Growth, development and dry matter production of lucerne are affected by salt stress, which decreases seed germination, carbon fixation, light harvesting, biological N₂ fixation, mineral uptake and assimilation and dry-matter accumulation. A comprehensive strategy involving existing genetic resources, exploiting new sources to create new variation, and a breeding approach involving many traits instead of just one is needed. Recent advances in the fields of biotechnology and genomics involving the identification of salt-conferring genes and quantitate trait loci will help to improve salt tolerance in lucerne.

Aluminum (Al) toxicity is one of environmental constraints inhibiting wheat growth in acidic soils. In this study, we mapped QTLs for yield-related traits under Al stress and control conditions. Several novel QTLs were detected for Al tolerance that could facilitate marker-assisted selection for use in improvement of Al tolerance in wheat.

Brazilian agriculture has been able to increase its efficiency and reduce its expansion to new areas through cultivation of soybean and maize crops in the same area throughout the year. For soybean, water deficit was the main cause of total yield losses in Brazil, accounting for 51.8%, whereas for off-season maize, suboptimal management accounted for 53.8% of the total yield losses. The impacts of water deficit and suboptimal crop management varied across regions.

Drought increases the hydrocyanic acid (HCN) contents in sorghums and the risk of HCN toxicity to animals. Application of exogenous ABA and MeJA could increase plant weight and reduce HCN content in drought-stressed sorghums. Sweet sorghum, Sudangrass and forage sorghum varied in their physiological responsive mechanisms to exogenous hormones.

Drought stress is one of the major limiting factors affecting crop productivity. In the present research, we characterised the mungbean genes encoding SnRk2 proteins, which play an important role during the plant response to water-deficit conditions. The results of this study shed light on the role of previously unidentified genes that could be used to enhance drought stress tolerance in crops.

Recombinant inbred line populations of soybean were used to study the inheritance and linkage mapping of resistance genes against Soybean mosaic virus strains SC7 and SC13. Based on genetic information, the resistance region to strains SC7 and SC13 was fine-mapped on chromosome 2 with respective physical distance of intervals ~77 kb and 191 kb. Sequence analysis showed that six and 11 candidate genes were predicated in the region, which will be helpful for the map-based cloning of SMV-resistance genes.

Although zinc is an essential micronutrient for human health, over 1 billion people worldwide (in both developing and developed countries) suffer zinc deficiencies. Fertilising food crops with zinc could help to solve the problem, especially in crops already rich in zinc, such as broccolini (a new hybrid between broccoli and kailan cabbage). In the present study we found zinc increases up to 46%, covering ~30% of the daily requirements by eating 100 g of these delicious florets.

The use of pasture legumes with greater nutrient-acquisition efficiency will reduce variable farm costs associated with fertiliser inputs and help to minimise environmental implications from fertiliser overuse. Ornithopus spp. have high nutrient-acquisition efficiency, but uncertainty regarding their waterlogging tolerance is limiting their adoption in high-rainfall environments. We found that these species cannot tolerate prolonged periods of waterlogging, but they have root adaptations to assist with transient waterlogging.