The common hop (Humulus lupulus L.) is a dioecious perennial climbing plant, mainly known for the use of its female inflorescences (cones or, simply, “hops”) in the brewing industry. However, the very first interest towards hops was due to its medicinal properties. Actually, the variety of compounds present in almost all plant parts were (and still are) used to treat or prevent several ailments and metabolic disorders, from insomnia to menopausal symptoms as well as obesity and even cancer. Although hops are predominantly grown for hopping beer, the increasing interest in natural medicine is widening new interesting perspectives for this crop. Moreover, the recent success of the craft beer sector all over the world, made the cultivated hop come out from its traditional growing areas. Particularly, in Europe this resulted in a movement towards southern countries such as Italy, which added itself to the already existing hop industry in Portugal and Spain. In these relatively new environments, a complete knowledge and expertise of hop growing practices is lacking. Overall, while many studies were conducted globally on phytochemistry, bioactivity, and the genetics of hops, results from public research activity on basic hop agronomy are very few and discontinuous as well. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of possible uses, phenology, and agronomic aspects of hops, with specific reference to the difficulties and opportunities this crop is experiencing in the new growing areas, under both conventional and organic farming. The present review aims to fill a void still existing for this topic in the literature and to give directions for farmers that want to face the cultivation of such a challenging crop.

In recent years, awareness on sustainable land use has increased. Optimizing the practice of nitrogen fertilization has become crucially imperative in cropping management as a result of this current trend. The effort to improve the availability of organic nitrogen has incurred a bottleneck while seeking to achieve a high yield and quality performance for organic winter cereals. Field experiments were conducted, under rainfed Mediterranean conditions, over a period of two subsequent growing seasons. The objective was to investigate the effect of soil and foliar S application on the performance of three durum wheat cultivars fertilized with either organic or inorganic N. The hypothesis to be verified was if different S fertilization strategies could improve grain yield and quality when coupled with mineral or organic N fertilizer. There were three levels of treatment with mineral N fertilizer (120, 160 and 200 kg ha⁻¹), two levels of organic N fertilizer (160 and 200 kg ha⁻¹), two levels of S fertilizer applied to the soil (0 and 70 kg ha⁻¹), and two levels of foliar S application at flag leaf stage (0 and 5 kg ha⁻¹). Cultivars were Dylan, Iride and Saragolla. Analyzed traits were grain yield, yield components and quality features of grain. Overall, at the same N rate, grain yield and quality were markedly higher for mineral than organic N source. Cultivar × Year × N treatment interactions significantly affected grain yield and quality indices. Iride showed a high yield stability throughout the mineral N rates in the most favorable year (2011) and, in the same year, was the top performing cultivar in organic N treatments. Dylan was the top performing cultivar for protein content, while Saragolla for the SDS sedimentation test. Soil S fertilization had no effect on grain quality, whereas it significantly increased grain yield (+ 300 kg ha⁻¹) when coupled with organic rather than a mineral N source. However, foliar S application at flag leaf stage did not affect grain yield, but it significantly enhanced quality indices such as test weight (81 vs. 79.9 kg hL⁻¹), protein content (13.7% vs. 12.9 %) and SDS value (72.5 vs. 70.5 mm). A rate of 160 kg ha⁻¹ of N (both mineral and organic) determined the optimal response for both grain yield and quality. Finally, soil and foliar application of S may help to contain the large yield and quality gap that still exists between mineral and organic fertilization of durum wheat.

Recently, biofuels have become a strategic focus to reduce vehicle emissions and increase sustainability of the transport sector. However, the sustainability of biofuels production has been questioned owing to its implications for future land footprint. In this respect, the EU Commission has very recently classified as low indirect land-use change (ILUC)–risk biofuels those obtained by crops grown on marginal lands and with low external inputs. Only few crops can reach high yields under both of these conditions across Europe. From this point of view, Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) is certainly a species worthy of remark since it has all the attributes to accomplish the aims of the updated EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II). Starting from physiological aspects, the present review examines and summarizes literature on the ecology, genetic resources, agronomic practices and sustainability of this species. The goal is to point out the recent advances of research in Jerusalem artichoke (JA) potential as alternative biofuel feedstock and to identify what is still needed to better characterize its environmental benefits and agronomic performance.

Wild species are extremely rich resources of useful genes not available in the cultivated gene pool. For species providing staple food to mankind, such as the cultivated Triticum species, including hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, 6x) and tetraploid durum wheat (T. durum, 4x), widening the genetic base is a priority and primary target to cope with the many challenges that the crop has to face. These include recent climate changes, as well as actual and projected demographic growth, contrasting with reduction of arable land and water reserves. All of these environmental and societal modifications pose major constraints to the required production increase in the wheat crop. A sustainable approach to address this task implies resorting to non-conventional breeding strategies, such as “chromosome engineering”. This is based on cytogenetic methodologies, which ultimately allow for the incorporation into wheat chromosomes of targeted, and ideally small, chromosomal segments from the genome of wild relatives, containing the gene(s) of interest. Chromosome engineering has been successfully applied to introduce into wheat genes/QTL for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, quality attributes, and even yield-related traits. In recent years, a substantial upsurge in effective alien gene exploitation for wheat improvement has come from modern technologies, including use of molecular markers, molecular cytogenetic techniques, and sequencing, which have greatly expanded our knowledge and ability to finely manipulate wheat and alien genomes. Examples will be provided of various types of stable introgressions, including pyramiding of different alien genes/QTL, into the background of bread and durum wheat genotypes, representing valuable materials for both species to respond to the needed novelty in current and future breeding programs. Challenging contexts, such as that inherent to the 4x nature of durum wheat when compared to 6x bread wheat, or created by presence of alien genes affecting segregation of wheat-alien recombinant chromosomes, will also be illustrated.

Dairy wastewater (DWW) contains large amounts of mineral and organic compounds, which can accumulate in soil and water causing serious environmental pollution. A constructed wetland (CW) is a sustainable technology for the treatment of DWW in small-medium sized farms. This paper reports a two-year study on the performance of a pilot-scale horizontal subsurface flow system for DWW treatment in Sicily (Italy). The CW system covered a total surface area of 100 m² and treated approximately 6 m³ per day of wastewater produced by a small dairy farm, subsequent to biological treatment. Removal efficiency (RE) of the system was calculated. The biomass production of two emergent macrophytes was determined and the effect of plant growth on organic pollutant RE was recorded. All DWW parameters showed significant differences between inlet and outlet. For BOD₅ and COD, RE values were 76.00% and 62.00%, respectively. RE for total nitrogen (50.70%) was lower than that of organic compounds. RE levels of microbiological parameters were found to be higher than 80.00%. Giant reed produced greater biomass than umbrella sedge. A seasonal variation in RE of organic pollutants was recorded due to plant growth rate Our findings highlight the efficient use of a CW system for DWW treatment in dairy-cattle farms.

Cotton is one of the most important industrial crops in the world. Though widely cultivated in Sicily (Italy) in the past, cotton growth on the island has disappeared today due to a complex variety of agronomic, economic and socio-political reasons. In recent years, increased interest in natural fibers worldwide has led to a revival in cotton plants in the Mediterranean area. The aim of this paper was to assess the response of Gossypium hirsutum L. cultivars to different environments and sowing times. Elsa and Juncal were selected from the most promising cotton cultivars regarding earliness and productivity. Plants were tested with three sowing times and in two Sicilian environments. Cotton yield and yield components were significantly affected by experimental station, sowing time and cultivar. Lint yield of cultivars was 1.60 t ha⁻¹ on average, and the highest value of 1.99 t ha⁻¹ was obtained from an early sowing time. The three indices of agronomic earliness varied significantly based on treatments. In conclusion, the evaluation of response genotype-by-environment under different sowing times could represent a strategy to obtain optimal cotton seed and lint yields, although other general aspects, such as labor costs, land availability and capital resources, should be also considered when evaluating the reintroduction of the species in Sicily.