Increasing soil salinity due to global warming severely restricts crop growth and yield. To select and recommend salt-tolerant cultivars, extensive genotypic screening and examination of plants’ morpho-physiological responses to salt stress are required. In this study, 18 prescreened maize hybrid cultivars were examined at the early growth stage under a hydroponic system using multivariate analysis to demonstrate the genotypic and phenotypic variations of the selected cultivars under salt stress. The seedlings of all maize cultivars were evaluated with two salt levels: control (without NaCl) and salt stress (12 dS m−1 simulated with NaCl) for 28 d. A total of 18 morpho-physiological and ion accumulation traits were dissected using multivariate analysis, and salt tolerance index (STI) values of the examined traits were evaluated for grouping of cultivars into salt-tolerant and -sensitive groups. Salt stress significantly declined all measured traits except root–shoot ratio (RSR), while the cultivars responded differently. The cultivars were grouped into three clusters and the cultivars in Cluster-1 such as Prabhat, UniGreen NK41, Bisco 51, UniGreen UB100, Bharati 981 and Star Beej 7Star exhibited salt tolerance to a greater extent, accounting for higher STI in comparison to other cultivars grouped in Cluster-2 and Cluster-3. The high heritability (h2bs, >60%) and genetic advance (GAM, >20%) were recorded in 13 measured traits, indicating considerable genetic variations present in these traits. Therefore, using multivariate analysis based on the measured traits, six hybrid maize cultivars were selected as salt-tolerant and some traits such as Total Fresh Weight (TFW), Total Dry Weight (TDW), Total Na+, Total K+ contents and K+–Na+ Ratio could be effectively used for the selection criteria evaluating salt-tolerant maize genotypes at the early seedling stage.

PLATZ (plant AT-rich sequence and zinc-binding) family proteins with two conserved zinc-dependent DNA-binding motifs are transcription factors specific to the plant kingdom. The functions of PLATZ proteins in growth, development, and adaptation to multiple abiotic stresses have been investigated in various plant species, but their role in tomato has not been explored yet. In the present work, 20 non-redundant Solanum lycopersicum PLATZ (SlPLATZ) genes with three segmentally duplicated gene pairs and four tandemly duplicated gene pairs were identified on eight tomato chromosomes. The comparative modeling and gene ontology (GO) annotations of tomato PLATZ proteins indicated their probable roles in defense response, transcriptional regulation, and protein metabolic processes as well as their binding affinity for various ligands, including nucleic acids, peptides, and zinc. SlPLATZ10 and SlPLATZ17 were only expressed in 1 cm fruits and flowers, respectively, indicating their preferential involvement in the development of these organs. The expression of SlPLATZ1, SlPLATZ12, and SlPLATZ19 was up- or down-regulated following exposure to various abiotic stresses, whereas that of SlPLATZ11 was induced under temperature stresses (i.e., cold and heat stress), revealing their probable function in the abiotic stress tolerance of tomato. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis corroborated the aforementioned findings by spotlighting the co-expression of several stress-associated genes with SlPLATZ genes. Confocal fluorescence microscopy revealed the localization of SlPLATZ–GFP fusion proteins in the nucleus, hinting at their functions as transcription factors. These findings provide a foundation for a better understanding of the structure and function of PLATZ genes and should assist in the selection of potential candidate genes involved in the development and abiotic stress adaptation in tomato.

Leather tanning industry is the third largest export earning industry of Pakistan. Kasur is second largest leather producing city in Punjab. It is among Pakistan's most contaminated cities due to discharge of highly toxic industrial effluent into open fields. This study aims to identify the level of toxicity of the soil in terms of heavy metals in different parts of Kasur city. Seventy (70) soil samples were collected from seven different locations including city centre, evacuated ponds and agriculture fields being fed with the recycled water from the wastewater treatment plant.In this study, the presence of three heavy metals, that is, Chromium (Cr), Manganese (Mn) and Nickel (Ni) were measured by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The overall mean value of these metals (Cr 3.859 ± 0.510 mg/Kg, Mn 0.5243 ± 0.0691 mg/Kg and Ni 0.4759 ± 0.0318 mg/Kg, respectively) in Kasur was found higher as compared to control samples (Cr 0.2622 ± 0.033 mg/Kg, Mn 0.1701 ± 0.016 mg/Kg and Ni 0.1817 ± 0.021 mg/Kg, respectively). The results reflect that the areas which are in contact with tannery effluents have high levels of Cr, Mn and Ni as compared to other sites and control samples. It was seen that majority of the city population is facing diseases associated with drinking water, soil and air pollution caused by tanning industry.

A study was carried out to investigate the effect of different coagulants on the recovery of milk solids, yield and sensory quality of Chhana and the resultant Rasogolla. Six type of coagulants comprising of sour whey (0.5%, 1.0% acidity), citric acid (0.5%, 1.0% acidity) and blend of sour whey and citric acid (0.5%, 1.0% acidity) were used to prepare Chhana followed by sweet meat Rasogolla. The nonsignificant yield of chhana was found by the use of different coagulants; however it had a significant influence on the fat and total solids (TS) recoveries ranges from 90.5 to 93.8%; 42 to 44% of milk for chhana, respectively. The highest mean yield, fat recovery and TS recovery were recorded for B type chhana prepared using 1% sour whey as coagulant. Rasogollas prepared using varying coagulants did not have any significant influence on any of the sensory attributes of product studied. Rasogolla prepared from chhana made using 1% sour whey as coagulant had the highest overall sensory score. It is recommended to employ sour whey with 1.0 % of titratable acidity as coagulating agent in the preparation of Rasogolla.

The effect of regional diversity on 12 agro-morphological descriptors of Sesbania bispinosa (Jacq.) W. Wight was studied. The mean sum of square varied significantly for six of these traits viz., plant height, branch number/plant, pod number/plant, pod length, seed number/pod and seed width. Among the ten regions, plants grown from seeds of Tangail, Chuadanga and Sirajganj districts of Bangladesh performed better in terms of plant height, number of branches/plant, number of pods/plant, pod length, number of seeds/pod and seed width. In principal component analysis, first six principal components (PC1, PC2, PC3, PC4, PC5 and PC6) showed Eigen value >1 and accounted for 85.6% of the total variance. In cluster analysis based on the studied agro-morphological descriptors, the cluster 1 consists of three regions (Chuadanga, Tangail and Jhinaidah), cluster 2 of six regions (Khulna, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Sunamganj, Gaibandha and Faridpur) and cluster 3 of only one district (Sirajganj). Considering these multivariate analyses, three different morphotypes of S. bispinosa could be identified from different locations.