Breeding chickpea for water limited environments: selection indices and strategies

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the one of the most important pulse crops in the world and its production is limited by terminal drought. Unlike conventional breeding for yield, it is more challenging and requires to be measured in terms of its manifestation towards changing performance of a genotype under stress. An evaluation of a panel developed for drought and breeding studies has clearly identified the presence of large variability for drought tolerance. A large number of traits have been screened and it has been inferred that drought susceptibility index is the best way to identify genotypes that have resilience to terminal drought. However, different genotypes possessed various physiological mechanisms to cope with the effects of drought and, hence, provide ample opportunities to breeders to combine them to develop drought-tolerant genotypes. The chickpea genotypes L550, PG112 and ICC92944 have shown higher mean values for yield traits under stress and have desirable terminal drought-tolerant mechanisms for yield and other associated characters such as lower DSI, higher HI, higher BY and higher grain yield. They have, thus, emerged as stable genotypes for yield under stress situations. Though MABC for root traits has been identified, rapid screening techniques using CTD and identification of markers for MSI and RWC to be used for screening segregating generations appears to be promising in north Indian conditions. This is because unlike in south India, drought in the north India develops abruptly after a cold period, giving little time for the root system to respond. Thus, breeding for terminal drought tolerance would require concentrating on these traits too

Variability and stability evaluation in Indian Maize (Zea mays L.) landraces collected from North Eastern Himalayan region

Maize landraces collected from Mizoram state of North Eastern India were evaluated for three years (2017, 2018 and 2019) to assess the amount of variability present among the genotypes, association of traits and stability(parametric and non-parametric). MZM-44 was found to be a superior line with respect to yield and yield related traits. Least difference between GCV and PCV in number of days to silking and tasseling suggested minimalinfluence of environment in three years which is contrasting as compared to yield per plant. Yield per plant was highly correlated with ear diameter and test weight. From path coefficient analysis it was observed that thousandseed weight has the highest direct effect on the yield predicting the possible influence of these characters on yield increase. The genotypes were grouped into seven distinct clusters. Stable line with respect to yield is MZM-40 according to four stability parameters and MZM-34 by five stability parameters. But there was no significant correlation between the yield and stability parameters noted which proves that no stability parameter can bedepicted as superior and all have their own shortfalls in explaining the stable genotype with respect to yield. Presence of diversity in germplasm for yield and yield related traits was observed and few stable genotypes fordifferent characters in three years were identified. This experiment paves the way for future yield and allied traits improvement programmes where the identified genotypes could play a pivotal role

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Not AvailableIndia is primarily an agrarian society. Indian villages and villagers largely depend on agriculture for livelihoods. The progress of agrarian society is crucial for sustainable development of the countries like India. Advances in agricultural research and development are the key to attain this. In this realm, proper identification and prioritization of farming-related and farmer-related problems is crucial for developing interventions in participatory mode. There are multiple approaches and methods for participatory problem identification and analysis. One such reliable and widely adopted approach is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). In this context, Field Experience Training (FET) is an opportunity for newly recruited agricultural scientists to explore the field-level real agricultural problems. A study carried out by a multidisciplinary team of newly recruited scientists under expert guidance using PRA methodology revealed the existing problems in the villages including severe ground water depletion, existence of problematic soil, in-effective utilisation of existing village and farm resources, crop and animal production and marketing issues faced by farming community. Based on assessment of existing situation the multidisciplinary team developed comprehensive village development action plan to provide a unique database and blueprint for local developmental departments and researchers to act on existing problems for betterment of farming communities and thereby village development.Not Availabl

Evaluation and Identification of Stable Chickpea Lines for Yield-Contributing Traits from an Association Mapping Panel

An association mapping panel consisting of 380 genotypes of chickpea was evaluated for three different years, including 2014–2015, 2015–2016 and 2016–2017, for yield-contributing parameters, including the seed number and seed weight. The AMMI analysis presented mainly concentrated on the seed weight and seed number, which are the two most important yield-contributing traits. The genotypes contributed 93.08% of the total variance, while the interaction effect was comparatively low, with 4.1% for the two traits. AMMI biplot analysis identified IG5986, IG5982, ILC6025 and ICCV14307 as desirable genotypes for the seed weight and IG5893, ILC6891 and IG5856 for the seed number. Identifying stable genotypes would help in strategic planning for yield improvement through component trait breeding