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The planting of several species adapted to forests areas in the Saharan Atlas would allow one to better fight against the desertification of the vegetation cover of these fragile areas. Thanks to its rapid growth on degraded soils, Robinia pseudoacacia L. has an advantage in the repopulation of these areas undergoing desertification. Operation of this large-scale tree requires good control of germination conditions and growth of plants. The scarification of the seeds of Robinia pseudoacacia L. is necessary to allow the absorption of water by the seeds. Our results show that mechanical scarification with sulphuric acid (75minutes), boiling water (90minutes) and scarification by microwaves (700W) (105seconds) give the best germination rates. The presence of PEG6000 in the imbibition's solutions reduces considerably the germination rate of the seeds of R. pseudoacacia L. A 70 % decrease in the optimal rate of germination is observed when the osmotic pressure of the imbibition solution is at -4.65 bar.

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The goals of the present study were to obtain a first estimate of intraspecific variability of carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) in safflower, a thistle-like herbaceous plant, and to determine the statistical relationship between Δ and grain yield as well as its components in a collection of 45 accessions of different origins. Grain yield and aboveground biomass, harvest index, average grain weight, and Δ (measured on the bulk leaf organic matter) were investigated in experimental field conditions. A large variability was noted for all traits but a principal component analysis (PCA) allowed to identify several homogeneous groups of accessions. Average grain yield per plant varied between 1 and 39 g. Δ varied between 21.3 and 25.2 ‰, i.e. a large variation of 3.9 ‰. In our experiment, the variation of Δ was not significantly related to that of grain yield in the whole accession sample. However, we found contrasting trends for this relation within accession groups. These initial results motivate further experiments to assess more in depth correlation between Δ and yield in safflower and are encouraging regarding the possibility of using Δ as an effective selection index in safflower to obtain genotypes that efficiently consume water. This study also highlighted one accession that combines the two characters required in the Mediterranean regions, i.e. high yield performance and high water-use efficiency.

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With rare exceptions, dicot plastids have been reported to contain only a multisubunit (prokaryotic) form of acetyl-coA carboxylase (ACCase), the first committed step of lipid biosynthesis. The sensitivity of most monocots to cyclohexanediones (CHDs) such as sethoxydim, has been shown to be associated with the presence in their plastids of a multifunctional (eukaryotic) form of ACCase. Little is known about the effects of sethoxydim on lipid metabolism and ACCase activity in dicots. Here it is shown that foliar lipid biosynthesis is differentially affected by the herbicide treatment in two dicot species, Nicotiana sylvestris (wild tobacco) and Glycine max (soybean). In N. sylvestris, the total lipid content of neoformed leaves harvested 2 weeks after the sethoxydim treatment was unaffected by doses of up to 10(-3) M sethoxydim. In soybean, lipid content decreased by 45% when 10(-5) M sethoxydim was used, and this was associated with a 30% reduction in fatty acid synthesis activity. ACCase activity of soybean plastidial preparations was 60% reduced in the presence of sethoxydim, whereas that of N. sylvestris was unaffected. Finally, the presence of a biotinylated 220 kDa polypeptide, corresponding in size to multifunctional ACCase, was observed in soybean plastids. Possible relationships between sensitivity of plastidial soybean ACCase towards sethoxydim, plastidial protein content, and altered de novo lipid biosynthesis in herbicide-treated plants are discussed.

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Rape (Brassica napus L. var. Bienvenue) is a 16:3 plant which contains predominantly prokaryotic species of monogalactosyldiacylglycerol i.e. sn-1 C18, sn-2 C16 (C18/C16 MGDG). Rape plants were exposed to a restricted water supply for 12 days. Under drought conditions, considerable changes in lipid metabolism were observed. Drought stress provoked a decline in leaf polar lipids, which is mainly due to a decrease in MGDG content. Determination of molecular species in phosphatidylcholine (PC) and MGDG indicated that the prokaryotic molecular species of MGDG (C18/C16) decreased after drought stress while the eukaryotic molecular species (C18/C18) remained stable. Drought stress had different effects on two key enzymes of PC and MGDG synthesis. The in vitro activity of MGDG synthase (EC. 2.4.1.46) was reduced in drought stressed plants whereas cholinephosphotransferase (EC. 2.7.8.2) activity was not affected. Altogether these results suggest that the prokaryotic pathway leading to MGDG synthesis was strongly affected by drought stress while the eukaryotic pathway was not. It was also observed that the molecular species of leaf PC became more saturated in drought stressed plants. This could be due to a specific decrease in oleate desaturase activity.