Nano-selenium enhances sugarcane resistance to Xanthomonas albilineans infection and improvement of juice quality.

Selenium is an important trace element that is beneficial to human health and can enhance plant resistance and crop quality. The occurrence of up-to-date nanotechnology greatly promotes the beneficial efficiency of this trace element on crops. The discovery of nano-Se increased the crop quality and reduced plant disease in different plant. In this study, we reduced sugarcane leaf scald disease incidence by exogenously spraying different concentrations (5 mg/L and 10 mg/L) of nano-Se. Additional studies revealed that spraying of nano-Se reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and HO accumulation, and increased antioxidant enzyme activities in sugarcane. The nano-selenium treatments also increased the content of jasmonic acid (JA) and the expression of JA pathway genes. Furthermore, we also found that use nano-Se treatment in an appropriate way can enhance the quality of cane juice. The brix of the cane juice of the selenium-enriched treatment was significantly higher than that of the control group, which was 10.98% and 20.81% higher than that of the CK group, respectively. Meanwhile, the content of certain beneficial amino acids was increased, with the highest being 3.9 times higher than the control. Taken together, our findings inferred that nano-Se could act as a potential eco-fungicide to protect sugarcane from can be used as a potential ecological bactericide to protect sugarcane from Xanthomonas albilineans infections, and improve sugarcane quality. The results arising from this study not only introduces an ecological method to control X. albilineans, but also provides a deep insight into this trace elements for improving juice quality.