Volume 67 (2021): Issue 4 (December 2021)

Naturally occurring lignans are present in seeds, nuts, cereals, vegetables, and fruits. Lignans play various roles in plants and their multipurpose functions of different organisms including humans is considerable. They are involved in plant defence mechanisms through their antioxidant, antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. The lignans content may be affected by a variety of factors such as genotype, tissue type, geographic origin, local environmental conditions, nutrition, and plant maturity. Interactive relationships between individual factors are also considered. This review aimed to summarize the biological functions of lignans for plants and empasize the importance of these compounds for the added value of individual genotypes of plant food resources. Understanding the biological functions of lignans in plants can provide solutions to the ever-increasing requirements for the production of functional foods. Flaxseed is the richest source of lignans, and as such is considered the model species for lignans studies. Within our review, one paragraph is focused on the properties and biological functions of flax lignans.

As it has been practiced for many decades, agriculture has had a significant negative impact on the environment. More land, fertiliser, and pesticides had been used to increase the yield to meet the demands of an expanding population. Consequences included deforestation and soil degradation as well as the extinction of biodiversity, irrigation issues, and pollution, among other things. This has resulted in developing a new type of agriculture known as sustainable agriculture to remedy the situation. Specifically, the goal is to “meet the food and textile needs of society in the present without risking the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Using appropriate agricultural practices to implement sustainable agriculture is the most effective method of accomplishing this goal. According to research, farmers’ decisions to effectively adopt sustainable agricultural practices are influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we firstly give an overview of sustainable agriculture practices. Then, we review the various factors affecting the adoption of these practices, and finally, we highlight the gap found in the literature.

The main goal of our investigation was to determine the relationship between different growing methods of sweet corn seedlings and some physiological and morphological parameters of four hybrids in order to get information about the ability of their stress tolerance in a two-year experiment (2019, 2020). Seedlings were grown with and without pre-conditioning. Pre-conditioning is based on growing young plants exposing them to cold stress. Seedling emergence percentage, plant height, total leaf number, the total mass of fresh aboveground biomass, and ear length were determined as well as Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values. In 2019, the pre-conditioned seedlings were more tolerant to cold stress for most of the tested parameters. Overall, the SPAD and NDVI values of the pre-conditioned seedlings were considered better in both years, however, it was not verified for all the studied hybrids. Among the hybrids, ‘Strongstar’ had the highest benefit from pre-conditioning compared to the standard growing method in terms of resulting in 17.5% higher plants, 13.1% longer ears, and 10.4% higher SPAD values in 2019. In 2020, when the cold stress was not so dominant, ‘Gyöngyhajnal’ gained the most from pre-conditioning with 9.7% higher plants, 32% more fresh aboveground biomass, 6.8% longer ears, 3.6% higher SPAD, and 9.3% higher NDVI values. More emphasis should be placed on the choice of stress-tolerant hybrids as well as on the seedling growing method and the date of transplanting to improve adaptation to the more frequent weather extremes.

At the present time, crop rotations are constantly adapted to economic conditions and one or two main crops are grown in agricultural farms. This has a negative impact on the environment. The optimization of grain yield and quality of winter wheat are dependent not only on the appropriate crop rotation but also on the nitrogen fertilisation. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of crop rotations, fertilisation and preceding crop on grain yield and quality of winter wheat during the years 2015/2016 – 2017/2018. The grain yield of winter wheat after preceding crop pea in crop rotation with 40% proportion of cereals was statistically higher (5.91 t/ha) than in crop rotation with 80% share of cereals (5.55 t/ha). In the treatment with mineral fertilisation and organic manure Veget® incorporation, the grain yield was statistically higher (6.00 t/ha) than in the treatment with mineral fertilisation (5.50 t/ha). According the standard STN 46 1100-2:2018 based on the wet gluten content, the winter wheat grain was classified into the class E by mineral fertilisation + organic manure Veget® in all monitored years. In 2017 the winter wheat grain was categorized into the class P based on wet gluten content in crop rotations with 80% proportion of cereals in the treatment with fertilisers only after preceding crop winter barley.