OVERVIEW AND PROSPECTS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF WAVE AND OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY

An overview of the present state of development of offshore renewable wave and wind energy is presented and future prospects are discussed. The information on some of the current wave energy systems worldwide are given as indicative of the present state of affairs. The main working principles of wave energy systems are described and the differences in terms of working principle, conversion chain, location and power take-off systems are highlighted. Some of the technology challenges are identified and the prospects of utilization of the various wave energy concepts are discussed comparing the characteristics of the devices in particular their power output. The evolution of the concepts of wind turbines with time and the main types of offshore wind turbine concepts are presented, from the shallow water fixed ones to the floating ones. The development of various numerical codes for the dynamic analysis of offshore wind turbines and the studies carried out based on the codes for hydrodynamic, aerodynamic, structural and response due to control system are presented. The present status of wind energy compared to wave energy and the role of naval architects and ocean engineers for the design and analysis of wave energy device and offshore wind turbine technology are presented and discussed

Optimization of callus induction and callus multiplication in rice (Oryza sativa L.) landraces

In vitro selection for abiotic stress tolerance in rice is one of the most common and reliable way for improvement of selection efficiency, but this requires standardized protocols

Growth promoting properties of Mycobacterium and Bacillus on rice plants under induced drought

Management of drought stress through application of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) is now considered as an effective strategy in the present scenario of altered environmental conditions of the world. The aims and objectives of the present investigation was isolation, characterization and identification of some potential microbial resources (PGPR) from drought-affected upland rice fields of South Bengal followed by experimentation on the effect of isolated PGPR on drought induced rice seedlings. Selected isolates were isolated from rice field rhizospheric soils and tested for their PGPR activity, through phosphate solubilization, nitrogen fixation, IAA production and ACC deaminase activity. Then, the selected isolates were identified through 16S rDNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. Among the screened isolates two (isolate 1 and isolate 6) showing plant growth promoting traits, was applied on studied germplasm (IR64) to find out the influence of the applied organisms on rice growth and development under induced drought. Both organisms showed a positive influence (through increase in germination percentage, root growth, shoot growth, fresh weight and dry weight) on the studied rice growth and development under induced drought. Isolate 1 and 6 identified as species of Mycobacterium sp and Bacillus sp respectively through molecular taxonomy. Hence, these two isolates are expected to alleviate drought stress in the rice field for their nature of plant growth promotion under drought stress

An exploratory study on allelic diversity among rice and its wild species as well as relatives with simple sequence repeat and inter simple sequence repeat markers

357-362Genomic information of crop plants is a pre-requisite for the enrichment and management of the crop’s genetic resources. Rice has a number of wild species and wild relatives, which harbour a good number of agronomically important genes that can be incorporated into the cultivated rice. In the present work, a wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff.) and a wild rice relative, Porteresia coarctata (Roxb.) Tateoka (syn. O. coarctata Roxb.), were genotyped with trait (osmotic stress tolerance) linked 29 SSR and 22 ISSR markers, distributed throughout the rice genome. For exploring the comparative allelic diversity (in the form of difference in mol wt of amplified products for a particular SSR or ISSR locus), two marker based panels were constructed considering cultivated rice (O. sativa L.) as the reference genotype. Among the studied SSR markers, the maximum allelic variation was found with RM10773, which showed the maximum difference (370.25 bp) between O. sativa and O. rufipogon, and also with RM10864 that showed a difference of 194.47 bp between O. sativa and P. coarctata. For ISSR loci, the maximum difference (300.73 bp) between O. sativa and O. rufipogon was shown by PR36, and the maximum difference (451.66 bp) between O. sativa and P. coartata was shown by PR29. The genotypic profiles prepared in the present investigation may be used for identification of the corresponding genotypes and in marker assisted hybridization programmes