Aloe vera Linn. (Syn. Aloe barbadensis Mill; Gwar-patha in Hindi) belongs to family Liliaceae. The plant, for its medicinal properties, has commercial value. Some of the genotypes of Aloe vera are consumed as a vegetable and processed to make curry and other edible products. We report here on the development of an efficient method for rapid clonal propagation by shoot proliferation from axillary meristem (s) of selected germplasm of Aloe vera. Explants were pretreated with 0.1% aqueous solution of both streptomycin and bavistin separately, each for 15 min. These were surface sterilized with 0.1% aqueous solution of mercuric chloride (HgCl 2 ) for 4-5 min and washed several times with autoclaved water. These were kept in a chilled, sterile antioxidant (200.0 mg L -1 of ascorbic acid, 50.0 mg L -1 of citric acid, and 25.0 mg L -1 of polyvinylpyrrolidone; PVP) solution and cultured on semi-solid Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium. The bud explants produced multiple (10.3 ± 0.675/explant) shoots on MS medium containing 13.32 mM of 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 100.0 mg L -1 of ascorbic acid, 50.0 mg L -1 each of citric acid and PVP, with The authors are grateful to the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Jodhpur for providing the valuable plant material during the present investigation. 936 M. Singh et al. 25.0 mg L -1 each of arginine and adenine sulphate as additives. The shoots were further multiplied by (a) repeated transfer to fresh MS medium with additives + 13.32 mM BAP, and (b) subculturing on MS medium with a lower (4.44 mM) concentration of BAP. On MS medium containing 4.44 mM of BAP and additives, a maximum number (27.8 ± 0.63) of shoots were produced. In liquid MS medium with 4.44 mM of BAP, the rate of shoot multiplication increased and the vigor of the shoots improved. One hundred percent of the cloned shoots rooted under in vitro conditions on hormone-free half-strength MS salts containing 200.0 mg L -1 of activated charcoal at 32 ± 2°C. The cloned shoots treated with 2.46 mM of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) or 2.473 mM of b-naphthoxyacetic acid (NOA) for 5 min rooted under ex vitro conditions in the greenhouse. The rooted plants were hardened in the greenhouse and stored under an agro-net house. The cloned plants were transferred under different field conditions at various sites in Western Rajasthan. These plants grew normally. The higher rate of shoot multiplication and easier approach of direct rooting and hardening make this method superior to the methods previously reported on cloning/tissue culture of Aloe species. From a single shoot bud, approximately 5000 plants can be produced within 180 days.

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9 diverse barley genotypes were selected and crossed in a diallel (without reciprocals) mating design to evaluate combining ability effects to identify promising crosses for 13 quantitative characters including yield and its components. Analysis of variance for diallel revealed highly significant differences for most of the traits investigated. Parent BH 393 has been excellent general combiner for majority of traits viz., days to 50 per cent heading, days to 75 per cent maturity. Another parent BH 959 has good general combiner for plant height, flag leaf area, number of effective tillers per plant, spike length, number of grains per spike, number of spikelets per plant, 1000-grain weight, and grain yield per plant. Followed by Parent RD 2786 has been good general combiner for protein content. Parents RD 2715, BH 959, BH 393 can be utilizing for developing of a variety by exploiting additive gene action. BH 959 and DWRB 64 these both the parents are of higher yielding these both the parent of higher grain yielding crosses viz., RD 2786 × BH 959, RD 2552 × DWRB 64, and RD 2035 × RD 2786. A perusal of specific combining ability effects revealed that positive significant sca effects for grain yield per plant was observed in eleven crosses viz.,

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), an important staple food crop in the semiarid tropics of the world, is infected by a number of diseases. Important among these are downy mildew (Sclerospora graminicola), blast (Pyricularia grisea), rust (Puccinia substriata var. indica). Ergot (Claviceps fusiformis) and smut (Moesiziomyces penicillariae) that individually or in combination cause substantial yield and quality losses. Effective and economic control of these diseases can be achieved by growing disease resistant varieties and hybrids. One hundred thirty potential R-lines were evaluated for blast resistance in the field. One hundreds eighteen lines identified as blast resistant (score ≤3.0 on 1-9 scale). These resistant lines would be useful in breeding blast resistant pearl millet hybrids.