In tropical countries, high temperature stress is the major abiotic stress, which controls the productivity and yield of crop plants. Two high yielding and low yielding genotypes of durum wheat were selected for detailed analysis of their photochemical efficiencies. In low yielding genotypes (Malvi local and Sawer local), the whole primary photochemical reactions are affected before and after heat stress. The results show that low yielding genotypes show less efficiency in the usage of the available excitation energy. This is a case study to establish use of chlorophyll a fluorescence measurement as an effective tool to screen plants for their stress tolerance. The study is important for stress physiology and may be useful for assessment of stress tolerant plants.

:The field experiment was carried out during Rabi season of 2012-013 and 2013-14 at Indore (M.P) to find out the performance of different wheat and lentil inter and mixed cropping systems on the productivity and profitability of late sown wheat.Treatments tested were wheat sole, lentil sole, wheat (line sowing)+lentil (broadcasted), wheat (broadcasted)+ lentil (line sowing), wheat+ lentil (mixed sowing of 100% seed rates of both), wheat+ lentil (mixed sowing of 50% seed rates of both), wheat+ lentil (1:1 row ratio), wheat+ lentil (2:1 row ratio), wheat+ lentil (2:2 row ratio) and wheat+ lentil (3:1 row ratio). Results indicated that line sowing of wheat at 20 cm a part rows + broad cast sowing of lentil as @ 30kg seed/ha recorded higher values of no. of fertile tillers/m 2 , length of spike (cm), number of spikelet/spike, grain yields (5.81 and 5.93 t/ha), biological yields (14.8 and 14.8 t/ha), wheat grain equivalent yields (5.94 and 5.99 t/ha) and land equivalent ratio (1.06 and 1.09) than wheat sole along with a bonus yield of lentil grain to the tune of 50 and 20 kg/ha during first and second years, respectively. Similar trend was observed fornet benefits and on mean data basis treatment line sowing of wheat + broad casting of lentil recorded highest values of net returns (Rs.55675=00) and B:C ratio (2.65). Hence, for getting higher and economic wheat productivity, broad casting of lentil can be done in line sowing of wheat and can be recommended to farmers practice in Central India.Key Words : Intercropping, Grain, Biological yield, Land equivalent ratio, Lentil, Mixed cropping, Wheat, Wheat equivalent yield View Point Article : Sharma, K.C., Parmar, P.S., Solanki, K.S., Singh, A.K. and Saiprasad, S.V. (2018). Inter/mixed cropping of lentil (Lens culinaris) in late sown wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for higher productivity and profitability of wheat in vertisols of Central India. Internat.

Malnutrition due to micronutrients and protein deficiency is recognized among the major global health issues. Genetic biofortification of wheat varieties is both cost-effective and sustainable strategy to contain global micronutrient and protein malnutrition. Genomic regions governing grain zinc concentration (GZnC), grain iron concentration (GFeC), grain protein content (GPC), test weight (TW), and thousand kernel weight (TKW) were investigated in a set of 183 diverse bread wheat genotypes through genome wide association study (GWAS). The RIL population was genotyped using Breeders' 35K Axiom Array and phenotyped in three environments during 2019-2020. A total of 55 marker-trait associations (MTAs) were identified, of which four significant MTAs for GFeC on chromosome 2B, 3A, 3B, 6A and two for GZnC on chromosomes 1A and 7B. Further, a stable SNP was detected for TKW and also identified pleiotropic regions controlling GPC and TKW. In silico analysis revealed a few important putative candidate genes viz., F-box-like domain superfamily, Zinc finger CCCH-type proteins, Serine-threonine/tyrosine-protein kinase, Histone deacetylase domain superfamily and SANT/Myb domain superfamily proteins, etc. The identified novel MTAs will be validated to estimate their effects on different genetic backgrounds for subsequent use in marker-assisted selection (MAS).