A set of 130 wheat recombinant inbred lines (RILs) developed from a cross between parents susceptible (WL711) and resistant (HD29) to Karnal bunt (caused by Tilletia indica), were screened for 3 years with the pathogen populations prevalent in northern India. When 90 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and 81 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) loci were mapped on the RILs, markers on chromosomes 2A, 4B and 7B accounted collectively for about one-third of the variation in the disease reaction. The genomic region of largest effect, identified on the long arm of chromosome 4B, reduced Karnal bunt disease by half in three different experiments and accounted for up to 25% of the phenotypic variation for KB reaction. A closely linked SSR marker, GWM538, may be useful in marker-assisted selection for Karnal bunt resistance in wheat.

Rice is the staple food and provides livelihood for smallholder farmers in the coastal delta regions of South and Southeast Asia. However, its productivity is often low because of several abiotic stresses including high soil salinity and waterlogging during the wet (monsoon) season and high soil and water salinity during the dry season. Development and dissemination of suitable rice varieties tolerant of these multiple stresses encountered in coastal zones are of prime importance for increasing and stabilizing rice productivity, however adoption of new varieties has been slow in this region. Here we implemented participatory varietal selection (PVS) processes to identify and understand smallholder farmers’ criteria for selection and adoption of new rice varieties in coastal zones. New breeding lines together with released rice varieties were evaluated in on-station and on-farm trials (researcher-managed) during the wet and dry seasons of 2008–2014 in the Indian Sundarbans region. Significant correlations between preferences of male and female farmers in most trials indicated that both groups have similar criteria for selection of rice varieties. However, farmers’ preference criteria were different from researchers’ criteria. Grain yield was important, but not the sole reason for variety selection by farmers. Several other factors also governed preferences and were strikingly different when compared across wet and dry seasons. For the wet season, farmers preferred tall (140–170 cm), long duration (160–170 d), lodging resistant and high yielding rice varieties because these traits are required in lowlands where water stagnates in the field for about four months (July to October). For the dry season, farmers’ preferences were for high yielding, salt tolerant, early maturing (115–130 d) varieties with long slender grains and good quality for better market value. Pest and disease resistance was important in both seasons but did not rank high. When farmers ranked the two most preferred varieties, the ranking order was sometimes variable between locations and years, but when the top four varieties that consistently ranked high were considered, the variability was low. This indicates that at least 3–4 of the best-performing entries should be considered in succeeding multi-location and multi-year trials, thereby increasing the chances that the most stable varieties are selected. These findings will help improve breeding programs by providing information on critical traits. Selected varieties through PVS are also more likely to be adopted by farmers and will ensure higher and more stable productivity in the salt- and flood-affected coastal deltas of South and Southeast Asia.

Treatment of infested banana fruits by aqueous leaf extracts of some medicinal plants, viz. Calotropis procera (Ait) R.Br., Vitex negundo Linn., Lantana camara Linn., Azadirachta indica Linn., Ficus religiosa Linn., Ocimum sanctum Lin., Thuja orientalis Linn., Argemone mexicana Linn., Achyranthes aspera Linn., Datura fastuosa Linn. and Ricinus communis Linn. exhibited considerable control of disease development. Of 11 leaf extracts, those of A. indica and O. sanctum were most effective, and showed minimum per cent loss in fruit weight. The appearance of the first disease symptom was also delayed in treated fruits as compared with untreated ones.

Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) is the most important cereal crop grown in the intermediate and highland areas of northeastern Ethiopia. Durum wheat dominates in these areas where water logging is the major production constraint. Because of the predominant problem of water logging coupled with other various biotic and abiotic production hobbling factors, the average productivity of wheat in the northeastern region never exceeds 8.4 ha -1 , which is below the national average of 14.4 ha -1 (ECSA, 2002). Screening of wide durum wheat germplasm has been undertaken to improve durum wheat grain yield. But, selection based on the performance of grain yield alone, a polygenically controlled complex character, is usually not very efficient. An experiment was conducted at Geregera testing site of Sirinka Agricultural Research Centre, during the 2003-cropping season with the objective of estimating the associations between yield and yield-related traits and to identify direct and indirect effects of characters for durum wheat grain yield improvement. The experimental material consisted of 44 indigenous durum wheat genotypes, which are randomly taken from the indigenous germplasm collections. Mean sum of squares for all the characters considered showed highly significant differences (P<0.01) indicating the presence of adequate variability. Grain yield had strong positive correlations (P<0.01) with plant height, number of kernels spike , biological yield and thousand-kernel weight. On the contrary, grain yield had strong negative correlation (p< 0.01) with days to heading suggesting that the usefulness of selecting early heading genotypes with long grain filling period in improving grain yield. The results of genotypic correlation indicate that maximum positive direct effect on grain yield was exerted by biological yield (1.08) followed by days to maturity (0.91) and harvest index (0.69). While, maximum negative direct effects were exerted by days to heading (-0.72) and grain filling period (-0.52). Therefore, days to heading, biological yield and harvest index could be used as an indirect selection criterion for better grain yield. Thus, selecting early heading genotypes having high biological yield and harvest index could improve grain yield.

The reactions of parents and F| and F: generations of crosses of chickpea cultivars K-850 with C-104 and JG-62 and ¥y progenies of K-850 x C-104 to race 1 of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceri were studied. The results indicate that K-850 carries a recessive allele for resistance at a locus different from and independent of that carried by C-104 and recessive alleles at both loci together confer complete resistance. The possible contribution of this recessive gene to late wilting in K-850 is discussed. These observations have important implications in breeding for resistance to wilt in chickpea.