Rapid generation advance (RGA) in chickpea to produce up to seven generations per year and enable speed breeding

This study was aimed at developing a protocol for increasing the number of generation cycles per year in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). Six accessions, two each from early (JG 11 and JG 14), medium (ICCV 10 and JG 16), and late (CDC-Frontier and C 235) maturity groups, were used. The experiment was conducted for two years under glasshouse conditions. The photoperiod was extended to induce early flowering and immature seeds were germinated to further reduce generation cycle time. Compared to control, artificial light caused a reduction in flowering time by respectively 8–19, 7–16, and 11–27 days in early-, medium-, and late-maturing accessions. The earliest stage of immature seed able to germinate was 20–23 days after anthesis in accessions of different maturity groups. The time period between germination and the earliest stage of immature seed suitable for germination was considered one generation cycle and spanned respectively 43–60, 44–64, and 52–79 days in early-, medium-, and late-maturing accessions. However, the late-maturing accession CDCFrontier could not be advanced further after three generation cycles owing to the strong influence of photoperiod and temperature. The mean total number of generations produced per year were respectively 7, 6.2, and 6 in early-, medium-, and late-maturing accessions. These results have encouraging implications for breeding programs: rapid progression toward homozygosity, development of mapping populations, and reduction in time, space and resources in cultivar development (speed breeding)

Knowledge Acquisition by Networks of Interacting Agents in the Presence of Observation Errors

In this work we investigate knowledge acquisition as performed by multiple agents interacting as they infer, under the presence of observation errors, respective models of a complex system. We focus the specific case in which, at each time step, each agent takes into account its current observation as well as the average of the models of its neighbors. The agents are connected by a network of interaction of Erd\H{o}s-Renyi or Barabasi-Albert type. First we investigate situations in which one of the agents has a different probability of observation error (higher or lower). It is shown that the influence of this special agent over the quality of the models inferred by the rest of the network can be substantial, varying linearly with the respective degree of the agent with different estimation error. In case the degree of this agent is taken as a respective fitness parameter, the effect of the different estimation error is even more pronounced, becoming superlinear. To complement our analysis, we provide the analytical solution of the overall behavior of the system. We also investigate the knowledge acquisition dynamic when the agents are grouped into communities. We verify that the inclusion of edges between agents (within a community) having higher probability of observation error promotes the loss of quality in the estimation of the agents in the other communities.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. A working manuscrip

Pulses Value Chain Development for Achieving Food and Nutrition Security in South Asia: Current Status and Future Prospects

Pulses are important crops in the cropping systems of several developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In South Asia, pulses account for 15% of the cropped area and are grown mainly on less fertile and marginal lands as intercrops with cereals and oilseeds. Besides being environmentally friendly (by fixing soil nitrogen), pulses contribute towards food security, and more importantly nutrition security, particularly for low-income consumers. South Asia accounts for 24% of global pulse production with India accounting for 90% of the production. However, since the seventies per capita pulse consumption has been declining in South Asia, although since 2008 it started trending up at a slow pace. To meet the growing deficit of pulses its global trade increased rapidly from 7.2 million tonnes in 2000 to 17 million tonnes in 2016. To meet the export demand, pulse production diversified, with developed countries emerging as the main exporters while developing countries were the main importers. The exceptions were South Eastern Asia (Myanmar) and Eastern Africa, which also emerged as important exporters. South Asia accounted for 49% of global pulse imports in 2016 with India accounting for two thirds of the imports to the region. Severe crisis of pulses in the recent past led to the path-breaking policy interventions in South Asia, especially in India viz., increasing availability of quality seeds, enhancement in minimum support price (MSP), assured procurement by government agencies and maintenance of buffer stock of pulses. These interventions attracted farmers towards growing pulses and played a key role in increasing the pulses production. In general, Chickpea, Pigeonpea, Green gram (mungbean) Black gram (urdbean), Lentil, Grass pea, and Soybean fall under the pulses group in South Asia. Due to the gap between supply and demand for pulses conumption, the price of pulses increased sharply over the years leading to import of pulses to fulfill the local requirement. A higher consumer demand was observed for the imported products mainly due to the quality and low price. Though pulses are low input crops, cost of production and gross return of pulses have shown an increasing trend over the past. The importance of mechanization in pulse crops is highly emphasized to reduce the cost of production. Productivity constraints of insect pests and diseases in the field and storage conditions are perceived as being very important. Most of the South Asian 2 countries are placing high priority on modernization of agricultural practices, improvement of productivity and competitiveness in marketing in domestic and international markets while enhancing the value addition and product diversification to generate new income and viable employment opportunities

Ten-year outcomes after off-pump versus on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting:Insights from the Arterial Revascularization Trial

Objective We performed a post hoc analysis of the Arterial Revascularization Trial to compare 10-year outcomes after off-pump versus on-pump surgery. Methods Among 3102 patients enrolled, 1252 (40% of total) and 1699 patients received off-pump and on-pump surgery (151 patients were excluded because of other reasons); 2792 patients (95%) completed 10-year follow-up. Propensity matching and mixed-effect Cox model were used to compare long-term outcomes. Interaction term analysis was used to determine whether bilateral internal thoracic artery grafting was a significant effect modifier. Results One thousand seventy-eight matched pairs were selected for comparison. A total of 27 patients (2.5%) in the off-pump group required conversion to on-pump surgery. The off-pump and on-pump groups received a similar number of grafts (3.2 ± 0.89 vs 3.1 ± 0.8; P = .88). At 10 years, when compared with on-pump, there was no significant difference in death (adjusted hazard ratio for off-pump, 1.1; 95% confidence interval, 0.84-1.4; P = .54) or the composite of death, myocardial infarction, stroke, and repeat revascularization (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.72-1.2; P = .47). However, off-pump surgery performed by low volume off-pump surgeons was associated with a significantly lower number of grafts, increased conversion rates, and increased cardiovascular death (hazard ratio, 2.39; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-4.47; P = .006) when compared with on-pump surgery performed by on–pump-only surgeons. Conclusions The findings showed that in the Arterial Revascularization Trial, off-pump and on-pump techniques achieved comparable long-term outcomes. However, when off-pump surgery was performed by low-volume surgeons, it was associated with a lower number of grafts, increased conversion, and a higher risk of cardiovascular death.</p

Effects of Aquaculture on Water Quality in Gudivada Region

In the Gudivada region, surface and ground water are important sources for drinking, agriculture, and aquaculture. The environment and human health gets depleted as the water and groundwater become contaminated as a result of man-made activities. The objective of this study is to provide a brief overview of the environmental impact of aquaculture as well as an assessment of ground water quality in the Gudivada Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. Aquaculture activities have a substantial physical, chemical, and biological influence on water supplies. Physical pressure is exerted on the water; chemically, the water and land are polluted; and biologically, foreign species, infections, and diseases are introduced. For daily change activities, these aquaculture ponds require the mixing of bore-well or creek waters with fresh water; as a result of this practise, the upstream ponds discharging the polluted water into the channels, and the downstream ponds are utilising the same. This is attributed to increase of pollution in the aquatic environment. Over exploitation of water also leads to salt water intrusion, usage of ground water and conversion of land use to aquaculture. Pollution, damage of delicate coastal ecosystems, dangers to aquatic biodiversity, and significant socioeconomic costs are all factors to consider. Change in land distribution data over a period of 2005 to 2021 is collected and water quality parameters are collected and water quality index is assessed at three locations of gudivada region

MAGIC lines in chickpea: development and exploitation of genetic diversity

In chickpea a multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population was developed using eight parents that are improved varieties and widely adaptable breeding lines. The main objective was to enhance the genetic diversity and bring novel alleles for developing superior chickpea varieties. The development scheme involved a sequence of 28 two-way, 14 four-way and 7 eight-way crosses, followed by bulking of final F1 plants. From F2 generation onwards single plants were grown as progenies and advanced to F8 by single seed descent method. The finally developed 1136 MAGIC lines were phenotyped under rainfed (RF) and irrigated (IR) conditions for 2 years (2013 and 2014) under normal season, and one year under heat stress (HS) condition (summer-2014) in field to estimate the genetic diversity created among these lines. Under RF-2014, RF-2013, IR-2014, IR-2013 and S-2014 seasons 46, 62, 83, 50 and 61 lines showed significantly higher grain yield than the best parent, respectively. Similarly, 23 and 19 common lines were identified under RF and IR conditions over two years and no common line was identified between RF/IR and HS conditions. Preliminary evaluation showed a large variation among MAGIC lines for flowering time (34–69 days), maturity (80–120 days), plant height (23.3–65 cm), grain yield (179–4554 kg/ha), harvest index (0.10–0.77) and 100 seed weight (10–45 g) under RF and IR conditions. Several genotypes with higher grain yield than the best check under heat stress were identified. These MAGIC lines provide a useful germplasm source with diverse allelic combinations to global chickpea community

Multimodal Imaging Nanoparticles Derived from Hyaluronic Acid for Integrated Preoperative and Intraoperative Cancer Imaging

Surgical resection remains the most promising treatment strategy for many types of cancer. Residual malignant tissue after surgery, a consequence in part due to positive margins, contributes to high mortality and disease recurrence. In this study, multimodal contrast agents for integrated preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and intraoperative fluorescence image-guided surgery (FIGS) are developed. Self-assembled multimodal imaging nanoparticles (SAMINs) were developed as a mixed micelle formulation using amphiphilic HA polymers functionalized with either GdDTPA for T1 contrast-enhanced MRI or Cy7.5, a near infrared fluorophore. To evaluate the relationship between MR and fluorescence signal from SAMINs, we employed simulated surgical phantoms that are routinely used to evaluate the depth at which near infrared (NIR) imaging agents can be detected by FIGS. Finally, imaging agent efficacy was evaluated in a human breast tumor xenograft model in nude mice, which demonstrated contrast in both fluorescence and magnetic resonance imaging

Molecular mapping of dry root rot resistance genes in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Dry root rot (DRR) caused by Rhizoctonia bataticola [(Taub.) Butler] is an emerging disease of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and a serious constraint to chickpea production in warm and arid regions. To identify the genomic regions conferring resistance to DRR, a total of 182 F9 derived Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) were developed from the cross between a susceptible line BG 212 and moderately resistant breeding line ICCV 08305. The parental lines and RILs were screened against Rb 6 isolate of R. bataticola using paper towel method under controlled environment at ICRISAT during 2016 and 2017. The RILs were genotyped with cost-effective SNP genotyping platform, Affymetrix Axiom CicerSNP array. As a result, a high-density genetic map with 13,110 SNP markers spanning 1224.11 cM with an average inter marker distance of 0.09 cM was developed. A single minor QTL (‘qDRR-8’) explaining 6.70% PVE with LOD scores 3.34 was identified on CaLG08 for DRR resistance which could be further explored for mining candidate genes and the linked SNP markers could be further validated for application in marker-assisted selection of DRR resistance in chickpea breeding programs

Molecular mapping of flowering time genes in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Flowering time is an important trait of chickpea that influences crop adaptation to a given climate. Earliness in both flowering time and maturity are important traits for increasing and stabilizing chickpea productivity in short season environments by avoiding end of season drought. A study was conducted to identify genes/quantitative trait loci (QTLs) controlling flowering time in chickpea using four F2 populations (ICCV 96029 × CDC Frontier, ICC 5810 × CDC Frontier, BGD 132 × CDC Frontier and ICC 16641 × CDC Frontier). Genetic studies revealed monogenic control of flowering time in the crosses ICCV 96029 × CDC Frontier, BGD 132 × CDC Frontier and ICC 16641 × CDC Frontier, while in the cross ICC 5810 × CDC Frontier, it was under digenic control with complementary gene action. The genetic linkage maps developed from four crosses consisted of 75, 75, 68 and 67 markers spanning 248.8 cM, 331.4 cM, 311.1 cM, and 385.1 cM, respectively. A consensus map spanning 363.8 cM with 109 loci was developed by integrating four genetic maps. QTL mapping detected major genomic regions controlling early flowering genes efl-1 (Qefl1-2) on CaLG04, efl-2 (Qefl2-1, Qefl2-2, Qefl2-3, Qefl2- 4) on CaLG01, 03, 04 and 08, efl-3 (Qefl3-3) on CaLG08 and efl4 (Qefl4-1) on CaLG06. Analysis of QTL regions on CaLG04 and CaLG08 provided several important candidate genes involved in regulation of flowering time and homeotic functions. The identified genomic regions with linked molecular markers can be deployed for introgressing early flowering trait into elite chickpea cultivars through marker-assisted breeding (MAB)

Revolutionizing Crop Production: The Imperative of Speed Breeding Technology in Modern Crop Improvement

Speed breeding (SB) technology is an innovative solution to shorten the breeding cycle and accelerate crop improvement. The key factors of plant growth and development, including photoperiod, light intensity and quality, temperature, relative humidity, planting density and plant nutrition are manipulated in such a way as to stimulate flowering and seed set under controlled conditions. The development of SB technology may be challenging as crops tend to vary in their response to physiological manipulations. Therefore, crop-specific optimization is highly critical to developing successful SB technology in crops. The SB technology can also be synergistically integrated with cutting edge genomics and marker-assisted selection technologies to enhance genetic gain in crop breeding programmes. In this review, various aspects concerning the science and techniques underpinning SB technology, the successful implementation of SB technology in different crops, the inherent challenges faced, and the potential opportunities to integrate SB technology with cutting-edge genomics technologies towards accelerating crop improvement are discussed