Impact of Climate Variables on Occurrence of Rice Earhead Bug, Leptocorisa oratorius (F.) (Hemiptera: Alydidae)

Rice earhead bug, Leptocorisa oratorius (F.) (Hemiptera: Alydidae) is one of the major sucking pests of rice, causing significant yield losses worldwide. The population fluctuation and infestation of earhead bug is influenced by different meteorological parameters. A field experiment was conducted at the ICR (Instructional Cum Research) Farm, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat with a view to study the occurrence of L. oratorius on rice crop during Ahu (Autumn rice) season, 2018 and 2019. The population of L. oratorius was first observed in the field during the month of May and attained its peak population (2.66 and 1.56 adult per hill) on second and third week of June in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The occurrence of L. oratorius was also correlated with the different climate variables viz., temperature, relative humidity, rainfall and bright sunshine hour (BSSH). The correlation analysis revealed no significant impact of climatic variables on the occurrence of L. oratorius population during 2018, while all the variables except rainfall showed significant correlation with the occurrence of L. oratorius population during 2019. In 2019, a significant best fit multiple regression model was developed for L. oratorius to predict their seasonal occurrence under agro-climatic condition of Jorhat, Assam. The per cent grain infestation was also recorded during 2018 and 2019, which was found to be 39.34 and 37.11 per cent, respectively

Comparative study of the nutritional composition of local brown rice, maize (obaatanpa), and millet—A baseline research for varietal complementary feeding

INTRODUCTION Childhood malnutrition remains a major public health issue of concern particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and inadequate complementary feeding is a common cause. Promoting dietary diversity is one way of tackling this problem. High dependence on maize has its limitations; modifying other local staples into complementary foods can be a feasible alternative to promote optimum nutrition. OBJECTIVES Comparing the nutritional composition of brown rice to millet and maize to determine its beneficial value as complementary food. METHODS Experimental study was carried out at the Department of Nutrition and Food Science of University of Ghana. Samples of maize, millet, and brown rice were obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Accra and nutritional contents analyzed. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20.0 and ANOVA were used to assess differences. RESULTS Results showed brown rice contained the highest content of carbohydrates (77.94 ± 0.32) % and zinc (12.15 ± 0.21) mg while millet had the highest protein (10.49 ± 0E-7) mg and fat (4.99 ± 0.46) % content. Maize contained highest amount of calcium (21.24 ± 0.14) mg. Iron was only found in millet (10.72 ± 0.15) mg. The zinc content per 100 g of all three (3) cereals was above RDA. All three (3) cereals contributed significantly <10% to the RDA of calcium. Iron content of millet contributed more than 90% to RDA. CONCLUSIONS Locally produced brown rice is rich in zinc and carbohydrates compared to millet and maize. Thus, can be used for complementary feed but, given the low protein and iron content, it may need to be fortified or diversified and used as a cereal blend

In vitro propagation of bamboo species through axillary shoot proliferation: a review

Bamboos, very relevant plants in many countries around the world, are propagated at large scale with extreme difficulties. Use of seeds is challenging because of plant’s sporadic flowering and long flowering cycles, together with seed recalcitrance and consumption by wild animals. Vegetative propagation of bamboo is mainly conducted by cuttings and by air layering. However, these methods are only useful at small-scale because they damage the mother plants, propagation material is bulky and difficult to be transported and is only available during few months of the year. Therefore, in vitro propagation offers the opportunity to obtain large progenies from elite genotypes. In most cases, when developing protocols for in vitro propagation of plants, specific conditions for individual species, genotypes and even development stages of the donor plants must be identified by trial-and-error experiments. Because of the size of and the large diversity observed in this plant family, it usually takes several months to define most adequate culture medium, combination of plant growth regulators and of other compounds for fostering the desired development in the explants. Therefore, in this detailed review, that also puts together results from hard-to-find literature, we list all identified cases, in which development of axillary shoots was used to propagate bamboo plants, by presenting successful ways for disinfection, in vitro bud sprouting, multiplication, rooting and acclimatization.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Agroalimentarias::Centro para Investigaciones en Granos y Semillas (CIGRAS)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Agroalimentarias::Instituto de Investigaciones Agrícolas (IIA

In vitro-assisted compression of breeding cycles

Prod 2018-143 BAP GEAPSI CT1 BAPInternational audienceThe compression of breeding cycles to quickly progress segregating material to homozygosity has attracted substantial international research interest for some decades. Modified pedigree breeding methods such as single seed descent (SSD) have enabled faster generation turnover and commercialization of new crop cultivars. Since the latter part of the last century, doubled haploid technology has revolutionized the progression to genome fixation in responsive species. In unresponsive but economically important families, biotechnological tools are being developed to accelerate traditional SSD – either by completing the full plant life cycle in vitro or by coupling controlled environmental conditions in the soil to elicit rapid floral onset with germination of immature seed in vitro to truncate seed filling. Both techniques have resulted in step-change efficiencies in generation turnover with up to fourfold improvements in species such as grain legumes. Such enhanced SSD systems are also valuable for breeding complex traits across a range of species. In this chapter, we explore the recent advances in in vitro-assisted breeding cycle compression in crops, opportunities to combine rapid phenotyping for key traits and the benefits of in vitro life cycle completion when researching under restrictive regulatory frameworks and working with enfeebled or rare material