Molecular Basis of Plant Adaptation against Aridity

Environment fluctuations have become the greatest threat to global food security. Of various abiotic stress factors, aridity hampers the most yield contributing attributes. In the context of agriculture, term “aridity” refers to a protracted period of insufficient precipitation, having detrimental influence on crop development and overall biological output. A sustained drought has considerable negative effects on crops and livestock, including the reduced production, destruction of property, and livestock sell-offs. Consequently, plants themself exert various kinds of defensive mechanisms to combat the ill effects of climate change. For example, plants with small leaves, benefit from aridity as part of their strategy for modifying the soil to water shortages and nutrient restrictions. Furthermore, low genetic diversity among significant crop species, together with ecological productivity limits, must be addressed in order to adapt crops to episodic drought spells in the coming days. A deeper understanding of the molecular and genetic underpinnings of the most important intrinsic adaptation responses to drought stress seems to be beneficial for gene engineering as well as gene-based expression investigations in plant systems under hostile environment. Recently, molecular markers and “omics” have opened a huge opportunity to identify and develop specific gene constructs governing plant adaptation to environmental stress

Influence of coating developed from oligomer isolated from lac resin on post-harvest quality and shelf life of peaches (Prunuspersica L.)

Large quantities of fresh fruits are produced that never reach the consumers due to heavy post-harvest losses, lack of storage, transportation care and less acceptable quality. These losses are not only concerned in terms of the revenue but it also concern in terms of health and life style of human being. To fulfill consumer demand and to avoid losses due to environmental variability, several methods are being utilized to increase the shelf life of fruits. Fruit coatings are considered as one of the widely used methods. This work investigates the effect of fruit coating developed from oligomer (P-104), isolated from lac resin on the quality of peach (Prunuspersica L.) when stored at room temperature (36-40°C) and at refrigerator temperature (4-8°C) temperature. Fruit quality was evaluated by measuring physiological weight loss, color and textural changes as well as microbiological evaluation at a regular interval of four days. When kept at room temperature, uncoated peaches remained fresh and microbiologically safe for 4 days only while shelf life of coated peaches increased to 12 days. Again the shelf life of coated peaches prolonged to 24 days when stored at refrigerator temperature. These results showed that the combined effect of coating and low storage temperature could improve the shelf life of peaches indicating the potential of this combination for fruits preservation