Abstract:The field experiment was conducted to evaluate the heritability, genetic variance, agro-morphological and yield characters of Sixteen Amaranthus genotypes. The seeds of the sixteen (16) genotypes of Amaranthus evaluated in this study were; NG/AA/MAY/09/027, NG/AA/03/11/010, NG/AO/11/08/042, NG/AO/11/08/039, NG/SA/DEC/07/0423, NG/SA/DEC/07/0412, NGB01667, NGB01601, NGB01283, NGB01271, NGB01276, NGB01259, NGB01644, NGB01234, NGB01613 and NGB01662. The results showed that there were variability performances in growth and yield characters of Amaranthus genotypes. NG/AA/MAY/09/027 and NG/AO/11/08/039 had the best growth characters while NG/AO/11/08/042 had best yield performance compared to other genotypes. The stem length recorded the best heritability estimate of 95.5% while weight of dry leaf, weight of fresh and dry inflorescent had least (47.7%). The plant height had a positive significant correlation with number of leaf (r = 0.53), leaf width (r = 0.57), number of branches (r = 0.56) but a strong positive correlation with stem length (r = 0.97), stem girth (r = 0.75), number of inflorescent (r = 0.68), inflorescent length (0.64) and inflorescent width (r = 0.72). Prin. 1 accounted for the highest variation in growth and yield characters with proportion of 0.3376 and eigen value of 4.7269, while Prin. 14 was the least with proportion of 0.0003 and eigen value of 0.0038. Therefore, there could be genetic improvement of NG/AA/MAY/09/027 and NG/AO/11/08/039 genotypes for further improvement of Amaranthus.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), is an economic plant which belongs to Family Solanaceae and is widely consumed as food and other processed natural products. Tomato production areas are faced with economic losses due to early blight disease caused by Alternaria solani. Early blight disease reduce yield and renders fruit unmarketable, Cultural practices and fungicides are majorly adopted in the management of this disease. The use of tolerant varieties and Glomus clarum as alternatives which are environmental friendly necessitated this study. Therefore, this study investigated genetic resistance of tomato to early blight disease using Glomus clarum as revealed by SSR marker . Eight tomato accessions obtained from NACGRAB and Technoserve were evaluated, while Ojoo market accession served as check. The experimental treatments Control, Glomus clarum + Pathogen and Pathogen only were laid out in a complete randomized design with three replicates. The result showed that Rukuta Jubia and NGB00727 accessions had the highest mean values for stem girth (0.59cm) and leaf width (3.74cm) respectively, while Ojoo Market performed best for leaf length (6.78cm). Glomus clarum significantly (p˂0.05) influenced the resistance of NGB00727 to Alternaria  solani ,and enhanced the production of flowers (2.53) and  mean weight of  fruit per plant (0.94g). The NGB00727 accession showed the highest resistance to early blight disease, while NGB00754 accession was the most susceptible to Alternaria solani.

Plant mediated nanoparticles have been investigated to possess many applications in many fields such as pharmaceuticals, therapeutics and other commercial products. In this study, Copper/Cobalt bimetallic nanoparticles were synthesized by an eco-friendly and cost effective method using Palmyra palm fruit extract and characterized using various techniques such as UV-visible spectrophotometry and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry. Green synthesis method was used in obtaining the nanoparticles and the agar well diffusion method was used in evaluating the larvicidal activity. The resulting nanoparticles were evaluated to find possible application as nanolarvicide against first, second and third instar of Culex quinquefasciatus larvae in terms of percentage mortality. The lethal concentration values were LC50=12.036, LC90=143.316; LC50=14.774, LC90=263,456; LC50=16.076, LC90=296.758 ppm for the first, second, and third instars respectively implying moderate activity of this copper/cobalt nanoparticles. It could be concluded that copper-cobalt bimetallic nanoparticles synthesized using fruit extract of palmyra palm could be a potential nanolarvicide for mosquito larvae management. Contribution/Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature on Copper/Cobalt biological activity for control of mosquitoes in our environment.

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