There is population-wide variation in the responsiveness of trees and crops to higher atmospheric CO₂ that could be exploited to improve future productivity but studies are limited by access to suitable facilities. We examined prescreening as a tool in large genome × CO₂ experiments to limit the size and cost of experiments. Our review identified approaches that can be used for prescreening and how the data can improve genetic selection of high-performing cultivars.

Transposable elements (TEs) are common mobile genetic elements comprising several classes and making up the majority of eukaryotic genomes. TEs are important drivers of species diversity and exhibit great variety in their structure, size and transposition mechanisms, making them important putative actors in evolution. Various applications have been developed to exploit polymorphisms in TE insertion patterns, including conventional or anchored PCR, and quantitative or digital PCR. This review provides an overview of the TE-based applications developed for plant species and assesses the contributions of TEs to the analysis of plants’ genetic diversity.

Chilling stress limits the growth and geographical distribution of chilling-sensitive species. Polyphenols are the most common metabolites, and lignin synthesis plays an important role in the response of tobacco leaves to chilling. Our results provide important technical information for further research on the metabolic regulation of polyphenol biosynthesis and can be used to improve the chilling tolerance of plant varieties.

Heat stress is limiting tomato production globally. Tolerant genotypes screened for heat stress using chl a fluorescence had better growth under controlled conditions and maintained high fruit production in the field. These results may help downscale laboratory-based high-throughput phenotyping techniques used to develop heat-tolerant tomato varieties.

We explored Cd stress on the accumulation of Panax notoginseng saponins (PNS) and the corresponding regulation mechanisms. The reduction in gene expression in the terpenoid backbone biosynthesis pathway and removal of reactive oxygen species caused a decrease in the content of PNS. Findings of the present study will be helpful in preventing Cd stress induced decreases in contents of PNS through biotechnological approaches.

Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) is well known for inducing systemic and durable resistance against pathogens in several plant species. We address the effect of exogenous application of MeJA in MYMIV susceptible Vigna mungo plants in inducing defense response against MYMIV infection and thereby reducing accumulation of viral coat protein. Our findings provide new insights into the physiological and molecular mechanisms of MYMIV tolerance in Vigna induced by MeJA.

It is important to determine how to increase salt tolerance of plants because soil salinisation seriously affects agriculture and production. By measuring the correlations between 14 physiological parameters and salt tolerance, we determined that exogenous methyl jasmonate (MeJA) improves tolerance to high salt stress of Limonium bicolor. Results of the present study provide insights into a possible mechanism underlying MeJA-mediated salt stress alleviation.