pesticide treatments, nine housekeeping genes, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), arginine kinase, ubiquitin C, actin-5C (ACT5C), actin, ribosomal protein S13 (RPS13), tubulin, acidic ribosomal protein P0 (RPLP0) and ubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase, were evaluated for their suitability using geNorm, Normfinder, BestKeeper, RefFinder and the comparative delta CT methods in this study.