Phospholipase D (PLD) (EC 3.1.4.4) plays important roles in plants growth, development, and response to environmental stresses. Tea plant (Camellia sinensis) is the most important non-alcoholic beverage in the world with health benefits, but tea production decreases in response to environmental stresses such as cold and drought. Therefore, a genome-wide analysis of the C. sinensis PLD gene family (CsPLDs) was carried out. In the current study, identification, evolutionary relationship, duplication, selection pressure, gene structure, promoter analysis, transcript-targeted miRNA, and simple sequence repeat markers prediction, RNA-seq data analysis, and three-dimensional structure of the CsPLDs have been investigated using bioinformatics tools. 15 PLDs were identified from the tea genome which belongs to five groups, including CsPLDa, CsPLDb, CsPLDd, CsPLDe, and CsPLDf. Both segmental and tandem duplications have occurred in the CsPLD gene family. Ka/Ks ratio for the most duplicated pair genes was less than 1 which implies negative selection to conserve their function during the tea evolution. 68 cis-elements have been found in CsPLDs indicating the contribution of these genes in response to environmental stresses. Likewise, 72 SSR loci and 96 miRNA molecules in 14 and 15 CsPLDs have been detected. According to RNA-seq data, the highest expression in all tissues under various abiotic stresses was related to CsPLDa1. Besides, a three-dimensional structure of the CsPLDa1 was evaluated to better understand its biological activity. This research provides comprehensive information that could be useful in future studies to develop stresstolerant tea.

Yield, soil water balance components and evapotranspiration-based water productivity (WPET) of three winter wheat cultivars were investigated using AquaCrop model under arid conditions in Shiraz, Iran, for two consecutive years. The irrigation treatments were non-stressed (I1) and post-anthesis water stress (I2) with three wheat cultivars. Evaluation of the model was performed using the coefficient of root mean squared error (RMSE) and normalized RMSE and R2. The AquaCrop model performed well in simulating grain yield and final biomass production with R2 > 0.90, RMSE and normalized RMSE values less than 10. The I1 treatment resulted in higher grain yield and biomass productivity than I2 treatment. The I2 irrigation resulted in yield reduction of 21 and 24% in 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 growing seasons, respectively, as compared with I2. Using the measured grain yield and AquaCrop-simulated water balance, the amount of WPET varied from 0.68 to 0.95 kg m−3. The AquaCrop model was able to predict winter wheat biomass and yield production with a good accuracy in arid conditions of this study and especially its ability to simulate these variables for different wheat cultivars' was notable. The AquaCrop model can be used to explore management scenarios to improve wheat water management in the study region.

In this study, effects of nitrogen (N) fertilizer at different levels and irrigation interval at different growth stages of Hashemi rice were investigated on the yield and yield components in a factorial experiment based on a randomized complete block design with three replications during the crop years 2017 and 2018 in the Rice Research Institute of Iran, Rasht City. Studied factors were irrigation intervals (permanent waterlogging and irrigation once a week and once every 2 weeks) and different levels of N fertilizer (40, 60, and 80 kg ha-1 ) in both vegetative and reproductive stages. The studied traits were plant height, panicle length, number of panicles per plant, number of spikelet per main cluster, number of full grains per panicle, panicle fertility percentage, number of empty grains per panicle, 1000-grain weight, and grain yield. Results of the analysis of variance table showed that grain yield (GY) was significantly influenced by simple and interaction effects of the experimental treatments. The interactions of growth period, N fertilizer, and irrigation cycle were significant on this trait at a level of 1% during the two years. Grain yield and yield components increased significantly with N fertilizer application under optimal irrigation conditions. Among the treatments, the highest and lowest GYs belonged to the waterlogged irrigation treatment with 80 kg ha-1 of N fertilizer in the vegetative period in 2018 and irrigation treatment of once every 14 days with 40 kg ha-1 of N fertilizer in the reproductive period in 2017, respectively. In the presence of sufficient water, nitrogen plays an undeniable role in the yield. Although equal nitrogen use and management of permanent waterlogged irrigation and irrigation intervals have no effects on the yield, higher water use strongly reduces water use efficiency.