KEYWORDSWater stress PEG Antioxidant enzymes Oryza sativa Growth traits Physiological aspects SSR markers ABSTRACTThe aim of the current investigation was to study the influence of drought-stressed by using PEG on some rice genotypes at seedling stage. The performance was judged by growth, physiological, biochemical and molecular constituents at seedling stage. The results of study suggested that growth attributes were reduced under different drought stress (70 and 140 g/L PEG) in most of the cases as compared with control. Among various tested genotypes IRAT 259, Line 7 and Line 8 exhibited the lowest reduction values of relative water content, chlorophyll content and membrane stability index at 70 and 140 drought levels. The Line 8 produced the highest amount of proline under stress conditions which is indicating its highest tolerance to drought stress. The antioxidant enzymes such as catalase, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase were induced by the drought levels. The growing expressions of antioxidant enzymes assist the plant for adaptation of plant under environmental conditions and tolerate stress. The IRAT 259 has highest increase percentage in antioxidant enzymes under stress. Total sixteen SSR primers examine for characterizing the power of each SSR primer by calculating polymorphic information contents and a total of 41 alleles were amplified using 16 SSR primers. The variation in number of amplified alleles per primer ranged from one allele as for wmc27 to five alleles for wmc179 and wmc 215, with an average of 2.56 alleles. The highest value was 100% polymorphism belonged to

Agronomic practices significantly influence the productivity and quality of cotton plant. Present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of nitrogen and sulfur fertilizer application on the fiber quality of cotton, during the year 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 under Mediterranean environmental conditions. All the treatments were laid in randomized complete block design in factorial arrangement each treatment were replicated thrice. Five rates of nitrogen (0, 60, 120, 180 and 240 kg ha -1 ) and five rates of sulfur (0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 kg ha -1 ) were involved in the experiments. Results of study indicated that increases in the rate of sulfur have negative impact on the quality of the cotton fiber and the highest rate of sulfur fertilizer gave the lowest fiber length compared with the other sulfur rates. On the other hand, the lowest uniformity ratio was observed by applications of sulfur at 30, 45 or 60 kg ha -1 . It was observed that application of sulfur had no significant effect on micronaire and fiber strength. Further, application of 60 to 120 kg N ha -1 have positive effect on the fiber length and caused 2.7 to 3.4% improvement in fiber lengths in 2012 compared to the treatment without N, while applications of nitrogen at 180 and 240 kg ha -1 did not provide an additional increase in fiber lengths. Further, it was reported that application of N significantly improved fiber strength, but these differences were not statistically different from the

Effective management strategies for nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) fertilizer are important to ensure optimum yield and fiber quality of cotton production. The aim of this research was to study the influence of nitrogen and potassium application on yield and fiber quality of cotton. Study was conducted in a randomized blocks in a factorial design with three replicates. The nitrogen treatments (0, 60, 120, 180, 240 kg ha -1 ) and five K2O rates (0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 kg ha -1) are used in this study. Among the various tested combinations, the best combinations are 180 kg N ha -1 along with 150 kg K ha -1 and it produced the greatest seed cotton yieldand gin turnout. After 120 days of plantation 72% reduction in the dry weight was reported in the nitrogen deficient treatment and these plants produced only 17 bolls per plant and it was significantly different (25 bolls) than the plant treated by 180 kg N ha -1 . Significant and negative correlations were reported between boll number per plant and micronaire and total dry matter yield were found at K fertilization treatments. Positive and significant correlations were determined between gin turnout and micronaire and between fiber strength and total biomass production at N fertilization. The highest fiber strength was recorded in the plant treated by the combination of 240 kg ha -1 nitrogen and 50 kg ha -1 potassium. For fiber length and fiber strength, no significant differences were reported among the various treatments of potassium. From the results of this study it can be concluded that combination of 180 kg ha -1 nitrogen and 100 kg ha -1 potassium are suitable for the production of cotton crop.