The basidiomycetous fungus Rhizoctonia solani Kühn (teleomorph Thanatephorus cucumeris [Frank] Donk) is a fungal pathogen that causes various diseases on economically important crops, such as foxtail millet, maize, and rice. Using the PacBio Sequel platform, we assembled a draft genome of an R. solani strain AG4-JY that was isolated from foxtail millet with sheath blight at the stem. The genome was approximately 43.43 Mb on 53 scaffolds, with a scaffold N50 length of 2.10 Mb. In all, 10,545 genes and 179 noncoding RNAs were predicted, and 10,488 genes had at least one database annotation. In addition, the proteins encoded by 709 genes were predicted as secretory proteins. The AG4-JY genome sequence provides a valuable resource for understanding the interactions between R. solani and foxtail millet and controls sheath blight in the world.

This paper examines how digital infrastructure affects agricultural upgrading in China’s edible fungi industry, focusing on the divergence between output expansion and unit value enhancement. Using a balanced panel of 28 Chinese provinces from 2019 to 2024, we apply a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) approach, instrumenting digital infrastructure with the 1984 provincial fixed-line telephone penetration rate (first-stage F-statistic = 82.15) to address endogeneity concerns. The results reveal a clear asymmetry between quantity and quality outcomes. Digital infrastructure significantly increases total output (coefficient = 1.540, p < 0.01), primarily through improved market coordination rather than productivity gains. However, it produces no statistically discernible effect on unit output value. This divergence suggests that agricultural digitalization follows a stage-dependent pattern: basic connectivity effectively relaxes constraints on production scaling but is insufficient on its own to shift producers toward higher-value activities. Consequently, scale expansion may proceed without corresponding value creation, raising concerns for long-term economic and environmental sustainability. Achieving genuine agricultural upgrading therefore requires complementary investments in institutional capacity, downstream processing, and brand development alongside digital infrastructure deployment.

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is a key dryland cereal in northern China yet multi-regional information on its disease–pest complexes remains limited. Using a 2025 field-monitoring dataset from 84 sites in 11 provincial-level regions, this study assessed the occurrence spectrum, regional variation, relative pressure, provincial spatial patterns, complex types, and statistical co-occurrence associations of major diseases and insect pests observed during a single grain-filling-stage survey. Field records were standardized numerically, and richness metrics, relative pressure indices, complex-type classification, provincial mapping, and binary correlation analysis were applied. Foxtail millet blast, millet downy mildew, and foxtail millet sheath blight were the dominant field-diagnosed disease categories, with occurrence rates of 97.18%, 89.74%, and 73.02%, respectively. Stink bug-related records represented by the hyaline grass bug, double-spotted long-tarsed leaf beetle records, armyworm records, foxtail millet leaf beetle records, and Asian corn borer records were the most common insect pest variables. Northeast China showed higher disease richness and total disease–pest richness, while Northeast China and the North China–Huang-Huai region had higher total disease–pest pressure. Pest-dominated sites accounted for 47.62% of all sites. Co-occurrence analysis identified strong positive statistical associations, particularly between millet downy mildew and stink bug-related records. These results provide a grain-filling-stage monitoring baseline for foxtail millet disease–pest complexes and support integrated monitoring, regional surveillance, and exploratory classification-based interpretation. The findings should be interpreted as cross-sectional field-monitoring results rather than evidence of seasonal dynamics, causal disease–pest interactions, or validated control thresholds.

This study examines whether variety-specific agricultural specialization is associated with both horizontal industrial scale expansion and vertical unit-value upgrading. Using a balanced panel of 26 Chinese provinces from 2014 to 2024, we analyze black fungus ( Auricularia auricula-judae ) specialization through a between-within random-effects decomposition that separates long-term between-province structural specialization from short-term within-province fluctuations. The results reveal a clear temporal asymmetry. Persistent structural specialization is significantly and positively associated with horizontal industrial scale expansion, whereas short-term specialization changes show no statistically significant association. However, neither structural nor transitory specialization is significantly associated with aggregate edible mushroom unit-value upgrading. This divergence suggests a potential commodity-trap pattern in which horizontal production expansion coexists with limited improvement in value capture, although the empirical model does not directly identify the underlying market-level supply–price mechanism. Heterogeneity analysis provides suggestive evidence that the specialization–scale association may be stronger in provinces with lower structural road accessibility. While the continuous interaction term is negative but statistically insignificant, the supplementary subgroup results point in the expected direction. This pattern is consistent with the possibility that the storability of dried agricultural products may reduce the dependence on high-quality transport infrastructure, but this evidence should be interpreted as exploratory. The findings suggest that black fungus specialization is associated with sectoral scale formation, especially in infrastructure-constrained regions, but that sustainable upgrading requires value-chain integration through processing, certification, grading, branding, and coordinated marketing.