Rice-based intensive cropping systems require high input levels making them less profitable and vulnerable to the reduced availability of labor and water in Asia. With continuous conventional puddled rice transplanting, the situation is exacerbated by damaged soil structure, declining underground water and decreasing land and water productivity. To minimize these negative effects a range of new crop establishment practices have been developed (zero tillage, dry direct seeding, wet direct seeding, water seeding, strip planting, bed planting, non-puddled transplanting of rice, mechanical transplanting of rice crop and combinations thereof) with varying effects on soil health, crop productivity, resource saving and global warming mitigation potential. Some of these allow Conservation Agriculture (CA) to be practiced in the rice-based mono-, double- and triple cropping systems. Innovations in machinery especially for smallholder farms have supported the adoption of the new establishment techniques. Non-puddling establishment of rice together with increased crop residue retention increased soil organic carbon by 79% and total N (TN) in soil by 62% relative to conventional puddling practice. Rice establishment methods (direct seeding of rice, system of rice intensification and non-puddled transplanting of rice) improve soil health by improving the physical (reduced bulk density, increased porosity, available water content), chemical (increased phosphorus, potassium and sulphur in their available forms) and biological properties (microbiome structure, microbial biomass C and N) of the soil. Even in the first year of its practice, the non-puddled transplanting method of rice establishment and CA practices for other crops increase the productivity of the rice-based cropping systems. Estimates suggest global warming potential (GWP) (the overall net effect) can be reduced by a quarter by replacing conventional puddling of rice by direct-seeded rice in the Indo-Gangetic Plains for the rice-based cropping system. Moreover, non-puddled transplanting of rice saves 35% of the net life cycle greenhouse gases (GHGs) compared with the conventional practice by a combination of decreasing greenhouse gases emissions from soil and increasing soil organic carbon (SOC). Though the system of rice intensification decreases net GHG emission, the practice releases 1.5 times greater N2O due to the increased soil aeration. There is no single rice establishment technology that is superior to others in all circumstances, rather a range of effective technologies that can be applied to different agro-climates, demography and farm typologies.

Thirty three genotypes of Brassica rapa L. were evaluated in order to find out their inter-genotypic variability; character association and path coefficient of seed yield/plant and its component characters. BARI sarisha-6 x TORI-7 S-45 showed best result in terms of early maturity (75 days) and higher seed yield/plant (5.28g) than check varieties. The character, plant height, was highly influenced by the environment whereas, all other characters influenced the least. Number of secondary branches/plant showed the highest phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation. Moreover, number of siliquae/plant, number of secondary branches/plant and number of primary branches/plant showed high heritability (93.16%, 75.69% and 68.03%, respectively) couple with high genetic advance in percent of mean (37.74%, 73.55% and 26.82%, successively). The seed yield/plant showed significant positive correlation with number of siliquae/plant (r g = 0.7011 ** , r p = 0.5684 ** ), number of primary branches/plant (r g = 0.5611 ** , r p = 0.4016 * ) and number of secondary branches/plant (r g = 0.5160 ** , r p = 0.4098 * ) revealing that selection based on these traits would be judicious. Path analysis showed that the number of siliquae/plant (0.4679), number of primary branches/plant (0.2823) and number of secondary branches/plant (0.0092) were the most important contributors to seed yield/plant. The results indicated that number of siliquae/plant, number of primary branches/plant and number of secondary branches/plant can be used as selection criteria to increase seed yield/plant in rapeseed.

To make potato production more sustainable for smallholder farmers, product diversification through processing is critical. On the other hand, the processing sector mandated some stringent standards in order to maintain product quality, hence potato quality evaluations are required for chip processing industries. Specific gravity, starch, reducing sugars, tuber dry matter, and chip color are all important characteristics to consider for processing. This study was designed to find suitable potato varieties with satisfactory attributes for processing chips, in comparison with other processing potato varieties. Keeping this in mind, the study was performed during the winter season of 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 in Bangladesh. Six processing types of potato varieties viz. BARI Alu-25 (Asterix), BARI Alu-28 (Lady Rosetta), BARI Alu-29 (Courage), BARI Alu-68 (Atlantic), BARI Alu-70 (Destiny), and BARI Alu-71 (Dolly) were evaluated for different quality parameters (specific gravity, dry matter, starch content, reducing sugar, chip color, and crispiness). The result of the study showed an ample variation in the studied parameters among the potato varieties. Among the varieties, BARI Alu-28 (Lady Rosetta) and BARI Alu-29 (Courage) were found better for all the quality parameters, such as dry matter, starch, reducing sugar, chip color, and crispiness, and could be recommended for the processing industries.

The article presents results of additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) and genotype (G) main effect and genotype by environment (GE) interaction (G × GE) biplot analysis of a multi environmental trial (MET) data of 15 sweetpotato varieties released from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute conducted during 2015-2018. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of genotype, environment and their interaction on tuber yield and to identify stable sweetpotato genotypes over the years. The experimental layout was a randomized complete block design with three replications at Gazipur location. Combined analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the main effects due to genotypes, environments and genotype by environment interaction were highly significant. The contribution of genotypes, environments and genotype by environment interaction to the total variation in tuber yield was about 60.16, 10.72 and 12.82%, respectively. The first two principal components obtained by singular value decomposition of the centred data of yield accounted for 100% of the total variability caused by G × GE. Out of these variations, PC1 and PC2 accounted for 71.5% and 28.5% of variability, respectively. The study results identified BARI Mistialu-5, BARI Mistialu-14 and BARI Mistialu-15 as the closest to the "ideal" genotype in terms of yield potential and stability. Varieties 'BARI Mistialu-8, BARI Mistialu-11 and BARI Mistialu-12' were also selected as superior genotypes. BARI Mistialu-3 and BARI Mistialu-13 was comparatively low yielder but was stable over the environment. Among them BARI Mistialu-12, BARI Mistialu-14 and BARI Mistialu-15 are rich in nutrient content while BARI Mistialu-8 and BARI Mistialu-11 are the best with dry matter content and organoleptic taste. Environments representing in 1 st and 3 rd year with comparatively short vectors had a low discriminating power and environment in 2 nd year was characterized by a high discriminating power.

Twenty one genotypes of pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata L.) were evaluated to measure the variability among the genotypes for several characters, estimate genetic parameters, association among the characters and their contribution to yield. There was a great deal of significant variation for all the characters among the genotypes. High variability was observed in number of female flowers/plant, number of male flowers/plant, single fruit weight and fruit yield/plant. All the characters except days to first male flowering and days to first female flowering showed high heritability along with high genetic advance in percent of mean. The positive and strong association of number of female flowers/plant (r g =0.918, r p =0.839), number of male flowers/plant (r g =0.687, r p =0.638), fruit length (r g =0.691, r p = 0.520), fruit breadth (r g =0.518, r p =0.420) and single fruit weight (r g =0.492, r p = 0.431) with fruit yield/plant revealed the importance of these characters in determining fruit yield/plant. On the other hand, days to first male flowering (r g = -0.623, r p = -0.550) and days to first female flowering (r g = -0.689, r p = -0.543) correlated significantly and negatively with fruit yield/plant. The path co-efficient analysis revealed that the highest positive direct effect was recorded in number of female flowers (0.887) to fruit yield and high direct effect was found in case of days to first female flowering (0.798). Fruit breadth was observed to have the highest positive indirect effect (0.899). In case of fruit length (0.381) and single fruit weight (0.398), the significant positive correlation with fruit yield/plant was observed because of the combination of the direct and indirect effects of fruit length and single fruit weight to fruit yield/plant. Overall, the results indicated that days to first female flowering, number of female flowers, fruit length, fruit breadth and single fruit weight can be used as useful selection criteria to increase fruit yield/plant in pumpkin.