Integrated Management of Charcoal Rot and Its Influence on Seed Yield and Quality in Soybean

Charcoal rot (Macrophomina phaseolina) causes high grain yield loss in major soybean-growing nations worldwide. The present study aimed to reveal the effect of stage-wise charcoal rot incidence and their root and stem severity index on the yield criteria of soybean varieties. Additionally, an attempt was made to derive integrated management practices and their influence on seed quality. All the twelve varieties were affected by charcoal rot, and its incidence and root and stem severity index were high in Shivalik (48.5% and 3.7, respectively). In yield estimation, the percentage of yield loss ranged from 8.7% (JS 20-98) to 53.9% (Shivalik). Percent yield loss had a strong significant positive relation with percent incidence (0.912**) and Root and Stem severity index (0.813**) of charcoal rot. Seed treatment of Penflufen 13.28% + Trifloxystrobin 13.28 % FS @ 1ml/kg followed by spraying of tebuconazole 25% EC @ 0.1 % spraying at 45,60,75 days was significantly superior in reducing charcoal rot (19.7%) in comparison to untreated (37.3%). The highest seed germination (80.0 %) and least association with M. phaseolina (13.33%), Aspergillus flavus (3.33%), Fusarium sp., (13.34%) in comparison to control (50, 36.67, 23.33 and 36.67 %, respectively) were also resulted from the seed obtained from above treatment. In bioagent, seed treatment of T. harzianum @ 10 gm/kg followed by foliar spray of tebuconazole 25% EC @ 0.1% at 45,60,75 days was the second-best combination among all treatments in all respects. The effect of these fungicides and bio agents as seed treatment also improved the number of branches, pods, 100 seed weight and yield. Hence, these combinations could be applied to minimize charcoal rot and yield losses in soybean.

Variation in morphological, biochemical and antioxidant properties of Lilium polyphyllum

Lilium polyphyllum D.Don ex Royle belonging to family Liliaceae is a medicinal plant distributed in temperate to high altitude regions of Himalaya. Its bulbs have been used for anti-aging and vitality properties in >30 formulations of Ayurveda. Therefore, the knowledge on various traits of the plant is necessary so that quality of the finished products could be maintained. Present study investigates, morphological, biochemical and antioxidant properties in different populations of L. polyphyllum. A significant variation was recorded in different morphological parameters (Plant height, leaf number, leaf length, leaf width, bulb diameter, bulb fresh weight). Variation was also recorded for total soluble protein (7.81-11.35 mg/g), soluble sugar (96.14-116.14 mg/g), starch (116.37-122.43 mg/g) and total free amino acid (18.22-26.00 mg/g). Antioxidant properties in the bulb were determined and ABTS activity was 4.22 mM /100 g, DPPH activity recorded 0.85 mM/100 g and FRAP activity was 1.50 mM/100 g dw ascorbic acid equivalent, respectively. The diversity in wild populations of the species may serve as a baseline data for future breeding, domestication and conservation program.

Achievements of agricultural biotechnology: An initiative to double the farmer’s income through cutting edge technology

The population of the world is increasing nearly exponentially over time. To feed this population following the environment conservation protocol, it is essential to enhance the agricultural productivity even in the synchronizing agrarian land use pattern. To enhance the quality and productivity in agriculture sector, introducing the cutting edge technology is need of the hour.From ancient times, traditional approaches like selective breeding, adoption of agronomic management practices and application of indigenous technical knowledge have been used to attain resilience against various abiotic and biotic stresses. However, these traditional approaches are not sufficient to tackle the increasing repercussions of climate change and feed quality food to the expanding population. Therefore, in order to address these issues of climate change, population explosion and malnutrition, biotechnological interventions can be a promising approach. In the past, biotechnology based approaches have given successful products like Herbicide-resistant Soybean, Pusa Basmati 1, Bt Cotton, Bt Brinjal, Flavr-Savr tomato, a therapeutically significant product of Lithospermum erythrorhizon and Panax ginseng. Besides that many more need based products are in pipeline which is under scrutiny of regulatory bodies, policymakers and environmentalists. It is profoundly expected that in the coming day’s agricultural biotechnology applications will bring revolutionary changes to existing agricultural scenario. Therefore, in this review, we have summarized the achievement of agricultural biotechnology that is assisting to enhance the agricultural produce to double the income of farmers. However, this much is not enough; hence full utilization of all the sustainable agricultural biotechnological tools must come into the existence that definitely will boost the agricultural productivity.