Highlights Genetic gain for rice grain yield for International Rice Research Institute drought breeding program was estimated. Positive trend of 0.68 %, 0.87 %, 1.9 % under irrigated control, moderate and severe drought achieved. Superiority of new rice varieties over currently grown demonstrated on farmers’ fields. International Rice Research Institute developed rice varieties can protect farmers from crop losses under drought conditions.

Bacterial blight (BB) and fungal blast diseases are the major biotic constraints that limit rice productivity. To sustain yield improvement in rice, it is necessary to developed yield potential of the rice varieties by incorporation of biotic stress resistance genes. Tellahamsa is a welladapted popular high yielding rice variety in Telangana state, India. However, the variety is highly susceptible to BB and blast. In this study, simultaneous stepwise transfer of genes through marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB) strategy was used to introgress two major BB (Xa21 and xa13) and two major blast resistance genes (Pi54 and Pi1) into Tellahamsa. In each generation (from F 1 to ICF 3) foreground selection was done using gene-specific markers viz., pTA248 (Xa21), xa13prom (xa13), Pi54MAS (Pi54) and RM224 (Pi1). Two independent BC 2 F 1 lines of Tellahamsa/ISM (Cross-I) and Tellahamsa/NLR145 (Cross-II) possessing 92% and 94% recurrent parent genome (RPG) respectively were intercrossed to develop ICF1-ICF 3 generations. These gene pyramided lines were evaluated for key agro-morphological traits, quality, and resistance against blast at three different hotspot locations as well as BB at two locations. Two ICF 3 gene pyramided lines viz., TH-625-159 and TH-625-491 possessing four genes exhibited a high level of resistance to BB and blast. In the future, these improved Tellahamsa lines could be developed as mega varieties for different agro-climatic zones and also as potential donors for different pre-breeding rice research.

Rice is the most important food crop both in value and volume for the Asian population. Frequent drought, flood and salinity stresses exacerbated by global climate change adversely affect rice production in more than fifty percent of the rice growing areas. Green revolution high yielding varieties carrying sd1 dwarfing gene have almost fully replaced the traditional climate resilient landraces and varieties of rice. However, these were bred primarily for yield under high input conditions and therefore are sensitive to adverse climatic conditions. Hence, there is urgent need to combine the high productivity with climate resilience. Knowledge of rice genome and genes for tolerance to different abiotic stresses provided us an opportunity to transfer favorable alleles of these genes into high yielding varieties through genomics-assisted backcross breeding through multi-institutional networks. Six consistent genomic regions (QTLs) for grain yield under drought; namely qDTY1.1, qDTY2.1, qDTY2.2, qDTY3.1, qDTY3.2 and qDTY12.1 have been transferred to flood tolerant versions of mega varieties of rice, Swarna, Samba Mahsuri and IR 64. To address the problem of flash flooding qSUB1 QTL has been transferred to nine popular rice varieties, namely ADT 46, Bahadur, Ranjit, HUR 105, Sarjoo 52, Pooja, Pratikshya MTU 1075 and Rajendra Mahsuri. Further, qSALTOL1 QTL for seedling stage salt tolerance and qSSISFH8.1 for reproductive stage salt tolerance have been transferred to six popular rice varieties, ADT 45, Gayatri, MTU 1010, PR 114, Pusa 44 and Sarjoo 52. We used foreground selection markers for the presence of desired gene/QTL and recombinant selection markers for reduction of linkage drag around these genes. Genotypic background selection was done after BC3F3 stage using a 50K SNP chip on a set of 20 advance lines obtained by phenotypic selection for closeness to the recipient parents. Near-isogenic lines (NILs) with more than 95% similarity to the recipient parent genome have been released and notified for commercial cultivation and are gaining fast popularity. These climate smart rice varieties will provide production stability in the adverse ecologies and support farmer’s income and livelihood.

Residues ofimidacloprid at 20 g a.i. ha-1 and lambda-cyhalothrin at 15 g a.i. ha-1 were estimated quantitatively by HPLC/GLC in/on brinjal fruits. Initial deposits of insecticides were higher in imidacloprid than lambda-cyhalothrin. Initial deposits of 0.652 mg kg-1 of imidacloprid dissipated to 93.17 per cent on 10 th day. In lambda-cyhalothrin the initial deposits were 0.138 mg kg-1 which dissipated to 92.75 per cent on 10 th day. The degradation of imidacloprid was relatively higher as compared to lambda-cyhalothrin. Both imidacloprid and lambda-cyhalothrin had half-life values of 1.92 and 2.65 days, respectively on brinjal fruits. The safe waiting period for imidacloprid was found 4.70 days. In lambda-cyhalothrin, no waiting period is required after its application as the initial deposits were less than its MRL (0.3 mg kg-1