The invention relates to a method of determining an association of a first plant with an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF), said method comprising comparing the amount of a blumenol in an aerial part of said first plant to the amount of said blumenol in an aerial part of a second plant, wherein said second plant belongs to the same species as said first plant, and wherein an increased amount is indicative of increased association in said first plant as compared to said second plant, and a decreased amount is indicative of decreased association.

The present disclosure provides compositions and methods for sensing a target substance of interest in the environment and inducing gene expression in response thereto, useful for detection of biological and chemical agents and environmental pollutants.

The present invention relates to a transgenic eukaryotic cell or non-human organism comprising one or more genetic modifications providing the activation of one or more signal transduction pathways which are involved in stress-induced gene expression and/or the pre-activation of one or more members of the transcriptional machinery and an expression cassette which comprises a nucleic acid sequence coding for a reporter protein under the control of a promoter the methylation of which increases upon priming for a stress response. The present invention also relates to a method for identifying substances which prime eukaryotic cells for a stress response by using this transgenic cell or organism.

Methods of detecting the impacts on plant health attributable to the presence of one or more agronomically important polypeptides of interest in a transgenic plant are disclosed. The methods involve transforming plants or plant cells with nucleic acid sequences encoding proteins of agronomically important traits. The transformed plants or plant cells expressing the nucleic acid sequences encoding the proteins of agronomically important traits are compared to transformed plants or plant cells expressing a neutral control gene to detect the impacts on plant health attributable to the presence of the one or more agronomically important polypeptides of interest.

A data creation method includes: an autofluorescence data generation step of placing a focus of light having a predetermined wavelength at one set of coordinates on a predetermined focal plane, irradiating a sample positioned at the set of coordinates with excitation light containing the light to obtain autofluorescence emitted from the sample, and generating autofluorescence data including intensity data and/or spectrum data of the autofluorescence; a reflected light data generation step of irradiating the set of coordinates on the predetermined focal plane with illumination light to obtain reflected light scattered by the sample, and generating intensity data of the reflected light; and a correspondence data creation step of creating correspondence data associating the autofluorescence data and the reflected light data on the set of coordinates on the predetermined focal plane.

Provided herein are compositions and methods useful for the analysis and authentication of polysaccharide-rich herbs, such as Dendrobium officinale, Radix Astragali, Radix Angelica Sinensis, and related herbal products.

An automated method for removing tissue from a seed is provided. The automated method includes singulating a seed from a plurality of seeds and imaging the singulated seed to obtain at least one characteristic of the seed. The automated method further includes positioning the singulated seed in a sampler of an automated seed sampling assembly and removing, by the sampler, tissue from the singulated seed based on the at least one characteristic of the seed.

A nitrogen molecular sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention detects the nitrogen content in a plant. The nitrogen molecular sensor is manufactured by a novel method that includes the isolation of new nitrogen-sensitive genes. Transgenic rice plant containing the nitrogen sensor eventually may respond to nitrogen with high sensitivity. The biological nitrogen sensor can be applied to develop the crops improved nitrogen use efficiency through overcoming the current limitation of the phenotype characterization related to nitrogen metabolism in plants. As a result, it can be used as a core technology for isolating and analyzing industrially valuable genes involving in crop nitrogen use efficiency using a mutant pool harboring nitrogen sensor.

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for evaluation of the effect of a treatment on one or more characteristics of a plant. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for high throughput analysis of the effect of a treatment on one or more characteristics of a plant.

This application relates to methods and materials for providing a benefit to a seed or seedling of an agricultural plant (e.g., an agricultural grass plant), or the agricultural plant derived from the seed or seedling. For example, this application provides purified bacterial populations that include novel seed-origin bacterial endophytes, and synthetic combinations of seeds and/or seedlings (e.g., cereal seeds and/or seedlings) with heterologous seed-derived bacterial endophytes.