A biostimulant is any microorganism or substance used to enhance the efficiency of nutrition, tolerance to abiotic stress and/or quality traits of crops, depending on its contents from nutrients. Plant biostimulants like honey bee (HB) and silymarin (Sm) are a strategic trend for managing stressed crops by promoting nutritional and hormonal balance, regulating osmotic protectors, antioxidants, and genetic potential, reflecting plant growth and productivity. We applied diluted honey bee (HB) and silymarin-enriched honey bee (HB- Sm) as foliar nourishment to investigate their improving influences on growth, yield, nutritional and hormonal balance, various osmoprotectant levels, different components of antioxidant system, and genetic potential of chili pepper plants grown under NaCl-salinity stress (10 dS m^‒1). HB significantly promoted the examined attributes and HB-Sm conferred optimal values, including growth, productivity, K⁺/Na⁺ ratio, capsaicin, and Sm contents. The antioxidative defense components were significantly better than those obtained with HB alone. Conversely, levels of oxidative stress markers (superoxide ions and hydrogen peroxide) and parameters related to membrane damage (malondialdehyde level, stability index, ionic leakage, Na⁺, and Cl⁻ contents) were significantly reduced. HB-Sm significantly affects inactive gene expression, as a natural biostimulator silencing active gene expression. SCoT primers were used as proof in salt-treated or untreated chili pepper plants. There were 41 cDNA amplicons selected by SCoT-primers. Twenty of them were EcDNA amplicons (cDNA-amplicons that enhanced their genes by one or more treatments) representing 49% of all cDNA amplicons, whereas 7 amplicons for ScDNA (whose genes were silenced in one or more treatments) represented 17%, and 14 McDNA (monomorphic cDNA-amplicons with control) amplicons were represented by 34% from all cDNA amplicons. This indicates the high effect of BH-Sm treatments in expression enhancement of some inactive genes and their silenced effect for expression of some active genes, also confirming that cDNA-SCoT markers succeeded in detection of variable gene expression patterns between the untreated and treated plants. In conclusion, HB-Sm as a natural multi-biostimulator can attenuate salt stress effects in chili pepper plants by remodeling the antioxidant defense system and ameliorating plant productivity.

Sugarcane Genotypes Assessment Under Drought Condition Using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism

Corms of Gladiolus grandiflorus cv. “White Prosperity” was irradiated via red laser at wavelength 635 nm. Various morphological, flowering, elemental and chemical characterizations were studied. Irradiation with different power (5, 20, and 50 mW) and various irradiation time (0.0, 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 10 min) was studied. Several characters), totaletermined include vegetative growth parameter (spouting days, plant height (cm), leaves number, leaves fresh and dry weights (g/plant), diameter of plant middle part (mm) and leaf area (cm²), floral parameters (flowering days, vase life (day), fresh and dry weights of inflorescence (g/plant), number of flowers per inflorescence, inflorescence length(cm), flowers diameter(cm), number of corms per plant, corms fresh weight(g/plant), circumference/ corms), pigments [total chlorophylls in leaves (SPAD), anthocyanin content (mg/100 g F.W.) in petals], NPK (%) in new corms and chemical composition in corms; total carbohydrates (%),total phenol (μg CE/g (%),total flavonoid (μg CE/g) (%), antioxidant (DPPH IC50 (μg /ml (%), and proline content (μ moles/g). The results showed that the medium level (20 mW) of He–Ne laser at 5 min caused favorable changes in the leaf anatomical structures and other studied characters followed by the low level (5 mW) of He–Ne laser at 5min. 112 bands emerged from 22 SSR primers, ranging between 130 and 540 bp, with 32 bands having polymorphism ranging from 17–100%. Out of the 22 SSR primers, 3 primers exhibited a high polymorphism percentage, i.e., SSR6, SSR16 and SSR22 which exhibited 7 positive markers. These findings revealed the efficiency of SSR primers for differentiating gladiolus plants and revealed that some alleles were affected by laser in their corms and the expression resulted in color or abnormalities in leaves and/or flowers. Mutation in some alleles could result in abnormalities like mutation in the allele with 410 bp revealed by SSR16.

Background: Wheat is the most important crop around the world. Drought stresses affect wheat production and their characterization. Most of the traits that are affected by drought are quantitative traits, so detection of the quantitative trait’s loci (QTLs) related to these traits is very important for breeder and wheat producers. In this trend, 285 F2 individuals from crosses between four bread wheat genotypes (Triticum aestivum L.), i.e., Sakha93, Sids1, Sakha94, and Gemmiza9, were used for identified QTLs associated with plant height (PH) and leaf wilting (LW). Single marker analysis and composite interval mapping (CIM) were used. Results: A total of 116 QTLs loci were detected which covered 19 chromosomes out of the 21 chromosomes of wheat. PH and LW had 74 and 42 QTLs loci, respectively. On the other hand, chromosome 7A showed to bear the highest number of QTLs loci (15 loci). While chromosome 1A beard the highest number of QTLs loci related to PH (10 loci), chromosome 2B and 7A beard the highest number of QTLs related LW. We highly recommend our finding to help breeders in wheat breeding programs to improve plant height and leaf wilting. Conclusion: Our investigation concluded that SSR markers have high efficiency in the identification of QTLs related to abiotic stress; also the CIM method had more advanced priority for QTLs mapping.

Background: The Apiaceae family is among the most significant plant families because it contains both beneficial and poisonous plants. Due to their morphological similarity, these harmless and lethal species are frequently confounded. Cumin, fennel, and anise are the most prevalent members of the family Apiaceae in Egypt. Members of this family are routinely used as medical surrogates, so it is crucial that they are correctly identified and distinguished. DNA barcoding is a molecular technique used for identifying species and reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Results: Six plants from this family were chosen for this study due to their medicinal importance, and four DNA barcoding loci (rbcL, matK, trnH-psaA, and ITS) were used to identify them. The amplicons were sequenced, and the comparative analysis was conducted between the sequences evaluated and the most significant Blast results. The DNA rbcL, trnH-psaA, and ITS barcodes exhibited similar amplicons among the six species of Apiaceae, while the trnH-psaA barcode exhibited different amplicons among the Apiaceae. Maximum likelihood approach was used to calculate the genetic distance between the sex species of Apiaceae. The most significant findings were that the one from four DNA barcoding was able to distinguish between distinct species and confirm their evolutionary belonging to this family. Conclusions: The current study concludes that trnH-psbA and ITS DNA identifiers can be used to accurately identify, differentiate, and record Apiaceae species, while the rbcl DNA barcode appears to have fallen short of its intended purpose. So, the data that come from DNA barcodes could be used for the biodiversity assessment and the similarities between hazardous and commercial plants to resolve some of these deficiencies.

Background: Cowpea is a high-protein legume that can be grown in many environments. Gamma radiation can modify plant metabolism and growth. An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of different gamma-ray doses on cowpea yield and growth. The results showed that gamma radiation had a significant effect on cowpea yield and growth, with the highest yields and growth rates observed at lower doses. Higher doses had a negative effect on cowpea yield and growth. The study suggests that gamma radiation can be used to improve cowpea yield and growth, but that the optimal dose must be determined for each specific cultivar and environment. Results: Results specified that gamma ray significantly affected growth characters and forage yield. Gamma-ray dose of 50 Gy in M₁ and M₂ generations gave the highest values for all studied characteristics compared to the control and all other irradiation doses, except the crude fiber, followed by 75 and 100 Gy doses for all characters, except number of tillers plant⁻¹ and crude fiber. Seven combinations of SRAP produced 227 loci with an average polymorphism percentage of 85%. The allele frequency of target loci ranged between 0.29 and 0.60, and the PIC was 0.41–0.50 in range, while the GTS% of SRAP combinations ranged from 36 to 63%. The genetic similarities ranged between − 4 and 30%. Ten primers produced 450 loci with a polymorphism percentage of 88%. The allele frequency of target loci ranged between 0.28 and 0.46. The PIC was 0.40–0.50 in range, and the GTS% of IRAP primers ranged from 29 to 71%. The genetic similarities ranged from 8 to 37%. Conclusions: SRAP and IRAP analysis revealed more than two clusters of treated plants. In silico analysis showed that some SRAP primers could align with genes in cowpea and related genomes. The SRAP-F12R9 primer is unique to Phaseolus vulgaris, while the SRAP-F13R15 and SRAP-F13em1 primers align with genes on different chromosomes in cowpea cultivar Xiabao 2.