Phenotyping for genetic divergence under transplanted and low-cost direct-seeded rice (Oryza sativa) production systems

A set of 25 rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes belonging to different maturity groups and genetic background (Basmati, non-Basmati and hybrids) were phenotyped in two experiments at the experimental farm of the Rice Research Station, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Kaul during kharif season (June-November) 2012. The experiments consisted of direct seeded and transplanted production systems in RBD with three replications each. The plot size was kept at 2× 0.20 × 5 m2. The data were recorded on 5 randomly selected plants per genotype per replication for 12 traits, viz. grain yield (GY), days to flowering (DTF), days to maturity (DTM), plant height (PHT), effective tillers/ plant (T/PT), percent filled spikelets (FSPK), test weight (TWT), biological yield/plant (BYD), harvest index (HI), hulling per cent (H%), milling per cent (M%), and head rice recovery (HRR). The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters. The genetic dissimilarities measurement using generalized Mahalanobis distance (D2) indicated that the genotypes with greater dissimilarity were different under high cost transplanted (TPR) than those under low cost direct seeded rice (DSR) production system. Similarly, the range of D2 values and the most divergent clusters were different in two production systems. Although genotypes were grouped into 6 clusters under both the systems, yet their members were different. Plant height showed maximum (18.67%) contribution towards divergence under low cost while DTF (29.67%) under high cost. Accordingly, genotypes were identified and recommended for evaluation in large trials and for hybridization for trait wise improvement for direct seeded production system. The results obtained thus have great relevance to the future rice improvement programme

Increase in wheat production through management of abiotic stresses : A review

About 9% of area on earth is under crops out of which 91% is under various stresses. On an average, about 50% yield losses are due to abiotic stresses mostly due to high temperature (20%), low temperature (7%), salinity (10%), drought (9%) and other abiotic stresses (4%). As there is no scope for increasing area under agriculture, the increased productivity from these stressed land is a must to meet the ever increasing demand. Further, the severity of abiotic stresses is likely to increase due to changing climate leading to adverse effect on crops. Therefore, abiotic stresses like drought, salinity, sodicity, acidity, water logging, heat, nutrient toxicities/ deficiencies etc need to be effectively addressed through adoption of management practices like tillage and planting options, residue management, sowing time, stress tolerant cultivars, irrigation scheduling and integrated nutrient management to conserve natural resources, mitigating their adverse effect and sustainable wheat production

Management of False Smut Disease of Rice: A Review

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important food crop of the developing world. Among the biotic stresses of false smut is an emerging disease caused by Ustilaginoidea virens. The disease reduces both the quality and quantity of rice. The pathogen produces mycotoxins that are harmful to animals and humans. The disease is severe when favorable environmental conditions like high humidity (more than 80%) and temperature ranging from 25 to 30°C, late sowing and high soil fertility as well as using high amount of nitrogen. It has gained the status of a major disease of rice and causing varying yield loss depending on the weather conditions during the crop-growing period and the genotypes. Therefore, the primary concern of the farmers is the disease management methods, which are effective, simple and practical. Since, there is no single effective management strategy for false smut, we have discussed about the potential management options available depending upon the economic status and adoption capacity of the farmers. In the Plant Pathologists point of view, eco-friendly methods of disease management like cultural, biological and use of resistant variety should be advocated for sustainability of agriculture and human being

Self-folding nano- and micropatterned hydrogel tissue engineering scaffolds by single step photolithographic process

Current progress in tissue engineering is focused on the creation of environments in which cultures of relevant cells can adhere, grow and form functional tissue. We propose a method for controlled chemical and topographical cues through surface patterning of self-folding hydrogel films. This provides a conversion of 2D patterning techniques into a viable method of manufacturing a 3D scaffold. While similar bilayers have previously been demonstrated, here we present a faster and high throughput process for fabricating self-folding hydrogel devices incorporating controllable surface nanotopographies by serial hot embossing of sacrificial layers and photolithography

Propene Production by Butene Cracking. Descriptors for Zeolite Catalysts

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in ACS Catalysis, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.0c02799[EN] Among the possible on-purpose technologies for propene production, direct conversion of butene-rich fractions to propene represents an attractive alternative to conventional routes such as steam cracking or fluid catalytic cracking. Here, we present an approach for designing an efficient ZSM-5-based catalyst for the selective cracking of butenes to propene by properly balancing diffusional and compositional effects. Instead of the large coffin-shaped ZSM-5 crystallites with very high Si/Al ratios generally reported, the optimal catalyst in terms of propene selectivity and catalyst life was found to be a ZSM-5 zeolite with a squared morphology, submicron-sized crystals (0.8 x 0.3 x 1.0 mu m), and a Si/Al molar ratio of around 300. For this crystal conformation, the short dimensions of both sinusoidal and straight channels facilitate propene diffusion and reduce its consumption in consecutive reactions, limiting the formation of C5+ oligomers and aromatics and maximizing propene selectivity. Coffin-type ZSM-5 crystals, with higher diffusional restrictions than square-shaped crystals, show faster catalyst deactivation than the latter, independently of the crystal size and Al content. However, among the ZSM-5 zeolite crystallites with a coffin morphology, the one presenting intergrowths on the (010) face, with a larger proportion of sinusoidal channels, shows a lower aromatic selectivity and deactivation rate, whereas the other two, with straight channels open to the clean (010) faces, favor the formation of aromatics by direct cyclization-dehydrogenation of oligomeric intermediates.This work has been supported by Saudi Aramco, by the Spanish Government-MICINN through "Severo Ochoa" (SEV-2016-0683) and RTI2018-101033-B-I00, and by Generalitat Valenciana (AICO/2019/060). We thank the Electron Microscopy Service of the UPV for their help in sample characterization.Del Campo Huertas, P.; Navarro Villalba, MT.; Shaikh, SK.; Khokhar, MD.; Aljumah, F.; Martínez, C.; Corma Canós, A. (2020). Propene Production by Butene Cracking. Descriptors for Zeolite Catalysts. ACS Catalysis. 10(20):11878-11891. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.0c02799S11878118911020Agency, I. E. 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Hydrothermal stabilization of ZSM-5 catalytic-cracking additives by phosphorus addition. Journal of Catalysis, 237(2), 267-277. doi:10.1016/j.jcat.2005.11.011Lv, J., Hua, Z., Ge, T., Zhou, J., Zhou, J., Liu, Z., … Shi, J. (2017). Phosphorus modified hierarchically structured ZSM-5 zeolites for enhanced hydrothermal stability and intensified propylene production from 1-butene cracking. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 247, 31-37. doi:10.1016/j.micromeso.2017.03.037Wang, Z., Jiang, G., Zhao, Z., Feng, X., Duan, A., Liu, J., … Gao, J. (2009). Highly Efficient P-Modified HZSM-5 Catalyst for the Coupling Transformation of Methanol and 1-Butene to Propene. Energy & Fuels, 24(2), 758-763. doi:10.1021/ef9009907XUE, N., CHEN, X., NIE, L., GUO, X., DING, W., CHEN, Y., … XIE, Z. (2007). Understanding the enhancement of catalytic performance for olefin cracking: Hydrothermally stable acids in P/HZSM-5. Journal of Catalysis, 248(1), 20-28. doi:10.1016/j.jcat.2007.02.022Li, C., Vidal-Moya, A., Miguel, P. J., Dedecek, J., Boronat, M., & Corma, A. (2018). Selective Introduction of Acid Sites in Different Confined Positions in ZSM-5 and Its Catalytic Implications. ACS Catalysis, 8(8), 7688-7697. doi:10.1021/acscatal.8b02112Gao, X., Tang, Z., Lu, G., Cao, G., Li, D., & Tan, Z. (2010). Butene catalytic cracking to ethylene and propylene on mesoporous ZSM-5 by desilication. Solid State Sciences, 12(7), 1278-1282. doi:10.1016/j.solidstatesciences.2010.04.020Mitchell, S., Boltz, M., Liu, J., & Pérez-Ramírez, J. (2017). Engineering of ZSM-5 zeolite crystals for enhanced lifetime in the production of light olefins via 2-methyl-2-butene cracking. Catalysis Science & Technology, 7(1), 64-74. doi:10.1039/c6cy01009aShi, J., Zhao, G., Teng, J., Wang, Y., & Xie, Z. (2018). Morphology control of ZSM-5 zeolites and their application in Cracking reaction of C4 olefin. 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Large-scale IPM validation in whitefly (Bemisia tabaci)-prone cotton (Gossypium spp.) fields adjoining kinnow orchards

Whitefly [Bemisia tabaci (Gen)] is a serious sucking pest of cotton in the north zone of India. Cotton (Gossypium spp.) fields adjoining kinnow orchards used to have a quite higher incidence of whiteflies compared to the fields away from orchards. Therefore, the study was carried out at ICAR-National Centre for Integrated Pest Management, New Delhi during 2017–19 to implement integrated pest management (IPM) validation trial in cotton fields located adjoining the kinnow orchards in the village Nihalkhera of district Fazilka, Punjab in farmers’ participatory (FP). The IPM strategy consists of weed removal from orchards, timely sowing of recommended cotton hybrid, 4 foliar sprays of 2% potassium nitrate, use of azadirachtin 1500 ppm @5 ml/litre, conservation of natural enemies by avoidance of insecticides that are harmful (IOBC Class-4) to natural enemies and judicious use of safer pesticides (IOBC class1 and 2). The IPM adoption resulted in the successful management of whitefly and other sucking pests along with a two to three-fold increase in predator population compared to FP. IPM recorded a substantial reduction in the use of pesticide active ingredients (86%) and the number of sprays (58%) along with high parasitization (35.32–45.98%) of whitefly nymphs by Encarsia sp. IPM provided a significant increase in yield (23%), net return (57.5%) along with a high benefit cost (B:C) ratio of 2.65

Post Flowering Stalk Rot Complex of Maize - Present Status and Future Prospects

Post flowering stalk rot complex is one of the most serious, destructive and widespread group of diseases in maize and yield losses range from 10 to 42% and can be as high as 100% in some areas. PFSR nature is often complex as a number of fungi (like Fusarium verticillioides cause Fusarium stalk rot, Macrophomina phaseolina cause charcoal rot, Harpophora maydis cause late wilt) are involved in causation of the diseases. To combat this problem, identification of quantitative trait loci for resistance to PFSR would facilitate the development of disease resistant maize hybrids. Moreover, various chemical and biological control methods have been developed but ma¬jor emphasis is on development of maize cultivars with genetic resistance to for environment friendly control of the Post flowering stalk rot complex. The current paper reviews the information on distribution, impact of the disease, symptoms, epidemiology, disease cycle; genetics of resistance and integrated disease management approaches has been enumerated to understand the present status of knowledge about PFSR complex and will try to focus on the future perspectives available to improve PFSR management

Characterising variation in wheat traits under hostile soil conditions in India

Intensive crop breeding has increased wheat yields and production in India. Wheat improvement in India typically involves selecting yield and component traits under non-hostile soil conditions at regional scales. The aim of this study is to quantify G*E interactions on yield and component traits to further explore site-specific trait selection for hostile soils. Field experiments were conducted at six sites (pH range 4.5-9.5) in 2013-14 and 2014-15, in three agro-climatic regions of India. At each site, yield and component traits were measured on 36 genotypes, representing elite varieties from a wide genetic background developed for different regions. Mean grain yields ranged from 1.0 to 5.5 t ha⁻¹ at hostile and non-hostile sites, respectively. Site (E) had the largest effect on yield and component traits, however, interactions between genotype and site (G*E) affected most traits to a greater extent than genotype alone. Within each agro-climatic region, yield and component traits correlated positively between hostile and non-hostile sites. However, some genotypes performed better under hostile soils, with site-specific relationships between yield and component traits, which supports the value of ongoing site-specific selection activities