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.

A field trial of ten grapevine rootstock genotypes grafted to two scion varieties revealed that vine compartment (berry vs. root) primarily determines elemental composition, while rootstock genotype has modest effects. The rhizosphere microbiome was largely conserved across genotypes, but taxa such as Streptomyces and Mesorhizobium showed negative correlations with a mineral profile dominated by molybdenum, cadmium, potassium, and iron, indicating specific microbe‑element associations.

The study identified the poplar homolog of Arabidopsis HDG11 and generated transgenic poplar hybrids overexpressing PtaHDG11. Constitutive expression conferred markedly improved drought tolerance, as evidenced by higher leaf water content, reduced oxidative damage, up‑regulation of antioxidant genes, and greater post‑stress biomass, while also causing a glabrous phenotype. These results highlight PtaHDG11 as a promising target for breeding drought‑resilient trees.

The study generated a high-quality, phased diploid reference genome for the grapevine cultivar Pinot noir and combined it with Oxford Nanopore sequencing of 23 clones to map genome-wide genetic and epigenetic variation. While somatic SNPs and structural variants are rare and depleted from coding regions, extensive CG methylation differences were found within gene bodies and accurately recapitulated clonal phylogenies, indicating stable, mitotically inherited epialleles that record propagation history.

The authors performed a genome-wide analysis of 53 CCCH zinc‑finger genes in pearl millet, identified seven stress‑responsive members and demonstrated that overexpressing PgC3H50 in Arabidopsis enhances drought and salt tolerance. They showed that the ABA‑responsive transcription factor PgAREB1 directly binds the PgC3H50 promoter, activating its expression, as confirmed by yeast one‑hybrid, dual‑luciferase and EMSA assays, defining a new PgAREB1‑PgC3H50 regulatory module.

A common garden study of 46 Vitis vinifera cultivars revealed that cultivar-specific water-use traits, rather than xylem anatomy, predict susceptibility to esca disease. Symptomatic vines showed reduced leaf gas exchange, starch storage, and theoretical hydraulic conductivity, while highly susceptible genotypes accumulated more glycosylated flavonoids and terpenes, suggesting a role for xylem‑transported defence metabolites in disease onset.

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.

In a common‑garden study of 23 Vitis vinifera cultivars, the authors linked higher white‑rot necrosis and elevated hemicellulose coupled with reduced extractives to increased susceptibility to Esca disease. Glycosylated phenylpropanoids accumulated in symptomatic vines, while the composition of healthy‑wood endophytic microbial communities remained unchanged across cultivars, indicating that wood degradability and metabolic response drive susceptibility more than microbial factors.

A comprehensive multi‑environment trial of 437 maize testcross hybrids derived from 38 MLN‑tolerant lines and 29 testers identified additive genetic effects as the primary driver of grain yield, disease resistance, and drought tolerance. Strong general combining ability and specific combining ability patterns were uncovered, with top hybrids delivering up to 5.75 t ha⁻¹ under MLN pressure while maintaining high performance under optimum and drought conditions. The study provides a framework for selecting elite parents and exploiting both additive and non‑additive effects to develop resilient maize hybrids for sub‑Saharan Africa.

The study performed a meta‑transcriptomic analysis of over twenty drought versus control experiments in Vitis vinifera and two hybrid rootstocks, identifying a core set of 4,617 drought‑responsive genes. Using transcription factor binding motif enrichment and random‑forest machine learning, gene regulatory networks were built, revealing key regulators such as ABF2, MYB30A, and a novel HMG‑box protein. These regulators and network hierarchies provide candidate targets for breeding and biotechnological improvement of grapevine drought tolerance.