India during winter season of 2013-14 to study the efficacy of exogenous application of salicylic acid (SA) on growth and yield in onion var. Agrifound Light Red. The experiment was laid out in RBD with four replication having six treatments of different sprays of SA including control. The results revealed exogenous application of SA significantly increased the better vegetative growth in terms of plant height (68.18 to 71.08 cm), collar thickness (16.90 to 18.51 mm) with higher level of chlorophyll content of leaves (31.53 to 33.01 SPAD) than untreated control (61.71 cm, 15.29 mm, 26.77 SPAD, respectively). Further among different times of SA application, foliar spray of SA at 30 days after sowing (DAS) in nursery, 30 and 45 or 60 days after transplanting (DAT) recorded significantly maximum vegetative parameters than rest of spray schedule. Similar trend was also recorded for bulb yield and yield attributing parameters. Spraying of SA at 3 times had better efficacy than 2 times of spraying in terms of bulb diameter (polar: 65.60 to 67.94 mm and equitorial: 49.10 to 49.80 mm), bulb weight (59.50 to 69.25 g), marketable bulb yield (180.91 to 183.10 qha-1) and total bulb yield (266.99 to 290.91 q ha-1). Hence, it may be concluded that application of SA at 30 DAS, 30 DAT and/ or 45 or 60 DAT not only increased the vegetative growth but also bulb yield in onion variety ALR.

Purple blotch, caused by Alternaria porri (Ellis) Cifferi, is a serious disease incurring heavy yield losses in the bulb and seed crop of onion and garlic worldwide. There is an immediate need for identification of effective resistance sources for use in host resistance breeding. A total of 43 Allium genotypes were screened for purple blotch resistance under field conditions. Allium cepa accession ‘CBT-Ac77’ and cultivar ‘Arka Kalyan’ were observed to be highly resistant. In vitro inoculation of a selected set of genotypes with A. porri, revealed that 7 days after inoculation was suitable to observe the disease severity. In vitro screening of 43 genotypes for resistance to A. porri revealed two resistant lines. An additional 14 genotypes showed consistent moderate resistance in the field as well as in vitro evaluations. Among the related Allium species, A. schoenoprasum and A. roylei showed the least disease index and can be used for interspecific hybridization with cultivated onion. Differential reaction analysis of three A. porri isolates (Apo-Chiplima, Apn-Nasik, Apg-Guntur) in 43 genotypes revealed significant variation among the evaluated Allium species (P = 0.001). All together, the present study suggest that, the newly identified resistance sources can be used as potential donors for ongoing purple blotch resistance breeding program in India.

Boron (B) is an essential micronutrient of mustard and play a vital role on its normal growth, and development. A study was conducted at (AEZ-20) Shiberbazar, Sylhet during November 2016-February 2017 quantify the effect of boron on yield and yield attributes of mustard , and different doses and form of B application. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was followed with three replications to design the study. Five B (boric acid) levels viz. T1 = basal application of B @ 2kg ha -1 ; T2 = foliar spray (FS) of B @ 0.5% at vegetative stage (VS) ; T3 = FS of B @ 1% at VS; T4 = FS of B @ 0.5% at VS + pod formation stage (PFS) and T5 = FS of B @ 1% at VS + PFS and T6 = control (no boron) were used. Results indicated that yield and yield attributes of mustard were significantly influenced by boron application. The effects of boron were significant on number of siliquae plant -1 , number of seeds siliqua -1 , seed yield, stover yield, 1000-seed weight, biological yield and harvest index (%). The highest number of siliquae plant -1 (35.93), number of seeds siliqua -1 (30.03), stover yield (1946.0 kg ha -1 ) and 1000-seed weight (3.617 g) were obtained from the treatment T5. The seed yield (801.17 kg ha -1 ) was found also in the treatment T5 which was over double than control (T6). Therefore, two times foliar application of B @1% at VS and PFS is a good option to increase yield and yield contributing characters of BARI

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SSR markers are considered to be the most ideal marker for genetic studies because they are multi-allelic, abundant, randomly and widely distributed throughout the genome, co-dominant that could differentiate plants with homozygous or heterozygous alleles, simple to assay, highly reliable, reproducible. Microsatellite markers are highly polymorphic and informative and could be successfully used for genome analysis in black gram & green gram. Microsatellite markers were used to evaluate genetic diversity in 17 indigenous cultivars of pulse crops (11 cultivars of green gram and 6 cultivars of black gram respectively). They are subjected to variability analysis with 26 microsatellite markers for identification efficient primers to conclude the nature of molecular diversity present among the pulses. The SSR primer G228 showed 63.63% of polymorphism followed by MB-SSR 238 (45.45%) and G006 (36.36%). The 12 microsatellite markers produced 15.90 % polymorphism with banding ranged up to 7 with an average of 2.3 polymorphic banding patterns per SSR primer. Similarly for black gram, three random microsatellite primers G006 (50%) and G166 and G204 (33.33%) revealed considerable DNA polymorphism. The 14 random SSR primers produced 8.33% of polymorphism with banding ranged up to three with an average of 1.28 polymorphic banding pattern per SSR primer. The Distinguish Power (D), Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) value and Marker Index (MI) values revealed some SSR primers like G006, G204 and G166 can alone amplified distinct banding pattern, where as a combination of (G228+G006), (G228+G304) for green gram and the combination (G006+G166) can be used for black gram for ascertaining genetic diversity at any stage of crop growth period for green gram or black gram. From the present study we can conclude that selective microsatellite markers are highly polymorphic, informative and easily reproducible, which can be successfully used either as single or with combination for molecular characterization of crop species belonging to Vigna species.