Georgina Takács, István Gergely, Vince Ördög, Levente Vörös, József Iváncsics
Approaches to studying wheat and maize drought stress responses
Plant and Soil, REVIEW ARTICLE
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-025-07789-6
Introduction Drought stress remains a critical challenge to sustainable agriculture worldwide, threatening crop productivity and food security. Understanding the physiological processes and defense mechanisms that crops employ under water-limited conditions is essential for developing strategies to enhance drought resilience. Plant responses to drought vary widely depending on species, genotype, developmental stage, and the severity and duration of stress. Beyond annual rainfall totals, yield is also shaped by seasonal precipitation patterns and related environmental factors, which influence the choice of cultivars and crop performance.
Finding This review examines the drought responses of maize and wheat, two globally important cereals, across morphological, physiological, biochemical, andmolecular dimensions. Key responses include enhanced root development, reduced leaf area, stomatal regulation, decreased photosynthetic activity and water potential, and elevated proline and abscisic acid levels. Although varietal differences are noted, they are discussed only briefly. Water stress is commonly quantified via water potential and measured using tools such as the Scholander pressure chamber or the increasingly adopted ZIM probe, which allows non-destructive, continuous monitoring. While conventional breeding efforts have targeted drought tolerance, progress is constrained by these traits’ polygenic and environmentally sensitive nature. Recently, biostimulants such as seaweed extracts and microalgae-based products have emerged as promising tools for enhancing stress tolerance.
Conclusion To meet the demands of a changing climate, future research should prioritize the integration of genetic, physiological, and biochemical strategies to develop crops with robust and durable drought resistance.
Attila G. L. Németh; Balázs Horváth, Gyula Pinke
Ethnobotanical and cultural significance of Chaerophyllum bulbosum in the Carpathian Basin
Kitaibelia, 2024, 29(2), 141–159.
https://doi.org/10.17542/10.17542/kit.29.056
Tuberous-rooted chervil (Chaerophyllum bulbosum) is one of the iconic plants in the Carpathian basin regarding ethnobotany. It is considered native to this region and it is known by about one hundred different Hungarian folk names and allophones. We have plenty of historical data about its gathering from the wild from the end of the 16th century, but certainly, it could have been collected much earlier by the people who lived here. In the whole Carpathian basin, mostly its tubers (and rarely the leaves as well) were gathered mainly by children, which were eaten in various forms and dishes, but most frequently raw as salad. Its popularity started to decline by the end of the 19th century, and in the middle of the 20th century, it was regarded as one of the ‘beets out of fashion’, which was slowly disappearing from the diet. From the 21st century, there is only one record about its gathering and consumption from Transylvania. In former times, along with other Chaerophyllum and Anthriscus spe-cies it was recommended to cure scorbute and diarrhoea and as a poultice for ulcers. In the Middle Ages, it was cultivated throughout Eastern and Central Europe, which could have also been true for the Carpathian Basin. Master Roger mentioned this species among the plants of devastated peasant gardens (1243, after the Mongol invasion). Thereafter, we have records only from the middle of the 19th century showing the obvious growing of its cultivated variety (called ‘chervil-beet’). However, its cultivation remained quite sporadic, and by the middle of the 20th century, it was already fully neglected. The plant occurred in Hungarian cookery books from the 16th century, especially in Transylvanian gastronomy. The remembrance of its former folk uses retained in Hungarian culture as well, it emerges in several poems and prose.
Gyula Pinke, Éva Dunai, Tünde Majdán, Veronika Papp, Dávid Vasas, Zsolt Giczi, Zoltán Varga
Weed mass ratios in tine-harrowed and weed-free phacelia fields
The withdrawal of certain herbicide active substances from the market has posed a major challenge to phacelia seed growers in recent years. The positive side of such regulations, which have a mostly negative impact on conventional farmers, is that they can even encourage them to try out environmentally friendly weed control technologies. This is how tine harrow was tested on the Moson plain, the cradle of Hungarian phacelia seed production. In this article, we demonstrate the weed control efficacy of the technique, in the hope that tine harrow will become part of the toolbox of more and more growers.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Renátó Kalocsai, Zsolt Giczi, Tamás Szakál, Csaba Centeri, Zsolt Biró, Márton Vona, Lajos Kubina, Sándor Zsebő, István Kulmány, Viktória Vona
Effect of pH, Carbonate and Clay Content on Magnesium Measurement Methods on Hungarian Soils
SOIL SYSTEMS, 8 : 2 Paper: 49 (2024)
10.3390/soilsystems8020049
More exact information on soil nutrient management is crucial due to environmental protection, nature conservation, decreasing sources for mining, general precaution, etc. Soil magnesium (Mg) analytical methods of potassium chloride (KCl), Mehlich 3 (M3), water (WA) and cobalt hexamine (CoHex) extractions are compared with an elemental analysis and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. The ratio of the available to the total Mg content was calculated and compared on the whole dataset. The results showed that the linear regressions between all the pairs of Mg content measurement methods were significant. The linear relationship between the KCl and CoHex methods has the highest determination coefficient (R2 = 0.96), followed by WA–M3 (R2 = 0.68), M3–CoHex (R2 = 0.66) and M3–KCl (R2 = 0.60). The M3 solution demonstrated a greater capacity for extracting Mg from the soil. The second part is the analysis of the influence of CaCO3, pH, soil texture and clay content on the measurable magnesium content of soils. It was established that the extraction methods, the soil and the classification method of the soil properties affect the evaluation. These results may help through the nutrient replenishment and the melioration of soils. These results can help the examination of mineral nutrients, especially the Mg uptake. © 2024 by the authors.