Management of Soil-Borne Diseases of Grain Legumes Through Broad-Spectrum Actinomycetes Having Plant Growth-Promoting and Biocontrol Traits

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.) are the two important grain legumes grown extensively in the semiarid tropics (SAT) of the world, where soils are poor in nutrients and receive inadequate/erratic rainfall. SAT regions are commonly found in Africa, Australia, and South Asia. Chickpea and pigeonpea suffer from about 38 pathogens that cause soil-borne diseases including wilt, collar rot, dry root rot, damping off, stem canker, and Ascochyta/Phytophthora blight, and of which three of them, wilt, collar rot, and dry root rot, are important in SAT regions. Management of these soil-borne diseases are hard, as no one control measure is completely effective. Advanced/delayed sowing date, solarization of soil, and use of fungicides are some of the control measures usually employed for these diseases but with little success. The use of disease-resistant cultivar is the best efficient and economical control measure, but it is not available for most of the soil-borne diseases. Biocontrol of soil-borne plant pathogens has been managed using antagonistic actinobacteria, bacteria, and fungi. Actinobacterial strains of Streptomyces, Amycolatopsis, Micromonospora, Frankia, and Nocardia were reported to exert effective control on soil-borne pathogens and help the host plants to mobilize and acquire macro- and micronutrients. Such novel actinomycetes with wide range of plant growth-promoting (PGP) and antagonistic traits need to be exploited for sustainable agriculture. This chapter gives a comprehensive analysis of important soil-borne diseases of chickpea and pigeonpea and how broad-spectrum actinomycetes, particularly Streptomyces spp., could be exploited for managing them

Measurements of the Branching fractions for B_(s) -> D_(s)πππ and Λ_b^0 -> Λ_c^+πππ

Branching fractions of the decays $H_b\to H_c\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ relative to $H_b\to H_c\pi^-$ are presented, where $H_b$ ($H_c$) represents B^0-bar($D^+$), $B^-$ ($D^0$), B_s^0-bar ($D_s^+$) and $\Lambda_b^0$ ($\Lambda_c^+$). The measurements are performed with the LHCb detector using 35${\rm pb^{-1}}$ of data collected at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV. The ratios of branching fractions are measured to be B(B^0-bar -> D^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-)/ B(B^0-bar -> D^+\pi^-) = 2.38\pm0.11\pm0.21 B(B^- -> D^0\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-) / B(B^- -> D^0\pi^-) = 1.27\pm0.06\pm0.11 B(B_s^0-bar -> D_s^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-) / B(B_s^0-bar -> D_s^+\pi^-) = 2.01\pm0.37\pm0.20 B(\Lambda_b^0->\Lambda_c^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-) / B(\Lambda_b^0 -> \Lambda_c^+\pi^-) = 1.43\pm0.16\pm0.13. We also report measurements of partial decay rates of these decays to excited charm hadrons. These results are of comparable or higher precision than existing measurements

First observation of Bs -> J/psi f0(980) decays

Using data collected with the LHCb detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, the hadronic decay Bs -> J/psi f0(980) is observed. This CP eigenstate mode could be used to measure mixing-induced CP violation in the B_s system. Using a fit to the pi+ pi- mass spectrum with interfering resonances gives R_{f0/phi} = [Gamma(Bs -> J/psi f0, f0 -> pi+ pi-)]/[Gamma(Bs -> J/psi phi, phi -> K+K-)] = 0.252^{+0.046+0.027}_{-0.032-0.033}, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively

Determination of f_s/f_d for 7 TeV pp collisions and a measurement of the branching fraction of the decay Bd->D-K+

The relative abundance of the three decay modes $B_d \to D^- K^+$, $B_d \to D^- \pi^+$ and $B_s \to D_s^- \pi^+$ produced in 7 TeV $pp$ collisions at the LHC is determined from data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb$^{-1}$. The branching fraction of $B_d \to D^- K^+$ is found to be $\cal B (B_d \to D^- K^+) = (2.01 \pm 0.18^{\textrm{stat}} \pm 0.14^{\textrm{syst}})\times 10^{-4}$. The ratio of fragmentation fractions \fsfdt is determined through the relative abundance of $B_s \to D_s^- \pi^+$ to $B_d \to D^- K^+$ and $B_d \to D^-\pi^+$, leading to $f_s/f_d = 0.253 \pm 0.017 \pm 0.017 \pm 0.020$, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and theoretical respectively

Search for the rare decays Bs -->mumu and Bd -->mumu

A search for the decays Bs-->mumu and Bd-->mumu is performed with about 37 pb^{-1} of pp collisions at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV collected by the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the background expectations. The resulting upper limits on the branching ratios are BR(Bs-->mumu) < 5.6 x 10^{-8} and BR(Bd-->mumu) <1.5 x 10^{-8} at 95% confidence level

First observation of Bs -> D_{s2}^{*+} X mu nu decays

Using data collected with the LHCb detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, the semileptonic decays Bs -> Ds+ X mu nu and Bs -> D0 K+ X mu nu are detected. Two structures are observed in the D0 K+ mass spectrum at masses consistent with the known D^+_{s1}(2536) and $D^{*+}_{s2}(2573) mesons. The measured branching fractions relative to the total Bs semileptonic rate are B(Bs -> D_{s2}^{*+} X mu nu)/B(Bs -> X mu nu)= (3.3\pm 1.0\pm 0.4)%, and B(Bs -> D_{s1}^+ X munu)/B(Bs -> X mu nu)= (5.4\pm 1.2\pm 0.5)%, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This is the first observation of the D_{s2}^{*+} state in Bs decays; we also measure its mass and width