Two independent physiological traits in wheat, greater early vigour and higher transpiration efficiency, have been shown to have varied effects on yield in water-limited environments. We discuss the potential benefit to yield of combining these traits and the physiological basis of their interaction with different environments. Finally, we suggest a phenotypic screening strategy for managing the complex genetics underpinning early vigour and transpiration efficiency when selecting both traits in commercial wheat breeding programs.

Relationships between whole-plant growth and morphogenetic processes under abiotic stresses are still partly unknown limiting the predictive capacity of plant models. In this paper we investigated the effects of soil water deficit and shading on grapevine shoot growth. This study provides new experimental data to improve the formalisms used to simulate plant morphogenesis processes in source–sink plant models.

Using chemicals such as salicylic acid (SA) as a pretreatment agent may alleviate subsequent salt stress-triggered damages in Arabidopsis thaliana. Exogenous SA fine-tunes the production of reactive oxygen species and, in a proper concentration, increases antioxidant peroxidase and glutathione transferase (GST) activity, and enhances the transcript level of several GST genes. Induction of AtGSTU24 and AtGSTU19 genes by SA can be an important part of priming and salt stress acclimation.

External administration of hydrogen-rich water (HRW) benefits plants from multiple environmental stimuli, whereas the corresponding mechanisms are still elusive. Our findings illustrated that HRW confers tolerance to UVB-induced oxidative damage, partially by the manipulation of (iso)flavonoids metabolism and antioxidant defence in Medicago sativa. These studies could provide some theoretical basis of the potential relievable strategy for UVB-induced oxidative stress in plants.

Symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi improves plant phosphorus uptake and tolerance to environmental stresses. Short-term cold stress, relevant in some agricultural production conditions, reduced the benefits provided by mycorrhiza to cucumber plants, although they still benefited from being mycorrhizal by increased phosphorus uptake. The dependence of mycorrhizal effects on temperature must be taken into account when introduction of the fungi into production systems is considered.

Parasitic plants use suckers to feed off other plants and may reduce the levels of leaf pigments that protect against harsh light conditions. We explored whether a native parasite was reducing these levels in a native plant in high or low light and found that they were not compromised under either of the test conditions. This discovery helps explain why native plants with this native parasite avoid light stress to survive in nature.

Efficient capture of N by the root system is important in deep sandy soils, where we determined whether the similarity in N uptake in genotypes with different biomass was associated with differences in the affinity of the root system for nitrate uptake. Genotypes with less root growth and proliferation than the vigorous genotypes have a higher affinity for nitrate.