EFFECT OF INTEGRATED NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT ON WHEAT – A REVIEW

At global level, India ranks as second largest wheat producing nation and contributing approximately 11.9% to the world wheat production from about 12% of global area (USDA, 2010). The area under wheat throughout the world as well as in India has become nearly constant around 217.9 million ha and 26.9 million ha respectively. Wheat contributes about 30% of total grain production in India (Economic Survey, 2007).Long time studies being carried out at several locations in India indicated that application of all the needy nutrients through chemical fertilizers have deterious effect on soil health leading to unsustainable yields. During 2008-09, India produced a record wheat production of 80.58 million tones. One of the major constraints in boosting up the wheat production is the deterious effect on soil health. Therefore; there is a need to improve nutrient supply system in terms of integrated nutrient management involving the use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with organic manures coupled with input through biological processes. Balanced fertilizer is the application of essential plant nutrients in light proportion and in optimum quantity for a specific soil crop condition. Continuous imbalanced use of fertilizer led to the deterioration in the soil fertility and decrease in soil productivity. Higher yield at balanced nutrition safe guard soil fertility. Integrated plant nutrient supply system could help in meeting the goals of balanced fertilization. The research findings on various aspects of the integrated nutrient management on wheat are reviewed.           Â

Estimation of Rheological Properties of Snow Subjected to Creep

Creep is one of the most important phenomenons to determine the settlement of snow. Snow,in natural conditions, exists at temperature quite close to its melting point and deforms very fast.The settlement of snow is the result of creep phenomenon under the action of overburdenpressure as well as due to metamorphic processes going on within the snowpack. In thiscommunication, creep behaviour of snow is simulated with four-parameter viscoelastic fluidmodel. This viscoelastic character is basically controlled or monitored by various rheologicalconstants. Estimation of all the rheological constants in the four-parameter viscoelastic fluidmodel appropriate for the creep properties of snow is done. Total 91 uniaxial unconfined constantstress experiments on sieved snow were conducted at controlled temperature conditions. Theeffect of density and varying temperature on these constants is found to be remarkable

Identification, characterization and expression analysis of ERF transcription factor VviERF073 and standardization of stable reference gene under salt stress in grape

Salinity is one of the several abiotic factors affecting grape productivity and quality. Transcription factors belonging to AP2/ERF family play an important role in abiotic stress response. Based on the in silico analysis of salt stress libraries of grape ESTs, a transcription factor VviERF073, having a single AP2/ERF conserved domain was identified. The sequence of VviERF073 was analyzed in 'Thompson Seedless'. VviERF073 belonged to the B2 subfamily of ERF transcription factors. Under salt stress, the relative expression of VviERF073 increased 2.7 fold in the leaves of grafted grapevine within six hours of salt stress. The expression increased to 8.7 fold at 15 days of salt stress, thus indicating its role in early as well as late response to salt stress. However, expression of VviERF073 did not change significantly in grapevines raised on own roots. The expression varied in the roots of 'Thompson Seedless' but not in the roots of '110R'. Under salt stress conditions, GAPDH and EF1α for grafted vines and Actin and Tubulin for own root vines, were identified as the stable reference genes for qPCR data normalization