Uranium is a naturally occurring element, which is widespread in nature. It is found in low levels within all rocks, soils and water. Peddagattu and Seripally areas of Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, India were known as a rich uranium mineralised zone. Atomic mineral division and Baba Atomic Research Center proposed a uranium mine in this area. This study was carried out to know the distribution of uranium concentration in the groundwater samples by using laser fluorimetry. The observation reveals that the uranium concentration in the groundwater of this region ranges from 0.6 to 521.15 ppb. About 43 % of the groundwater samples had the uranium concentration above the standards set by United States Environmental Protection Agency (30 ppb).

The study was conducted for exploring the effect of Dropp ultra and Ethrel, their application rates and time of application on two American cotton cultivars. The experiment was carried out at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Nandyal with cultivars NH615 and Sivanandi for two consecutive seasons from 2015-2017 in split plot design with three replications. Application of defoliants like Dropp ultra SC (Thidiazuron 360 + Diuron 180) 200 and 250 ml/ha, Ethrel 1500, 2000 and 3000 ppm were carried at 120 and 140 days after sowing respectively. The results of the study indicated that defoliation with Dropp ultra 250 ml/ha recorded higher percentage of defoliation (92.3) and higher seed cotton yield (2207 kg/ha). Application of defoliants at 140 days after sowing significantly recorded higher yields. There was no difference between the treatments in terms of fibre length and fibre strength. However fibre fineness and uniformity ratio were significantly affected by application of defoliants.

<span>Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food legume cultivated in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. It is known that chickpea thrives well under drought prone condition. However, heat stress during reproductive development can cause significant yield loss and there is a greater variability for yield performance of chickpea under heat stress. It is extremely important to develop screening tools for identification of thermotolerant chickpea genotypes in view of increase in average global temperatures.  In this context, a lab experiment was conducted to standardize the temperature induction response (TIR) protocol for chickpea seedlings using WGC-450 programmable plant growth chamber. Temperatures were standardized as sub lethal i.e. challenging temperatures as 38-480C (for 4 hours &amp;30 min) and lethal temperatures as 500C (for 3 hours). This technique can be used as a potential tool to identify and select temperature tolerant lines at the seedling stage from a large population. A set of diverse chickpea germplasm comprising of 57 genotypes were screened for intrinsic tolerance using the standardized Thermo Induced Response (TIR) protocol. Among the genotypes NBeG-528,NBeG-458,NBeG-511,NBeG-177,NBeG-747,NBeG-732 and VIHAR showed highest thermo tolerance in terms of higher seedling survival with no reduction in root and shoot growth. The genotypes with intrinsic heat tolerance can be explored for the development of varieties suitable for late sown conditions in Andhra Pradesh where chickpea is prone to terminal heat stress.</span>

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important grain legume in the world. Development of reliable tissue culture protocols is very important for genetic transformation studies. Direct shoot bud differentiation and multiple shoot induction from embryonal axes explants of chickpea varieties with combination of growth regulators in NBeG-3 and NBeG-72 was tried at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Nandyal in 2015-16. Explants were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium augmented with different concentrations of Benzyl amino purine (BAP), Napthalene acetic acid (NAA), Kinetin and Indole acetic acid (IAA). The frequency of shoot bud regeneration was influenced by the preconditioning of explants with 6mg/l BAP and 0.5mg/l thidiazuron (TDZ) for 10 days resulted in enhanced frequency of multiple shoots. Among the various concentrations tested, 4.0 mg/l BAP and 2.0 mg/l Napthalene acetic acid (NAA) were found to be the best for maximum shoot bud differentiation. Elongation of multiple shoots were obtained in MS medium with the concentration 0.5 mg/l gibberillic acid (GA3). Among the tested varieties there was a variation in regeneration ability with fastest shoot bud initiation (18.5 days), and highest number of shoots per explant (5.3) and highest shoot length (3.5 cm) in NBeG 3.

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