No abstract

Climate change is likely to affect the insect host and the activity and abundance of biological control agents. Therefore, the present studies were conducted to understand the seasonal abundance of larval parasitoid, Campoletis chlorideae on chickpea at Pantnagar during the cropping season 2010-11 and 2011-12 revealed that the larval parasitoid exhibited its marked first appearance in 3 rd standard meteorological week (SMW) and attained peak population in 7 th (85.80%) and 8 th (87.65%) SMW, respectively. Statistical analysis between the weather parameters and the population of the larval parasitoid showed a significant negative correlation with maximum temperature (r= -0.698* and r= -0.705*) and minimum temperature (r= -0.706* and r= -0.790*) whereas significant positive correlation with maximum relative humidity (r= 0.800** and r = 0.824**) and minimum relative humidity (r= 0.636* and r= 0.254) during 2010-11 and 2011-12, respectively. The results indicated that changes in weather factors as a result of climate change would have considerable influence on survival and development of C.chlorideae.

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan), the essential vegetarian protein diet of India is yielding lesser than as potential. The major constraints for productivity of pigeonpea are inadequate availability of seeds of high yielding short duration improved varieties, biotic and abiotic stress and poor crop management. To utilize the genomic resources for yield improvement it is necessary to evaluate the pigeonpea germplasm for yield traits and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. The present investigation led to the identification of better performing lines based on yield. A total collection of 2000 accessions were subjected to initial evaluation. From these 2000 accessions better performing lines were selected for crossing and generation of mapping populations. Initial data was evaluated to identify better performing accessions over the check varieties used in evaluation. Based on days to first flowering, days to 50 per cent flowering and days to maturity parental lines for crossing were identified. Among selected accessions IC33671 and Palamedu local were found to have short stature and early maturing independently. These selected accessions were crossed and progenies were evaluated to identify high yielding individuals. The resultant high yielding determinant short duration crop DG (RG) 55 has been evaluated for its performance under multiple locations and identified to yield up to 15 per cent more than the better performing check varieties Asha and APK1.

Pigeonpea is drought resilient crop; relatively more drought tolerant than other legume crops. Through detailed evaluation and multi-location trials of cross derivatives, we identified 65 better performing pigeonpea lines. Among these lines, high yielding and stress-tolerant accessions were identified. From our earlier MYB network and flowering genes networks, we could identify tightly linked co-expressinggenes for yield traits. Semi-quantitative expression analyses showed that the defending type drought stress tolerance contributing LAN C like protein GCL-2 is expressed in providing disease resistance and myb linked BTB/POZ genes contribute for high yielding of pigeonpea. BOP is a member of BTB group of plant protein. We found differential up-regulation of these genes in drought-tolerant high yielding pigeonpea lines earlier reported by our team. Whereas in another report we explained the myb linked expression of BTB/POZ genes. These genes selected from our earlier network analyses were identified, PCR amplified, sequenced and structure validated for its functional domain. Using the gene sequence, we predicted and validated the protein structure of Lan C. The current study extends our earlier findings that these genes are directly taking part in stress tolerance and high yielding traits.