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Major apple production regions in China (the central area indicates the Loess Plateau region and the northeast area indicates Bohai Bay region, MOA 2008).
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China is in a dominant position in apple production globally with both the largest apple growing area and the largest export of fresh apple fruits. However, the annual productivity of China's apple is significantly lower than that of other dominant apple producing countries. In addition, apple production is based on excessive application of chemica...
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Context 1
... are produced in widely varying locations across the country, but are mostly concentrated in the Bohai Bay area and the Loess Plateau area ( Liu and Fan et al. 2012) (Fig. 1). The two areas account for 80% of growing area and 90% of production in the country. In the Loess Plateau and Bohai Bay regions, most apples orchards are operated by smallholders (e.g., more than 75% farmers owned small piece of land less than 0.3 ha in the Loess Plateau region and more than 40% of apple orchards were below 7 ha in the ...
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... Our values are very similar to the fruit mean weight reported for some French (Le Bourvellec et al., 2015), Chilean (Glenn et al., 2001) and Czech (Blažek and Hlušičková, 2007) apple genotypes, whereas these values were generally higher than those of various Brazilian (Amarante et al., 2008) and Israeli apple cultivars (Naor et al., 2008). Several factors contribute to explaining the difference in the weight and size of apple fruits such as environmental conditions, soil properties, nutrient requirements, water irrigation quantity and management practices (Wang et al., 2016;Mašán et al., 2018). In the same way, Pardo and Borges, (2020) report that flowering and pollination are critical stages in the apple production process and successful pollination leads to a proper fruit set, higher yield, better fruit quality and genetic diversity in apple orchards. ...
Several studies reported that apple adaptation was influenced by many factors related to environmental conditions and the genotype. In the present research, the impact of the cultivar factor was assessed within the specific context of Moroccan conditions. Therefore, we conducted tests on twenty-six different apple cultivars to evaluate their productive potential, vegetative growth and pomological characteristics of their fruits. The findings revealed a substantial variation among apple cultivars across all measured characteristics. The yield of the fruits as well as their weight (a range of 19.64-67.92 kg tree-1) and their size (128.16-265.61 g and 60.02-81.86 mm) were within the corresponding limits. However, chemical analysis indicated that the concentration of total soluble solids in the apple fruit ranged from 13.46 °Brix to 18.29 °Brix, while the titratable acidity varied between 0.044% and 0.143% of citric acid. Biochemically, remarkable differences were found in the apple varieties tested. The total sugar content ranged from 113.96 to 142.57 g GE L-1 , while the total phenols content ranged from 1.56 to 23.29 g GAE L-1. Additionally, the antioxidant activity varied between 19.13% and 90.53% respectively. The data analyses further indicated that the variety 'Gala Royal-2' exhibited the highest annual shoots growth, while 'Po55' displayed the highest leaf area. In conclusion, the finding revealed that the cultivar had a significant impact on the fruit yield, as well as the physical, biochemical and vegetative characteristics of apples. Thus, these results contribute to enhancing our knowledge of the diverse apple cultivars and their potential applications in various fields, such as breeding, cultivation and the food industry. U n c o r r e c t e d P r o o f Agric. conspec. sci. Online first publishing aCS 192 | Hassane BOUDAD, Atman ADIBA, Abdelmajid HADDIOUI, Rachid MENTAG, Kaoutar EL FAZAZI, Sara NAJJARI, Jamal CHARAFI
... Apple is one of the main cultivated fruit tree species worldwide. Apples from China account for more than half of the world's apple-planting area and output; China is thus the world's largest apple producer [1]. Abiotic stresses such as drought and salt stress have become the main factors limiting the growth and distribution of apple plants [2]. ...
... The authors declare no competing interests. 1 College of Horticulture, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, Hebei 071000, China. ...
Background
The mechanisms by which the apple MdPYL9 gene mediates the response to drought stress remain unclear. Here, transcriptome and metabolome analyses of apple plants under drought were used to investigate the mechanisms by which MdPYL9 regulates the response to drought stress in apple. MdPYL9-overexpressed transgenic and non-transgenic apple histoculture seedlings were rooted, transplanted, and subjected to drought treatments to clarify the mechanisms underlying the responses of apples to drought stress through phenotypic observations, physiological and biochemical index measurements, and transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses.
Results
Under drought stress treatment, transgenic plants were less affected by drought stress than non-transgenic plants. Decreases in the net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate of transgenic apple plants were less pronounced in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants, and increases in the intercellular CO2 concentration were less pronounced in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants. The relative electrical conductivity and content of malondialdehyde, superoxide anion, and hydrogen peroxide were significantly lower in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants, and the chlorophyll content and activities of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, and catalase) were significantly higher in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants. The number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in the response to drought stress was lower in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants, and the most significant and highly annotated DEGs in the transgenic plants were involved in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, and the most significant and highly annotated DEGs in control plants were involved in the phytohormone signal transduction pathway. The number of differentially accumulated metabolites involved in the response to drought stress was lower in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants, and up-regulated metabolites were significantly enriched in apigenin-7-O-glucoside in transgenic plants and in abscisic acid in non-transgenic plants. In the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway, the expression of genes encoding chalcone synthase (CHS) and chalcone isomerase (CHI) was more significantly down-regulated in non-transgenic plants than in transgenic plants, and the expression of the gene encoding 4-coumarate-CoA ligase (4CL) was more significantly up-regulated in transgenic plants than in non-transgenic plants, which resulted in the significant up-regulation of apigenin-7-O-glucoside in transgenic plants.
Conclusions
The above results indicated that the over-expression of MdPYL9 increased the drought resistance of plants under drought stress by attenuating the down-regulation of the expression of genes encoding CHS and CHI and enhancing the up-regulated expression of the gene encoding 4CL, which enhanced the content of apigenin-7-O-glucoside.
... Intensive nitrogen fertilization at the wrong time suppresses growth or kills young plants (Li et al. 2019), resulting in lower yield and quality of hazelnuts (Bacon 1995). In addition, excessive N fertilization can lead to environmental pollution (Na et al. 2016). Hazelnut fertilization can change according to environmental conditions; 35% of N fertilization should be applied in March-April, 50% in late May, and 15% in October-November (Tous et al. 1992). ...
Nitrogen (N) fertilization is one of the necessary elements in the production of hazelnuts. Therefore, the excessive introduction of nitrogen into the soil at once, in order to satisfy this requirement, causes it to leach easily from the soil. The aim of this research was to ensure that nitrogen fertilization applied to hazelnut production is washed off the soil to a minimum level. It was also a matter of developing methods to obtain the highest yield with optimal N fertilization in order to provide a high level of availability to the plant. For this reason, the urea fertilizer was studied with two applications and methods. According to the results of the research, it was concluded that the subsurface application of urea fertilizer at the rate of 50% twice enhanced the effect on the quantitative and qualitative properties of hazelnut. As a result, protein levels, kernel ratio, nutrients concentration in the leaf and yield in hazelnut statistically increased.
... The study was conducted in Changwu county, in the southern area of the CLP (Figure 1), as the CLP is the largest apple tree cultivation area in the world [50]. This region experiences a sub-humid climate with average annual precipitation of 560 mm (from 1960 to 2023), about 70% of which falls between June and September. ...
Many studies have investigated how soil water availability in shallow soil affects forest transpiration, but how deep soil water status (below 1 m depth) alters tree water use remains poorly understood. To improve our understanding of how deep soil water changes tree transpiration dynamics, we measured soil water content (SWC) in more than 20 m depths, the radial sap flow profile and the leaf area index (LAI) in the 2017 growing season in 9-, 12-, 16-, 19- and 23-year-old afforested apple (Rosaceae) trees on the Chinese Loess Plateau. SWC was also measured in long-term cultivated farmland to derive SWC before afforestation. The results showed that there was no statistical difference in SWC in shallow soil among orchards (p > 0.05), while SWC in deep soil reduced rapidly with increasing tree age. The average SWC at 1–20 m decreased from 0.27 ± 0.02 cm3 cm−3 in farmland to 0.21 ± 0.03 cm3 cm−3 in the 23-year-old orchard. Moreover, water storage in deep soil decreased by 139 mm yr−1 between the 9- and 12-year-old stands, 105 mm yr−1 between the 12- and 16-year-old stands, 44 mm yr−1 between the 16- and 19-year-old stands, and 9 mm yr−1 from the 19- to 23-year-old stands, indicating that gradually decreased SWC in deep soil has restricted tree water use. Due to the changes in SWC, growing-season transpiration and the LAI peaked in the 16-year-old orchard and then decreased with increasing stand age. Growing-season transpiration in the 23-year-old orchard was only 77% of that in the 16-year stands, despite the older trees having larger diameters at the breast height. Our results suggest that soil water availability in deep soil plays an important role in regulating trees’ transpiration.
... Apples are one of the most widely cultivated and consumed fruits in the world and can look back on a history of cultivation spanning thousands of years [1]. The size of the areas undertaking the cultivation and output of apples in China has taken a leading position in the world in recent years [2] and is increasing year on year due to their high economic and nutritional value. However, apple leaf diseases can cause significant production and economic losses, as well as a decline in the quality and quantity of fruit production [3]. ...
Alternaria leaf blight has recently been described as an emerging fungal disease of apple trees which is causing the significant damage in the apple-growing areas of Tianshui and Jingning, Gansu, China. In the present study, the pathogen species involved in apple leaf blight and its biological characteristics were identified, and the inhibitory activity of different botanical fungicides against the pathogen was evaluated in vitro. Four strains were isolated from the symptomatic areas of necrotic apple leaves, and initially healthy leaves showed similar symptoms to those observed in orchards after inoculation with the ABL2 isolate. The ABL2 isolate was identified as Alternaria tenuissima based on the morphological characteristics of its colonies, conidiophores, and conidia, and this was also confirmed by multi-gene sequence (ITS, OPA10-2, Alta-1, and endoPG) analysis and phylogenic analysis. The optimum temperature, pH, carbon source, and nitrogen source for the growth of A. tenuissima mycelia were 28 °C, 6–7, soluble starch, and soy flour, respectively. In addition, the botanical fungicide eugenol exhibited the highest inhibitory effect on the mycelial growth and conidia germination of A. tenuissima, and the median effective concentration (EC50) values were 0.826 and 0.755 μg/mL, respectively. The protective and curative efficacy of eugenol were 86.85% and 76.94% after inoculation in detached apple leaves at a concentration of 4 μg/mL. Our research provides new insights into the control of apple leaf blight disease by applying botanical fungicides.
... To test the research hypotheses, this study employs a translogarithmic stochastic frontier production function and technical inefficiency model. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the productivity and TE of forestry and agroforestry, including natural rubber (Giroh and Adebayo, 2009;Chand et al., 2015;Susaeta et al., 2016;Wang et al., 2016;Aliyu et al., 2017;Murtaza and Thapa, 2017). For instance, Chen et al. (2017) employed stochastic frontier analysis to examine the production efficiency of the forestry industry in China. ...
The existing rural land tenure system in many developing countries is characterized by imperfections and conflicts. In rural regions of China, although most farmers possess land tenure certificates, there are instances where these certificates do not align with the actual land use. This study examines the technical efficiency (TE) of smallholder rubber farming at the plot level in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (XSBN) in Yunnan Province, China, using three-wave panel data. Additionally, the study aims to estimate the impact of inconsistent land tenure certificates on rubber plantations. The TE of smallholder rubber farming in XSBN ranged from 0.01 to 0.89, with an average of 0.554. The possession of a land tenure certificate indirectly enhances the TE of smallholder rubber farming by optimizing factor inputs. Furthermore, the TE of rubber plantations with forestland tenure certificates surpasses that of rubber plantations with farmland tenure certificates. This investigation sheds light on the issue of inconsistent land tenures in the context of economic forest expansion in southern China and advocates for further research in related areas. The findings contribute to the existing empirical evidence on the TE of smallholder rubber farming.
... However, due to the long history of cultivation, most of the old orchards have entered the aging stage, and the yield of fruit trees has become low and the benefit is poor. Therefore, a large number of old orchards need to be rebuilt every year [1,2]. However, due to the limitation of land resources, the new orchards can only be carried out on the original site of the old orchards, but both apple and cherry belong to the same Rosaceae family; this may be the cause of the problem of the "apple specific replant disease (SARD)", causing slow growth, disease susceptibility, root necrosis, and even death in severe cases [3,4]. ...
Due to the aging of trees, aged apple and cherry orchards need to be rebuilt urgently. However, due to the limitation of land resources, it is inevitable to rebuild the apple orchard by taking the aged cherry orchard as a replacement, which will lead to replant disease and seriously affect the sustainable development of the horticulture industry. This study investigated the effect of aged cherry orchard soil on the growth of M. hupehensis seedlings grown in pots, and it was further verified that allelochemicals in soil were one of the reasons for this effect. Three treatments were implemented: aged apple orchard soil (ppl), aged cherry orchard soil (pyl), and aged cherry orchard soil after fumigation with methyl bromide (pyz). Compared with pyz, pyl treatment significantly decreased the biomass, root growth, and antioxidant enzyme activity of M. hupehensis seedlings, and increased the content of MDA. Compared with ppl, pyl contains a smaller number of fungi and bacteria, but the abundance of the four disease-causing Fusarium remained high. In addition, the levels of allelochemicals found in the soil of aged cherry orchards can inhibit the normal growth and development of M. hupehensis seedlings. Amygdalin most strongly inhibited these seedlings. In summary, directly planting M. hupehensis seedlings in the soil of the aged cherry orchards still inhibits their normal growth and development, although the seedlings grow better than in aged apple orchard soil. Therefore, it is not feasible to directly plant M. hupehensis seedlings in the soil of aged cherry orchards, and measures should be taken to eliminate allelochemicals such as amygdalin and harmful microorganisms.
... Phosphorus (P)-induced modification of microbial communities alters both microbial activities and carbon (C) cycling rates [3,4], which leads to a reduction in the SOM content and soil fertility [5]. This inhibits plant growth, reduces fruit yields, and reduces their quality [6,7]. Thus, it is necessary to develop prudent and sustainable management practices that can mitigate any deleterious environmental costs. ...
This study focused on 6-year-old ‘Pawnee’ pecan trees to elucidate the differential responses of physicochemical properties of orchard soil and pecan fruit quality when combining chemical and organic fertilizers. The aim was to unveil the mechanisms that underlie the effects of different fertilization treatments on soil fertility, soil enzyme activities, and pecan fruit quality. Four treatments were established: sole chemical fertilizer (CF; N:P2O5:K2O is 15:15:15), chemical fertilizer combined with cake fertilizer (CF+CC), chemical fertilizer combined with manure fertilizer (CF+M), and chemical fertilizer combined with cake and manure fertilizer (CF+CC+M). Measurements were taken to assess the soil nutrient content, soil enzyme activities, and fruit growth quality in some orchards under different fertilization treatments. The results revealed that the combined application could increase yield and enhance pecan quality. Among these, the CF+M+CC treatment demonstrated the most favorable outcomes, with the pecan kernel oil and unsaturated fatty acid contents reaching 72.33% and 97.54%, respectively. The combined fertilization treatments had no significant impacts on soil trace elements such as Mg, Cu, and Mn; however, it significantly increased the Available Phosphorus (AP), Total Nitrogen (TN), Soil Organic Matter (SOM) and S-ACP (soil acid phosphatase) activities. In summary, the combined application of chemical and organic fertilizers can significantly increase the soil nutrient content and enzyme activities in pecan orchards, to promote the enhancement of fruit quality and economic aspects.
... Optimal cultivation practices depend on local soil and weather conditions, as well as apple cultivars. Sustainable cultivation practices can increase apple yield and size while reducing environmental impact [14]. ...
Precision agriculture techniques have been increasingly adopted worldwide to optimize cultivation practices and achieve sustainable crop production. In this study, we developed a Machine Learning approach to identify optimal cultivation practices for sustainable apple production in precision agriculture in the Msemrir town Morocco. We collected a dataset of cultivation practices and apple yield and size data from 10 farms in the town and used correlation-based feature selection and three Machine Learning algorithms (Linear Regression, Decision Tree, and Random Forest) to develop predictive models. The results showed that irrigation, fertilization, and pruning are the most important cultivation practices for apple production in the region, and the Random Forest model performed the best in predicting apple yield and size based on the selected practices. The use of Machine Learning techniques can help farmers optimize cultivation practices and achieve sustainable apple production by reducing inputs such as water and fertilizer and minimizing environmental impact. Moreover, the use of precision agriculture techniques can help farmers meet consumer demand for sustainable and high-quality apple products.
... However, apple orchards in Loess Plateau are predominantly rain-fed-a system that cannot fulfill the larger water consumption demand during apple production, thus it is particularly vital to develop water-saving irrigation technology in apple orchards in Loess Plateau. In addition, local farmers usually apply excessive nitrogen fertilizer to maximize apple yield (Wang et al., 2016). However, excessive nitrogen fertilizer input disrupted the balance between plant reproductive and nutritional growth, leading not only to lower product quality and increased nitrogen resource waste but also to environmental problems such as soil quality deterioration and groundwater pollution (Zhang et al., 2012;Bai et al., 2019). ...
A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Water-nitrogen regulation Apple orchard Soil reactive nitrogen pools Soil enzyme activity Yield and fruit quality A B S T R A C T Improper water and nitrogen supply can lead to resource loss, soil quality deterioration, low nutrient effectiveness , and decreased fruit yield and quality in apple orchards. To investigate the soil nitrogen characteristics and enzyme activities in drip-fertigated apple orchards on the Loess Plateau and their relationship with fruit yield and quality formation, field experiments were conducted on dwarf Fuji apple from 2017 to 2022. The experiment consisted of two factors, including two irrigation levels (W) and four nitrogen rates (N) applied. Irrigation was set to two upper irrigation limit levels based on soil moisture, 85 % (W1) and 100 % (W2) of field capacity (FC), and the nitrogen rates were 0 (N1), 120 (N2), 240 (N3) and 360 (N4) kg ha − 1. The results showed that irrigation and nitrogen rates had significant effects on soil mineral nitrogen, soluble organic nitrogen (SON), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), enzyme activity, and apple yield and quality. At W1, the proportion of soil NO 3 −-N to the total soluble nitrogen (TSN) pools increased with increasing nitrogen rates, and NO 3 −-N gradually replaced SON as the main form of TSN. The responses of MBC and MBN to nitrogen rates were different at different irrigation levels. Apple yield and total soluble solids (TSS), soluble sugar (SS) and vitamin C (VC) contents first increased and then decreased with increasing nitrogen application. Ridge regression analysis showed that SON was the most important factor affecting apple yield, followed by MBN. The VC and TSS contents were most affected by soil urease and sucrase, respectively. The comprehensive evaluation by the TOPSIS method ranked W1N3 as the first and optimal treatment, which can achieve high fruit yield and quality while improving soil nitrogen nutrition and biological characteristics to attain sustainable apple farming.
