In silico Allergenicity Study of Insect resistant genetically Modified Rice (Oryza sativa L.) for assessment of biosafety

India is one of the world's largest producers of rice (Oryza sativa), accounting for 20% of all world rice production. However, lepidopteran pests severely impact the harvest of rice, which leads to environmental pollution and increase production cost. Alternatively, genetic engineering methods may be used to prevent rice pests and increase production of rice in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes have been widely used to generate genetically modified (GM) crops because the expressed cry1Ab protein confers resistance to lepidopteron pests. The proteins expressed by these genes may lead to food safety problems. Thus, safety evaluations are necessary prior to commercialization. Bioinformatics analysis for allergenicity assessment of cry1Ab protein is performed using different allergen databases viz. FARRP SDAP, Allergome, and Algpred to identify any potential sequence matches to allergen proteins that might indicate allergenic cross-reactivity with the query sequence. A full FASTA search was performed to identify highly similar proteins. However; the full length search cannot identify discontinuous or conformational epitopes that depend upon the tertiary structure of the protein.So every possible contiguous 80-amino acid sequence of each query protein was searched for determining the similarity. The proteins sequence can be searched using FASTA/BLAST for broad homology to known allergens to identify any short sequence that might represent an allergenic epitope. The domains in the Cry protein sequences were searched using Interproscan for potential similarity at the domain level. The results showed neither significant alignment nor similarity of cry1Ab protein at full sequence, domain, and epitope level with any of the known allergen proteins in the full sequence matching. Matching the 80 amino acid and matching of 8 amino acids showed no similarity to determine the epitope potential. From literature survey, it is observed that no allergic problem is reported in animals.The results of allergenicity study suggests that Bt rice is found to be safe for commercial release

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Thermal regimes: The key to phenological dynamics and productivity of fababean (Vicia faba L.)

Not AvailableField study was conducted to know the effect of thermal environment on different phenostages,grain yield andyield attributes of fababean (Vicia fabaL.) during rabi season of 2013-14 and 2014-15 atICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna, (Bihar). Fababean was sown four dates (Nov. 1, 15& 30, Dec. 15) with four varieties(Local, Vikranta, Gaurav and Suraksha).Yield of fababean varieties wasstrongly responsive to the thermal units/growing degree days (GDD) accumulated during emergence tomaturity. Results revealed that duration of phenostages and thermal units varied with the dates of sowing.November 01 sown crop produced significantly higher number of seeds pod-1 (3.21), higher seed yield(3.13 t ha-1) and biological yield (6.30 t ha-1) compared to other sowing dates. Among varieties, Gauravexhibited significantly higher total dry matter production, heat use efficiency (2.32 kg ha-1°C day), morenumber of seeds pod-1 (3.03) and higher seed yield (3.47t ha-1) followed by Suraksha, Vikranta and localNot Availabl

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Not AvailableMaintaining soil organic carbon (SOC) in arid ecosystem is important for soil productivity and restoration of deserted sandy soil in western plain of India. There is a need to understand how the cropping systems changes may alter SOC pools including total organic carbon (TOC), particulate organic C (POC), water soluble carbon (WSC), very labile C (VLC), labile C (LC), less labile C (LLC) and non-labile C (NLC) in arid climate. We selected seven major agricultural systems for this study viz., barren, fallow, barley–fallow, mustard–moth bean, chickpea–groundnut, wheat–green gram and wheat–pearl millet. Result revealed that conversion of sandy barren lands to agricultural systems significantly increased available nutrients and SOC pools. Among all studied cropping systems, the highest values of TOC (6.12 g kg−1), POC (1.53 g kg−1) and WSC (0.19 g kg−1) were maintained in pearl millet–wheat system, while the lowest values of carbon pools observed in fallow and barren land. Strong relationships (P < 0.05) were exhibited between VLC and LC with available nutrients. The highest carbon management index (299) indicates that wheat–pearl millet system has greater soil quality for enhancing crop productivity, nutrient availability and carbon sequestration of arid soil.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableSixteen sesamum genotypes were evaluated for their yield performance as well as inter-relationship among morphological traits and genetic diversity. Very low genetic advance was observed for dry biomass and seed yield showing that expression of both the characters is highly influenced by environment. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as found in characters like capsules/plant and seeds/capsule indicates that heritability was due to additive gene effects and selection may be helpful. The genotypes differed from each other with respect to their reaction to different insect pests and diseases. Incidence of phyllody was noticed in only 3 genotypes ranging from 0.2% in Kalika to 1.0% in Maghi Local. Significantly high positive correlation was observed between days to 50% flowering and maturity which clearly shows that early flowering types can be chosen for early maturity. Both these characters exhibited significantly high positive correlation with plant height, branches/plant and incidence of phyllody. No significant association was observed for any trait with seed yield although the direction and magnitude of correlation coefficients varied. The local type, Maghi Local was found to be most divergent from rest of the genotypes and thus could be utilized in hybridization-based crop improvement programmes. Two genotypes, OSC-24 (95)-2-1-3 and OSC- 539 were found to be very close to each other showing least divergence. The varieties, Prachi and OSSel 84 produced average seed yield of more than 4.0 q/ha and were, therefore, found most suitable for the N-E Ghat zone of Odisha. Other varieties which exhibited satisfactory yield (about 3.5 q/ha) were Kanak and Nirmala which could also be profitably cultivated in this agro-climatic zone.Not Availabl