Societal Impact Statement: Transformative agricultural strategies like agrivoltaics (AV) are essential for addressing the pressing global issues of sustainable energy and food production in a changing climate. Conservation‐agrivoltaics (Conservation‐AV) provides the potential to meet these needs while reinforcing natural resources and protecting the environment. It could enhance the ecological benefits of AV by improving soil health and biodiversity. It could create economic opportunities for farmers and increase the resilience and diversity of food crops under changing climate conditions. Furthermore, it could inform stakeholders about the benefits and challenges of implementing conservation agriculture management practices (CAMP) in AV and encourage further exploration and adoption of this innovative approach.Summary: Transformative strategies in agriculture are needed to address urgent global challenges related to energy and food production while reinforcing natural resources and the environment. Agrivoltaics (AV) has emerged in the past decade as one solution to this fundamental challenge of improving energy and food security. AV is defined as the co‐location of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and crops on the same land to optimize food and energy production simultaneously and sustainably. Here, we propose that AV, together with conservation agriculture management practices (CAMP) strategies can help to intensify food security and energy production while reinforcing natural resources and the environment. Our main assertions in this opinion article are that: (1) AV systems need to overcome several agronomical, environmental, and ecological challenges to intensify food and energy production sustainably; (2) CAMP applied to AV systems can preserve the environment and ensure climate‐resilient food production; (3) implementation of CAMP in AV can lead to long‐term carbon sequestration, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and maintain or increase crop yields while preserving soil health and biodiversity; and (4) adoption of CAMP in AV can bring economic benefits, although challenges need to be overcome. This opinion article proposes a new ecosystem approach to integrate renewable energy and sustainable food production and encourages research on the effects of CAMP on AV systems.

Several phytohormones modulate ripening in non-climacteric fruits, which is triggered by abscisic acid (ABA). Gibberellins (GAs) are present during the onset of ripening in sweet cherry fruits, and exogenous gibberellic acid (GA₃) application delays ripening, though this effect is variety-dependent. Although an ABA accumulation delay has been reported following GA₃ treatment, the mechanism by which GA modulates this process has not been investigated at the molecular level in sweet cherry. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze the effect of GA₃ on the fruit ripening process and the transcript levels of ABA pathway orthologs in two varieties having different maturity time phenotypes. The early-season variety had a rapid transition from yellow to pink fruit color, whereas pink color initiation took longer in the mid-season variety. GA₃ increased the proportion of lighter colored fruits at ripeness in both varieties, but it produced a delay in IAD—a ripening index—only in the mid-season variety. This delay was accompanied by an increased transcript abundance of PavPP2Cs, which are putative negative regulators of the ABA pathway. On the other hand, the early-season variety had increased expression of PavCYP707A2—a putative ABA catabolic gene–, and reduced transcript levels of PavPP2Cs and SnRK2s after the GA₃ treatment. Together these results show that GA modulates fruit ripening, exerting its action in part by interacting with the ABA pathway in sweet cherry.

Gibberellin (GA) negatively affects color evolution and other ripening-related processes in non-climacteric fruits. The bioactive GA, gibberellic acid (GA₃), is commonly applied at the light green-to-straw yellow transition to increase firmness and delay ripening in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), though causing different effects depending on the variety. Recently, we reported that GA₃ delayed the IAD parameter (a ripening index) in a mid-season variety, whereas GA₃ did not delay IAD but reduced it at ripeness in an early-season variety. To further explore this contrasting behavior between varieties, we analyzed the transcriptomic responses to GA₃ applied on two sweet cherry varieties with different maturity time phenotypes. At harvest, GA₃ produced fruits with less color in both varieties. Similar to our previous report, GA₃ delayed fruit color initiation and IAD only in the mid-season variety and reduced IAD at harvest only in the early-season variety. RNA-seq analysis of control- and GA₃-treated fruits revealed that ripening-related categories were overrepresented in the early-season variety, including ‘photosynthesis’ and ‘auxin response’. GA₃ also changed the expression of carotenoid and abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthetic genes in this variety. In contrast, overrepresented categories in the mid-season variety were mainly related to metabolic processes. In this variety, some PP2Cs putative genes were positively regulated by GA₃, which are negative regulators of ABA responses, and MYB44-like genes (putative repressors of PP2Cs expression) were downregulated. These results show that GA₃ differentially modulates the transcriptome at the onset of ripening in a variety-dependent manner and suggest that GA₃ impairs ripening through the modification of ripening associated gene expression only in the early-season variety; whereas in the mid-season variety, control of the ripening timing may occur through the PP2C gene expression regulation. This work contributes to the understanding of the role of GA in non-climacteric fruit ripening.

Understanding the physiological mechanisms of response that allow plants to survive under suboptimal conditions such as drought stress is of particular interest, because of global climate change that threat the suitability of most terrestrial habitats for plant growth, as well as habitat disturbance of desert plants due to water extraction for human supply. Prosopis tamarugo Phil. of the Pampa del Tamarugal is frequently subjected to drought stress due to groundwater extraction for urban areas, mining industry and agriculture supply. The aim of this review is to analyze information concerning the plant growth response to drought stress and specifically P. tamarugo water relations and growth response to drought stress. P. tamarugo, being a desert plant, has physiological mechanisms that permit its adaptation to extreme environmental conditions like the Pampa del Tamarugal. It has mechanisms as osmotic adjustment, that allow some growth through osmoregulation; changes the angle of its leaflets to avoid high levels of radiation in the afternoon; partially closes its stomata to decrease water loss; maintains high stomata conductance to deal with increasing temperature and atmospheric demand.