Background: The emergence of the novel Coronavirus in December 2019 from Wuhan, China, now named SARS-COV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease has now reached the pandemic level. The ongoing pandemic has already infected more than fifteen million people and over hundred thousand people around the world has died. The knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of people towards this disease is important to understand to limit its transmission. Methods: A purposive cross-sectional study was conducted among 101 secondary level students in Bharatpur, Chitwan, Nepal to assess their KAP. Results: The majority of the students were found to be knowledgeable of the timeline of the first outbreak (92.08%) and nearly three-fourth participants were aware of the hand-washing duration of 20 seconds (73.27%). The knowledge of the presence of disease in Nepal (50.50%), the causative agent of disease (65.53%), and symptoms (57.43%) showed that there is significant knowledge gap among participants. The good proportion of participants were found to have a positive attitude towards the prevention and control of the disease. The majority of the respondents reported using face mask (77.23%), adopting handwashing measures (79.21%) as preventive measures for COVID-19. The majority of the students were highly concerned about the disease. Conclusion: In summary, secondary level students of Chitwan, Nepal were found to have fair knowledge and understanding of the disease, showed a moderately positive attitude towards preventive measure and reported appropriate preventive practices against COVID-19. It is recommended that a similar

Heat stress during the flowering, pollination and grain filling periods affect maize grain yield and its attributing  traits. Twenty maize inbred lines were evaluated in alpha lattice design with two replications under heat condition during spring season from February to June, 2016 at Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. Meterological data showed maximum mean temperature (46.2–43.28ºC) and minimum (30.52-30.77ºC) in with relative humidity 37.05 to 49.45% inside the tunnel during in April-May which coincided with the flowering, pollination and grain filling periods. The data were analyzed statistically to study the correlation and path coefficient. The analysis of variance showed that all the lines were significantly different from each other for all traits anthesis silking interval, SPAD chlorophyll and leaf senescence, tassel blast, leaf firing, plant and ear height, leaf area index, ear per plant, cob length and diameter, number of kernel ear-1, number of kernel row-1, number of kernel row, silk receptivity, shelling percentage, thousand kernel weight and grain yield. Grain yield had positive and significant phenotypic correlation with silk receptivity, shelling percentage, cob length and diameter, number of kernel ear-1, number of kernel row-1, number of kernel row, SPAD chlorophyll, thousand kernel weight and significant and negative correlation with tassel blast, anthesis silking interval, leaf area index, leaf firing. Path analysis revealed that of thousand kernel weight, shelling percentage, number of kernel ear-1 and silk receptivity exerted maximum positive direct effect on grain yield. Therefore, selection of genotypes having maximum thousand kernel weight, shellingpercentage, silk receptivity and number of kernel ear-1 and shorter anthesis silking interval, no leaf firing and tassel blast is pre-requisite for attaining improvement in grain yield under heat stress condition.

Forty one wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)genotypes were studied for days to booting, days to heading, plant height at vegetative, plant height at maturity, days to 50% anthesis, days to 100% anthesis, flag leaf senescence, days to physiological maturity, peduncle length, effective tillers, spikelet's length, grain per spike, biomass ,harvest index, sterility percentage, thousand grain weight and grain yield in random complete block design at terai, Nepal with the objective to identify superior genotypes after clustering them based on their genetic diversity in performance. Result of multivariable analysis revealed that 41 wheat genotypes formed four clusters. Cluster 4 and 2 had highest value of effective tiller, spike length, grain per spike, thousand grain weight, biomass, harvest index ,grain yield and lowest value days to heading, days to booting ,days to anthesis and sterility percentage. Cluster 3 had high days to booting, days to heading, days to 50% and 100% anthesis, days to flag leaf senescence and low in plant height at maturity, thousand grain weight ,harvest index and grain yield. Considering of multivariable analysis and other agronomic performance wheat genotypes HD 1982 and Pitic 62 may be utilized as high yielding genotypes in Terai condition of Nepal.

High temperature adversely affects the plant physiological processes: limits plant growth and reduction in grain yield. Heat stress is often encountered to spring sowing of maize in spring season. Twenty maize inbred lines were studied for days to 50 % anthesis and silking, anthesis-silking interval, leaf firing, tassel blast, SPAD reading and leaf senescence, plant and ear height, leaf area index, ear per plant, cob length and diameter, number of kernel/ear, number of kernel row/ear, number of kernel row, silk receptivity, shelling percentage, thousand kernel weight and grain yield in alpha lattice design at National Maize Research Program at Rampur, Chitwan,Nepal with the objective to identify superior heat stress tolerant lines. Analysis of variance showed significant difference for all the traits. Result of multivariable analysis revealed that twenty inbred lines formed four clusters. The resistance inbred lines and susceptible inbred lines formed different clusters. The members of cluster 4 were found to be tolerant to heat stress due to they had lowest value of tassel blast, leaf firing, and leaf area index with highest value of cob diameter and length, ear per plant, number of kernel row/ear, number of kernel/ear, number of kernel row, shelling percentage, silk receptivity and grain yield whereas as members of cluster 1were found most susceptible due to they had longer anthesis silking interval, with maximum tassel blast and leaf firing along with no grain yield under heat stress condition. From this study inbred lines RL-140, RML-76, RML-91 and RML-40 were found most tolerant to heat stress. These inbred lines belonging to superior cluster could be considered very useful in developing heat tolerant variety and other breeding activities.