A study was conducted to assess the incidence and economics of subclinical form of bovine mastitis in Central Region of India. Daily milk records of 187 animals during three seasons were collected and subjected to analysis. The economic loss due to reduction in yield, clinical expenses, and additional resources used were quantified and aggregated. The losses due to mastitis in monetary terms were estimated to be INR1390 per lactation, among which around 49% was owing to loss of value from milk and 37% on account of veterinary expenses. Higher losses were observed in crossbred cows due to their high production potential that was affected during mastitis period. The cost of treating an animal was estimated to be INR509 which includes cost of medicine (31.10%) and services (5.47%). Inadequate sanitation, hygiene, and veterinary services were the main predisposing factors for incidence and spread of mastitis as perceived by the respondents.

With an aim of enhancing drought tolerance using a marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) approach, we introgressed the "QTL-hotspot" region from ICC 4958 accession that harbors quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for several drought-tolerance related traits into three elite Indian chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars: Pusa 372, Pusa 362, and DCP 92-3. Of eight simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in the QTLhotspot region, two to three polymorphic markers were used for foreground selection with respective cross-combinations. A total of 47, 53, and 46 SSRs were used for background selection in case of introgression lines (ILs) developed in genetic backgrounds of Pusa 372, Pusa 362, and DCP 92-3, respectively. In total, 61 ILs (20 BC 3 F 3 in Pusa 372; 20 BC 2 F 3 in Pusa 362, and 21 BC 3 F 3 in DCP 92-3), with >90% recurrent parent genome recovery were developed. Six improved lines in different genetic backgrounds (e.g. BGM 10216 in Pusa 372; BG 3097 and BG 4005 in Pusa 362; IPC(L4-14), IPC(L4-16), and IPC(L19-1) in DCP 92-3) showed better performance than their respective recurrent parents. BGM 10216, with 16% yield gain over Pusa 372, has been released as Pusa Chickpea 10216 by the Central SubCommittees on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties of Agricultural Crops, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, for commercial cultivation in India. In summary, this study reports introgression of the QTL-hotspot

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India has recently enacted Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) characterization for rice. This paper focuses on DUS characterization using morphological descriptors for 21 rice varieties planted in a randomized block design during two kharif seasons (2007 and 2008). Data were recorded for 60 DUS descriptors (46 qualitative and 14 quantitative) following guidelines from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmer's Rights Authority (PPV & FRA). Data on quantitative traits were subjected to Combined Over Years Distinctness (COYD) and Combined Over Years Uniformity (COYU) analyses. The descriptors offering the most discrimination were time to 50% heading, decorticated grain shape, and the colour of lemma and palea. The cultivar Sathi, an improved landrace entry, was observed to be the most distinct, with the rarest morphological features. Eight of the 21 qualitative and 8 of the 14 quantitative traits exhibited uniformity as determined by UPOV-recommended levels. Twelve of the quantitative traits were relatively stable as judged by seasonal variation in Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) and Genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) values. Finally, the varieties were clustered following the eight grouping characteristics recommended by PPV & FRA. All the approaches clustered the improved landrace entities separately from the conventionally bred varieties.

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