The experiment assessed the impact of the interaction of two care treatments on the growth and flowering of two varieties of Panicle Hydrangea bushes. The first treatment considered was plant pruning. The second simultaneous treatment was one of the three mentioned, root application of Trichoderma atroviride and BlackJak biostimulator and foliar application of a multi-component fertilizer. The strongest impact on improving the length of hydrangea shoots compared to the control (18%) had their simultaneous pruning and inoculation of the plants with Trichoderma atroviride mycelium. These two treatments used together also increased the number of flowers (16-47% depending on the variety) and the fresh weight of plants (10-28%) compared to the control. The application of T. atroviride alone improved the number of flowers in both varieties (19-24%) and the diameter of inflorescences in the 'Silver Dollar' one (17%). Foliar nutrition in particular increased the mass of plants, depending on the variety and pruning, from 7 to 57%, as well as the diameter and number of inflorescences, but only in one of the varieties considered. Combined with pruning, it intensified the growth of shoots of both varieties (5-10%). The use of the BlackJak biostimulator gave ambiguous results. When pruning plants, the length of shoots improved (15%) for one of the tested varieties and the fresh weight for the other (18%). Without pruning, it increased the number of flowers (16%) and the diameter of inflorescences (9%) in one of the varieties considered, as well as the fresh weight of plants in both varieties (19-21%). Pruning the plants, regardless of the other treatments used, increased the length of the shoots and the fresh mass of the plants. On the other hand, it reduced the number of flowers and their diameter. In most cases, positive effects of the use of biostimulants and foliar fertilization on improving the growth and flowering of plants were obtained. After their use in combination with plant pruning, an improvement in the growth of hydrangea bushes was observed, while the number and diameter of flowers were reduced. The most beneficial care treatments for the growth and flowering of panicle hydrangea were the simultaneous application of T. atroviride and pruning of plants during container cultivation in a nursery.

A pixel-based segmentation method was demonstrated to be confounded by developmental stage in estimation of flowering of mango. Categorization of panicles into three developmental stages was undertaken with a single and a two-stage deep learning framework (YOLO and R2CNN), using either upright or rotated bounding boxes. For a validation image set and for total panicle count, the models MangoYOLO(-upright), MangoYOLO-rotated, YOLOv3-rotated, R2CNN(-rotated) and R2CNN-upright achieved: (i) RMSEs of 25.6, 16.0, 15.4, 25.8 and 32.3 panicles per tree image, (ii) Mean average precision (mAP) scores of 72.2, 69.1, 65.0, 62.5 and 70.9% and (iii) weighted F1-scores of 76.5, 76.1, 74.9, 74.0 and 82.0, respectively. For a test set of images involving a different orchard and cultivar and use of a different camera, the R2 for machine vision to human count of panicles per tree was 0.86, 0.80, 0.83, 0.81 and 0.76 for the same models, respectively. Thus, models generalised well, but with no consistent benefit from use of rotated over upright bounding boxes. While the YOLOv3-rotated model was superior in terms of total panicle count, the R2CNN-upright model was more accurate for panicle stage classification. To demonstrate practical application, panicle counts were made weekly for an orchard of 994 trees, with a peak detection routine applied to document multiple flowering events.

Rice blast, caused by Magnaporthe oryzae, poses significant threat to rice production. Rice blast susceptibility has been observed in Japanese rice varieties with excellent eating quality. Enhancing blast resistance is essential to ensure minimal use of agricultural chemicals. Two types of blast resistance are observed: true resistance, which is a type of qualitative resistance expressed by a major gene, and field resistance, which is a type of quantitative resistance expressed by multiple micro-acting genes. ‘Resistance collapse’, in which a variety with a true resistance gene becomes diseased by blast fungus races compatible with the resistance gene, has been observed. Varieties carrying blast-resistance genes, such as Pb1 (panicle blast resistance 1), have been developed through DNA marker-assisted selection. In this review, we focus on the Pb1, which expresses strong quantitative resistance to panicle blast and has been widely used in Japan without showing ‘resistance collapse’ for 40 years. Pb1 is an ‘adult plant resistance gene’ that does not exert strong selection pressure on the blast population during the leaf blast stage, thus preventing the selective multiplication of Pb1-compatible blast strains. This epidemiological mechanism prevents ‘resistance collapse’. Interdisciplinary research and breeding are required to sustainably use genes that induce high field resistance.