Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) genotypes require higher amounts of nitrogen (N), but surplus N use at plant maturity results in a greater risk of environmental pollution. The study focussed on the growth attributes of different N utilisation efficiency (NUtE) genotypes, and found flowering is the critical growth stage to distinguish high and low N utilisation efficiency oilseed rape genotypes. Plant breeders could focus their selection on root and shoot phenotypic traits at flowering stage to improve NUE of oilseed rape genotypes.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery has been using for ground coverage (GC) estimation, which is used as a cultivar selection criterion in crop breeding. The estimation accuracy is constrained by coarse spatial resolutions of UAV imagery captured at high flight altitudes. This study proposed a two-step machine learning method to improve the estimation accuracy from coarse-resolution imagery. The method can be potentially applied in crop breeding to accurately estimate GC from UAV imagery captured at high altitudes and thus to improve the flight coverage per unit of UAV flight time with the limited battery life and operation time.

In this study, transcriptome sequencing, transgenic function verification of Arabidopsis thaliana L., and protein interaction verification were used to clarify the early flowering regulation function of PfAG5 gene in Polypogon fugax Nees ex Steud. herbicide-resistant population. The results of this study are helpful to understand the mechanism of early flowering in herbicide-resistant weeds.

The responses of plants to recurrent stress may differ from their responses to a single instance of stress, we investigated this with clonal plants. Results showed that the memory exhibited by recurrently stressed parents is maintained for a long time, but that of singly stressed parents is only short-term. Moreover, the one-time stress is a eustress that increased biomass, but recurring stress is a distress that reduced biomass. Our findings will be beneficial to understand the environmental adaptability of plants.