Polyploidy has the utmost importance in horticulture for the development of new ornamental varieties with desirable morphological traits referring to plant size and vigor, leaf thickness, larger flowers with thicker petals, intense color of leaves and flowers, long lasting flowers, compactness, dwarfness and restored fertility. Polyploidy may occur naturally due to the formation of unreduced gametes or can be artificially induced by doubling the number of chromosomes in somatic cells. Usually, natural polyploid plants are unavailable, so polyploidy is induced synthetically with the help of mitotic inhibitors. Colchicine is a widely used mitotic inhibitor for the induction of polyploidy in plants during their cell division by inhibiting the chromosome segregation. Different plant organs like seeds, apical meristems, flower buds, and roots can be used to induce polyploidy through many application methods such as dipping/soaking, dropping or cotton wool. Flow cytometry and chromosome counting, with an observation of morphological and physiological traits are routine procedures for the determination of ploidy level in plants.

Research on biologically active compounds has been increased in order to improve plant protection against various environmental stresses. Among natural sources, plants are the fundamental material for studying these bioactive compounds as their immune system consists of many peptides, proteins, and hormones. Osmotin is a multifunctional stress-responsive protein belonging to pathogenesis-related 5 (PR-5) defense-related protein family, which is involved in inducing osmo-tolerance in plants. In this scenario, the accumulation of osmotin initiates abiotic and biotic signal transductions. These proteins work as antifungal agents against a broad range of fungal species by increasing plasma membrane permeability and dissipating the membrane potential of infecting fungi. Therefore, overexpression of tobacco osmotin protein in transgenic plants protects them from different stresses by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, limiting lipid peroxidation, initiating programmed cell death (PCD), and increasing proline content and scavenging enzyme activity. Other than osmotin, its homologous proteins, osmotin-like proteins (OLPs), also have dual function in plant defense against osmotic stress and have strong antifungal activity.

Radish, one of the important root vegetables, is widely grown in the world due to its easy cultivation, short duration, growing habit, and adaptability to various growing conditions. However, it is still extremely difficult to produce good quality radish roots due to its vulnerability to different preharvest physiological disorders. Important physiological disorders that significantly reduce the yield and quality of radish are forking, pithiness/sponginess, cracking/splitting, hollowness, and internal browning. Different abiotic factors like moisture stress, temperature fluctuation, growing medium, nutrient imbalance, plant density and harvesting time cause a disturbance in the metabolic activities of root tissues that produce non-marketable roots. Therefore, this review provides a detail insight on the causes, physiology of these disorders, and the management practices to prevent them to produce commercial quality roots. This comprehensive knowledge will not only help the growers, but it will provide relative information for researchers as well to control these disorders through breeding innovations and biotechnological tools.

Wound-induced xylem occlusion significantly affects the vase life of cut flowers, as oxidative stress and the polymerization of phenolic compounds lead to the deposition of phenolic compounds/secondary metabolites in the stem ends of cut flowers to heal open tissues of freshly cut stems and prevent microbial invasion. However, this deposition causes blockage of vessels, reduced water uptake, and shortened vase life. The physiological plugging of vessels is linked with various oxidative enzymes’ (PAL, PPOs, LACs, and COs) actions taken to increase the synthesis of different compounds, e.g., lignin, suberin, tyloses, gel, and latex, in wounded areas. The use of chemical preservatives/enzyme inhibitors is one of the safest and most efficient techniques employed to minimize vascular blockage and inhibit phenolic compounds deposition and exudation. This review mainly discusses the types of oxidative enzymes, their pathways and biochemistry along with production of secondary metabolites, their biosynthesis, and their modes of action involved in vascular blockage. It also summarizes the different types of preservatives used in postharvest treatments to improve relative water uptake, flower fresh weight, petal protein content, and hydraulic conductance and prolong the vase life of cut flowers during storage. It is hoped that this elaborate study will help researchers in designing new studies concerning occlusion caused by the accumulation of phenolic compounds in vessels.

Anthracnose of olive fruit caused by Colletotrichum acutatum was a severe epidemic disease in Pakistan that occurred in September 2020. The estimated disease incident was recorded as 59%. Anthracnose causes a significant reduction in yield and quality traits. Anthracnose has been found in several orchards. Agricultural practices, environmental factors, and disease aggressiveness vary between orchards. Therefore, we looked at spore size, cultural traits, morphological variation, growth pattern, and pathogenicity of different strains of C. acutatum from various orchards. Molecular and phylogenetic analysis confirmed the isolated strains as C. acutatum. In all, 15 C. acutatum isolates from olive orchards were tested for susceptibility to four commercial fungicides (P < 0.001). The examined isolates’ in vitro fungicide sensitivity varied with fungicide concentration. The concentration at which conidial germination was hindered by 50% compared with the control values was observed for difenoconazole, tebuconazole, carbendazim, and cyprodinil, ranging from 0.12 to 2.69 g ml⁻¹. Based on the findings of the fungal growth inhibition studies, carbendazim has been found to be the only fungicide that effectively reduces (P < 0.001) anthracnose caused by C. acutatum strains. Additionally, results revealed that preharvest site treatments of different fungicides greatly decreased anthracnose infections on olive fruit (70 to 90%), and postharvest site applications significantly reduced disease prevalence and severity (75 to 95%). The fungicide carbendazim significantly decreased pre- and postharvest anthracnose infection on olive cultivars. This study suggests that the latter compound might be used to control olive anthracnose in Pakistan while lowering environmental impact and fungicide resistance.

Colchicine is one of the important aqueous solutions that has been used to induce mutation or ploidy in many plant species long ago. However, its proper concentrations plays a vital role, increased or inappropriate concentrations may cause mortality, stunted growth, morphological deformation, etc. in plant species. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the different colchicine concentrations on the growth and development of gladiolus corms. Gladiolus corms were treated with 0.2%, 0.4%, and 0.6% concentrations for 24 hours. Colchicine toxicity was evaluated during the early growth stage showed a higher concentration of 0.6% significantly reduced corm survival (47%) and caused a 51.9% survival reduction over control. In terms of growth parameters, all concentrations of colchicine reduced plant height with a number of leaves along with inducing different forms of morphological abnormalities and chlorophyll mutants. To optimize the dose for successful ploidy induction, LD30 and LD50 on mortality rate through an analysis were calculated to be 0.31% and 0.57% whereas GR50 based on plant height and the number of leaves reduction was found to be 0.17% and 0.34%. Hence, the results from this study could be used in the future for further breeding programs by reducing the genotoxicity of colchicine on gladiolus.