The study demonstrates that short‑term low phosphate treatment delays leaf senescence in rice by increasing photosynthetic pigments, enhancing antioxidant enzyme activities, and reducing oxidative damage, whereas high phosphate accelerates senescence. CRISPR/Cas9 editing of MIR827 to lower Pi levels also postpones senescence, while overexpression of MIR827 or MIR399, which raises Pi, speeds it up. Transcriptomic profiling reveals coordinated changes in senescence‑associated and metabolic pathways underlying the low‑phosphate response.

The authors used a bottom‑up thermodynamic modelling framework to investigate how plants decode calcium signals, starting from Ca2+ binding to EF‑hand proteins and extending to higher‑order decoding modules. They identified six universal Ca2+-decoding modules that can explain variations in calcium sensitivity among kinases and provide a theoretical basis for interpreting calcium signal amplitude and frequency in plant cells.

Integrating physiological, transcriptomic, and cellular analyses, the study shows that olive fruit abscission zones undergo lignification, alkalization, and extensive cell‑wall remodeling during natural maturation and after ethephon treatment. A set of 733 FAZ‑specific genes, including β‑1,3‑glucanases, pectate lyases, and pH‑regulating transporters, were identified, and increased glucanase activity together with reduced plasmodesmata callose suggest enhanced intercellular communication facilitates organ detachment in this non‑climacteric fruit.

The study examined drought tolerance across nine provenances of the conifer Pinus nigra using high‑throughput phenotyping combined with metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses under controlled soil‑drying conditions. Drought tolerance, measured by the decline in Fv/Fm, varied among provenances but was not linked to a climatic gradient and was independent of growth, with tolerant provenances showing distinct flavonoid and diterpene profiles and provenance‑specific gene expression patterns. Integrating phenotypic and molecular data revealed metabolic signatures underlying drought adaptation in this non‑model conifer.

The study demonstrates that limonene, a natural essential‑oil component, strongly inhibits Fusarium oxysporum, the causal agent of potato dry rot, by impairing colony growth, hyphal morphology, spore viability, membrane integrity, and transcription/translation processes, as well as disrupting ion homeostasis. Combined treatments reveal additive effects with mancozeb and synergistic effects with hymexazol, highlighting limonene's potential as an eco‑friendly bio‑fungicide for potato disease management.

The study presents a high-quality genome assembly for the nickel hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens and uses it as a reference for comparative transcriptomic analyses across different N. caerulescens accessions and the non‑accumulating relative Microthlaspi perfoliatum. It identifies a limited set of metal transporters (NcHMA3, NcHMA4, NcIREG2, and NcIRT1) whose elevated expression correlates with hyperaccumulation, and demonstrates that frameshift mutations in NcIRT1 can abolish the trait, indicating an ancient, transporter‑driven origin of nickel hyperaccumulation.

The study identifies the transcription factor MdBRC1 as a key inhibitor of bud growth during the ecodormancy phase in apple (Malus domestica), directly regulating dormancy‑associated genes and interacting with the flowering promoter MdFT2 to modulate bud break. Comparative transcriptomic analysis and gain‑of‑function experiments in poplar demonstrate that MdFT2 physically binds MdBRC1, attenuating its repressive activity and acting as a molecular switch for the transition to active growth.

The study introduced full-length SOC1 genes from maize and soybean, and a partial SOC1 gene from blueberry, into tomato plants under constitutive promoters. While VcSOC1K and ZmSOC1 accelerated flowering, all three transgenes increased fruit number per plant mainly by promoting branching, and transcriptomic profiling revealed alterations in flowering, growth, and stress‑response pathways.

The authors adapted OpenPlant kit CRISPR/Cas9 tools to enable multiplex gRNA expression from a single transcript using tRNA sequences in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, markedly enhancing editing efficiency and scalability. They coupled this vector system with a simplified, optimized thallus transformation protocol, providing a rapid and versatile platform for generating CRISPR/Cas9 mutants and advancing functional genomics in this model species.

The Global Wheat Dataset Consortium released a comprehensive semantic segmentation dataset (GWFSS) of wheat organs across developmental stages, comprising 1,096 fully annotated images and 52,078 unannotated images from 11 institutions. Models based on DeepLabV3Plus and Segformer were trained, with Segformer achieving ≈90% mIoU for leaves and spikes but lower precision (54%) for stems, while also enabling weed exclusion and discrimination of necrotic, senescent, and residue tissues.