Abiotic stresses, such as heavy metals (HMs), drought, salinity and water logging, are the foremost limiting factors that adversely affect the plant growth and crop productivity worldwide. The plants respond to such stresses by activating a series of intricate mechanisms that subsequently alter the morpho-physiological and biochemical processes. Over the past few decades, abiotic stresses in plants have been managed through marker-assisted breeding, conventional breeding, and genetic engineering approaches. With technological advancement, efficient strategies are required to cope with the harmful effects of abiotic environmental constraints to develop sustainable agriculture systems of crop production. Recently, nanotechnology has emerged as an attractive area of study with potential applications in the agricultural science, including mitigating the impacts of climate change, increasing nutrient utilization efficiency and abiotic stress management. Nanoparticles (NPs), as nanofertilizers, have gained significant attention due to their high surface area to volume ratio, eco-friendly nature, low cost, unique physicochemical properties, and improved plant productivity. Several studies have revealed the potential role of NPs in abiotic stress management. This review aims to emphasize the role of NPs in managing abiotic stresses and growth promotion to develop a cost-effective and environment friendly strategy for the future agricultural sustainability.

Ensuring global food security amid mounting challenges, such as population growth, disease infestations, resource limitations, and climate change, is a pressing concern. Anticipated increases in food demand add further complexity to this critical issue. Plant pathogens, responsible for substantial crop losses (up to 41%) in major crops like wheat, rice, maize, soybean, and potato, exacerbate the situation. Timely disease detection is crucial, yet current practices often identify diseases at advanced stages, leading to severe infestations. To address this, remote sensing and Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) have emerged as robust and nondestructive techniques, exhibiting promising results in early disease identification. Integrating machine learning algorithms with image data sets enables precise spatial–temporal disease identification, facilitating timely detection, predictive modeling, and effective disease management without compromising fitness or climate adaptability. By harnessing these cutting-edge technologies and data-driven decision-making, growers can optimize input costs while achieving enhanced yields, making significant strides toward global food security in the face of climate change risks. This review will discuss some of the foundational concepts of remote sensing, several platforms used for remote sensing data collection, successful application of the approach, and its future perspective.

Background: Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), the world’s third most important crop, is frequently thought to be sensitive to moderately sensitive to drought, and yield has fallen considerably over consecutive stress periods. Drought produces a wide range of responses in potato, from physiological alterations to variations in growth rates and yield. Knowledge about these responses is essential for getting a full understanding of drought-tolerance mechanism in potato plants which will help in the identification of drought-tolerant cultivars. Results: A set of 21 commercial potato cultivars representing the genetic diversity in the Middle East countries market were screened for drought tolerance by measuring morpho-physiological traits and tuber production under in vitro and field trials. Cultivars were exposed to drought stress ranging from no drought to 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mol L⁻¹ sorbitol in in vitro-based screening and 60, 40 and 20% soil moisture content in field-based screening. Drought stress adversely affected plant growth, yield and cultivars differed for their responses. Shoots and roots fresh weights, root length, surface area of root, no. of roots, no. of leaves, leaf area, plant water content %, K⁺ content, under in vitro drought treatments and shoots fresh and dry weights, no. of tubers and tuber yield under field drought treatments were examined and all decreased due to drought. The stress tolerance index decreased with increasing drought in examined cultivars; nevertheless, it revealed a degree of tolerance in some of them. Grouping cultivars by cluster analysis for response to drought resulted in: (i) a tolerant group of five cultivars, (ii) a moderately tolerant group of 11 cultivars, and (iii) a sensitive group of five cultivars. Furthermore, stress-related genes, i.e., DRO, ERECTA, ERF, DREB and StMYB were up-regulated in the five cultivars of the tolerant group. Likewise, the stomatal conductance and transpiration explained high correlation with the tuber yield in this group of cultivars. Conclusion: The diversity in germplasm indicated that potato cultivars can be developed for production under certain degrees of drought. Some cultivars are good candidates to be included in drought-tolerant breeding programs and recommended for cultivation in drought-stricken regions. Graphical

Bacteria from the genus Pantoea have been reported to be widely distributed in rice paddy environments with contradictory roles. Some strains promoted rice growth and protected rice from pathogen infection or abiotic stress, but other strain exhibited virulence to rice, even causing severe rice disease. In order to effectively utilize Pantoea in rice production, this paper analyzed the mechanisms underlying beneficial and harmful effects of Pantoea on rice growth. The beneficial effect of Pantoea on rice plants includes growth promotion, abiotic alleviation and disease inhibition. The growth promotion may be mainly attributed to nitrogen-fixation, phosphate solubilization, plant physiological change, the biosynthesis of siderophores, exopolysaccharides, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid deaminase and phytohormones, including cytokinin, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), auxins, abscisic acid and gibberellic acid, while the disease inhibition may be mainly due to the induced resistance, nutrient and spatial competition, as well as the production of a variety of antibiotics. The pathogenic mechanism of Pantoea can be mainly attributed to bacterial motility, production of phytohormones such as IAA, quorum sensing-related signal molecules and a series of cell wall-degrading enzymes, while the pathogenicity-related genes of Pantoea include genes encoding plasmids, such as the pPATH plasmid, the hypersensitive response and pathogenicity system, as well as various types of secretion systems, such as T3SS and T6SS. In addition, the existing scientific problems in this field were discussed and future research prospects were proposed.

Salinity stress is a major abiotic stress for plants worldwide. This study was carried out to determine the variation in salt tolerance for 12 different genotypes belonging to three different tomato species: Solanum lycopersicum (L), S. peruvianum (L) and S. pimpinellifolium (L). Shoot apices and callus cultures were exposed to different levels of salinity stress ranging from no salt (control) to 100, 200 and 300 mmol L^-1 NaCl. All growth and physiological parameters were significantly affected by salt stress. Most shoot apices of S. lycopersicum did not develop roots when exposed to low NaCl levels, whereas apices of S. peruvianum and S. pimpinellifolium developed roots when exposed to all salt levels. This difference in salt tolerance was clearly shown on the basis of root fresh weights and root surface areas. Callus growth in response to increased salinity was much greater in S. peruvianum and S. pimpinellifolium than in S. lycopersicum. The Cl^- and Na⁺ concentrations increased significantly with increasing salt in the three species, although the S. peruvianum lines accumulated more ions compared with the others. As the salt concentration increased, less K⁺ accumulated in S. lycopersicum compared to the related wild species. The results obtained in this study suggest that S. peruvianum line 0043-1 was the accession with the best salt tolerance. The most tolerant cultivated tomato (S. lycopersicum) cultivar was 'Rutgers.' Both S. peruvianum line 0043-1 and S. lycopersicum 'Rutgers' are good candidates for inclusion in tomato breeding programs for salt-tolerance.

Agriculture plays a fundamental role in ensuring global food security, yet plant diseases remain a significant threat to crop production. Traditional methods to manage plant diseases have been extensively used, but they face significant drawbacks, such as environmental pollution, health risks and pathogen resistance. Similarly, biopesticides are eco-friendly, but are limited by their specificity and stability issues. This has led to the exploration of novel biotechnological approaches, such as the development of synthetic proteins, which aim to mitigate these drawbacks by offering more targeted and sustainable solutions. Similarly, recent advances in genome editing techniques—such as meganucleases (MegNs), zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)—are precise approaches in disease management, but are limited by technical challenges and regulatory concerns. In this realm, nanotechnology has emerged as a promising frontier that offers novel solutions for plant disease management. This review examines the role of nanoparticles (NPs), including organic NPs, inorganic NPs, polymeric NPs and carbon NPs, in enhancing disease resistance and improving pesticide delivery, and gives an overview of the current state of nanotechnology in managing plant diseases, including its advantages, practical applications and obstacles that must be overcome to fully harness its potential. By understanding these aspects, we can better appreciate the transformative impact of nanotechnology on modern agriculture and can develop sustainable and effective strategies to mitigate plant diseases, ensuring enhanced agricultural productivity.