Breeding more crops in less time: A perspective on speed breeding

Breeding crops in a conventional way demands considerable time, space, inputs for selection, and the subsequent crossing of desirable plants. The duration of the seed-to-seed cycle is one of the crucial bottlenecks in the progress of plant research and breeding. In this context, speed breeding (SB), relying mainly on photoperiod extension, temperature control, and early seed harvest, has the potential to accelerate the rate of plant improvement. Well demonstrated in the case of long-day plants, the SB protocols are being extended to short-day plants to reduce the generation interval time. Flexibility in SB protocols allows them to align and integrate with diverse research purposes including population development, genomic selection, phenotyping, and genomic editing. In this review, we discuss the different SB methodologies and their application to hasten future plant improvement. Though SB has been extensively used in plant phenotyping and the pyramiding of multiple traits for the development of new crop varieties, certain challenges and limitations hamper its widespread application across diverse crops. However, the existing constraints can be resolved by further optimization of the SB protocols for critical food crops and their efficient integration in plant breeding pipelines

Thin lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary beneath eastern Indian craton

The lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB) separates the hard and rigid outer layer of the earth (lithosphere) and the weaker, hotter, and deeper part of the upper mantle (asthenosphere) and plays a pivotal role in plate tectonics. However, its definitive detection, especially beneath the cratons, is proving elusive. One of the geophysical tools used to map the LAB beneath the cratons is through magnetotelluric (MT) observations. The resistivity at boundary falls in the range of 5–25 Ω-m and can be explained by the presence of a small amount of water in the asthenosphere, possibly inducing partial melt. Here, we report thickness of the LAB in one of the oldest dated ancient cratons of India—Eastern Indian Craton (EIC) of ~ 3.3 Gyr, from MT studies. The two prominent phase-sensitive strike directions, one each for crust and mantle, and the presence of resistive continental lower crust act as a window to mantle in resolving deeper electrical conductivity structures beneath EIC. Our results show that the LAB beneath the EIC is at 95 km. The region is interesting as the electrical properties of the crust and mantle and the Moho depth are similar to those of the Slave Craton, Canada (~ 4.0 Gyr) but the depth of the LAB beneath the EIC is half that of the Slave craton. As cratonic signatures, depicted by ultrapotassic rocks from Gondwana coal fields close to EIC, are preserved at least till early Cretaceous (117 Ma) it is likely that Himalayan orogeny could have played a major role in delamination of the lithospheric roots of the EIC in addition to attendant seismicity

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Not AvailableExpression of HSPs: an adaptive mechanism during long-term heat stress in goats (Capra hircus).Not Availabl

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Not AvailableStimulatory effect of luteinizing hormone, insulin likeNot Availabl