The appropriate growth medium configuration is a crucial agronomic practice for water utilization, especially in arid areas. This issue is of particular importance in calcareous soils, where crop plants suffer from limited water and nutrient availability. Therefore, the present investigation aimed to estimate the yield performance and irrigation water use efficiency of sesame grown in different sowing patterns under different irrigation levels. A-2 year field trial was carried out in two summer seasons (2022 and 2023) in a strip-plot with a randomized complete block design using three replications. Three sowing patterns (flat, ridges, and beds) were allocated vertically. Irrigation water levels (100, 75 and 55% of evapotranspiration, ETc1, ETc2 and ETc3, respectively were applied and distributed horizontally. ETc1 × beds followed by ETc2 × ridges or beds in both seasons were the efficient combinations for producing the highest increases in capsules number plant−1. ETc1 × beds or ETc2 × ridges recorded the shortest height of the first capsule in both seasons. The maximum seed yield was achieved with ETc2 × beds in both seasons (1262.3 and 1313.3 kg ha−1), respectively, and ETc2 × ridges in the first season (1222.9 kg ha−1). ETc3 × beds (for oil % and oil yield ha−1 in both seasons) and ETc2 × beds (for oil yield ha−1 in the first season) exhibited the highest increases. ETc3 × beds interaction gave the maximum increase in irrigation water use efficiency in both seasons. The phenotypic correlation and path-coefficient analysis illustrated that the direct effects of seed index and capsules number plant−1 on seed yield plant−1 showed highly positive values (4.89 and 2.84 in 2022) and (1.01 and 1.01 in 2023). By adopting the beds method for cultivating sesame in arid zones, the irrigation programs should be modified via applying the deficit irrigation strategy to save water (about 25%) while keeping productivity. The findings provide new insights into optimizing resource use through beds sowing and moderate irrigation, contributing to sustainable sesame production in water-limited environments. Further, in order to develop stress-tolerant sesame varieties, breeders should focus primarily in breeding programs on improving capsules number plant−1 and seed index traits due to their great direct contribution influence on seed yield, as indicated by path-coefficient analysis.

Background Enriching biochar with nitrogen and using it as a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer is a promising strategy to avoid excessive use of chemical nitrogen fertilizers. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of different types of nitrogen-enriched biochar on the soil’s chemical properties, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and growth of spinach in calcareous sandy soil. This pot experiment included 9 treatments: control (unamended soil, CK), willow branches biochar (WB), apple of Sodom biochar (ASB), marvel grass biochar (MB), halfa grass biochar (HB), nitrogen-enriched willow branches biochar (NEWB), nitrogen-enriched apple of Sodom (NEASB), nitrogen-enriched marvel grass biochar (NEMB), nitrogen-enriched halfa grass biochar (NEHB). Nitrogen-enriched biochar and biochar were added at a level of 5 g kg−1 soil. This experiment was conducted on the spinach plant. Results Soil available nitrate increased significantly with adding NEHB, NEMB, NEWB, and NEASB compared to the control treatment. Adding HB, NEHB, NEMB, NEWB, and NEASB to the soil significantly improved the fresh and dry shoot of the spinach plant compared to the control. Applying HB, NEHB, NEMB, NEWB, and NEASB treatments increased the fresh shoot of the spinach plant over the control by ~62%, 245%, 237%, 275%, and 196%, respectively. On the other hand, adding MB, WB, and ASB treatments decreased the fresh shoot of the spinach plant relative to the control by ~14%, 3%, and 14%, respectively. Applying different types of nitrogen-enriched biochar significantly improved the NUE of spinach plant compared to the original biochar treatments. Conclusions Our results suggest that nitrogen-enriched biochar can be a promising strategy in sustainable agriculture to increase soil nutrient availability, improve spinach growth, and enhance nitrogen use efficiency in spinach. Nitrogen-enriched biochar can serve as an effective and cost-efficient alternative to chemical nitrogen fertilizers.

The rapid increase in pig production has become a major contributor to environmental issues due to the mismanagement of organic waste. The sustainable and effective transformation of this waste into a fertilization resource has become an urgent topic for environmental protection, and new regulations have been imposed. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of different ratios of swine manure liquid (SML) and chemical fertilizers on soil phosphorus forms and microbial communities through field experiments cultivating spring wheat (cultivar “Jinqiang 10”) in Hebei, China. The results indicated that the application of SML in portions with traditional fertilizer can enhance soil pH and electrical conductivity (EC), as well as available phosphorus, particularly when the proportion of SML is high (SML ≥ 75%). Compared with CK, the available phosphorus content of group C3 increased by 22.3%. SML facilitated the transformation of stable phosphorus to unstable phosphorus, as well as the conversion of organic phosphorus to inorganic phosphorus. Additionally, SML increased the soil content of H₂O-P, NaHCO₃-Pi, and NaHCO₃-Po, and promoted the conversion of NaOH-Po to NaHCO₃-Po. Studies on bacterial diversity indicated that different fertilization treatments have no significant impact on the bacterial diversity in the 0–20 cm soil layer, whereas the dominant bacterial and fungal genera were positively correlated with the available phosphorus. The present study may facilitate the combined application of SML and chemical fertilizers for soil improvement and improve phosphorus availability.

S oybean vein necrosis virus (Orthotospovirus glycininecrovenae, SVNV) is an ambisense ssRNA virus in the genus Orthotospovirus first identified in Tennessee in 2008 (1). SVNV consists of three segments: S, M, and L. These encode a nucleocapsid protein (N), nonstructural proteins (NSs and NSm), glycoproteins (GN and GC), and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) (2). The complete sequence of the SVNV17_Auburn_AL isolate was obtained using RNA-Seq and RACE. In 2023, soybean samples exhibiting symptoms of SVNV were collected. Total RNA was extracted from symptomatic leaves using the previous methodology (3), followed by ribosomal RNA depletion using the Illumina Ribo-Zero Plus rRNA Depletion Kit (Illumina, Cat: 20037135). Libraries were prepared with the NEBNext Ultra II Directional RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina and sequenced on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 (150 bp PE, ~47 million reads). Quality control was conducted using FastQC (4), and adapter sequences were removed using BBDuk (https://sourceforge.net/projects/bbmap/). Processed reads were mapped to the SVNV-TN genome (GCA_004789395.1) using Bowtie (5). Variants (depth >80, Phred > 100) were called using BCFtools (6) and FreeBayes tool (7), and the average depth was calculated using SAMtools (6). Identified variants were visualized using IGV v2.3.57 (8). The consensus assembly was generated with BCFtools (6). For all tools, the default parameters were used. Missing terminal nucleotides were filled using RACE: 5′ ends with the Invitrogen 5′ RACE System (ThermoFisher, Cat: 18374058) using segment-specific primers (Table 1), and 3′ ends using E. coli poly(A) polymerase (NEB) followed by SuperScript III (Invitrogen) synthesis. PCR amplification used Phusion (ThermoFisher, F530S), cloned using the CloneJET PCR Cloning Kit, and 12 colonies were Sanger sequenced using an Applied Biosystems 3730xl sequencer. The genome of the SVNV17_Auburn_AL comprises 16,563 bases (2,602 bp [S], 4,948 bp [M], and 9,013 bp [L]) with a GC content of 35% and an average depth of 1,669×. The leaders are 58, 57, and 185 bases, while the trailers are 70, 91, and 30 bases for the S, M, and L segments, respectively. The first six bases (AGAGCA) at the 5′ ends are identical across all three segments and are complementary to the 3′ ends, forming a panhandle similar to other orthotospoviruses (9). Genome comparison between the SVNV17_Auburn_AL isolate and the TN strain revealed 43, 97, and 138 SNPs/indels in the S, M, and L segments (Fig. 1). To determine the impact on the protein level, the ORFs’ sequence was translated with ExPASy (10) and aligned to the TN strain with Clustal