The field experiment was conducted to study the effect of application of spent wash as a potassium source on yield attributing characters and yield of maize crop near Godavari Bio-refineries at Sameerwadi (Karnataka) during Kharif 2012 by using randomized block design with seven treatments and four replications. The soils were sandy clay loam in texture. The recommended potassium dose to the maize crop (150:75:37.5 N:P2O5:K2O kg/ha) was supplied through spent wash at 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150 and 200 per cent levels. From this experiment, it was observed that the application of spent wash to substitute 50 per cent (T3) of recommended dose of potassium significantly improved the yield attributing characters viz., length of cob and its circumference, grains per cob, weight of 100 grains, grain and stover yield of maize compared to the higher levels of spent wash application (75, 100, 150 and 200 per cent), respectively. The application of spent wash in conjunction with potassic fertilizer (MOP) each at 50 per cent (T3) level to supply recommended dose of potassium to the crop produced grain yield of 7.3 t ha-1¬ that was on par with T1 treatment which received recommended dose of potassium through only chemical fertilizer (MOP) and T2 treatment which received recommended dose of potassium through spent wash at 25 per cent substitution level but, significantly superior to the treatment T4 and thereafter, received spent wash at higher levels.

The study was conducted in the Vishweshwariah channel of Cauvery command area in Karnataka state of India. A total sample of 426 households were involved in diverse non-farm activities. Depending on the nature, the non-farm activities are classified into five different economic categories like agricultural services, trade and commerce, manufacturing and processing units, service and repairs and final category as traditional services. To determine the factors affecting households to take up different non-farm activities, multiple discriminant analysis was used in the study. From the data, six important variables like age of family head, education, number of working adults in the family, land holding, investment on non-farm activity and annual non-farm income have been chosen as predictors for discriminating the groups. For five groups and six variables, four linear discriminant functions are obtained. The study reveals that the first two discriminant functions explain a maximum variability of 85 per cent with an Eigen value of 0.197 and 0.061 respectively. From the standardized discriminant canonical coefficients of the four discriminant functions reveals that the variables such as age, education, land holding and the number of working adults in the family have more discriminating power to classify a household into five groups.

Development and use of an objective criterion for selecting a few potential crosses to maximize the frequency of superior pure-lines would help increase the pace and efficiency of any self-pollinating species with Dolichos bean being no exception to this. Probability of RILs that transgress the parental and/or any pre-determined rangecan be predicted based on additive [d], additive × additive epistatic gene effects [i] and additive genetic variance (σ2A) estimated in initial selfing and/or backcross generations derived from a cross. An investigation was conducted to predict and validate the frequency of F5 RILs derived from HA 10-8 × RIL 180 that surpass the limits of their parental phenotypes and of check variety, HA 4 for nine quantitative traits.A fairly good agreement was observed between observed and predicted frequency of RILs that transgressed higher scoring parent only for primary branches plant-1. On the other hand, good agreement was noticed between observed and predicted frequency of RILs that transgressed the lower scoring parent for dry pod yield plant-1 and 100-dry seed weight. The agreement between predicted and observed frequency of RILs that transgressed either of the parent was rather poor for plant height, primary branches plant-1, racemes plant-1, raceme length, dry pods plant-1 and dry seed plant-1. The poor agreement between predicted and observed frequency of RILs for these traits was attributed to linkage disequilibrium between the genes controlling these traits.

The effects of different growing conditions (open field and polyhouse) were investigated on stevioside and rebaudioside-A content of Stevia rebaudiana plant. The experimental results revealed that stevioside and rebaudioside-A content were maximum at pre-flowering growth phase followed by flowering and post-flowering phase under both experimental conditions. Leaves showed maximum stevioside (9.19%) and rebaudioside-A content (7.00%) under polyhouse and open field conditions, respectively. However, minimum stevioside and rebaudioside-A content (< 1.00%) was observed in green and woody stem.

Eight parental lines of okra and their 28 F1 hybrids obtained from half diallel were studied to investigate the extent of heterosis for yield and its attributes. The magnitude of heterosis varied in all the crosses for the characters studied. Maximum positive heterosis for fruit yield per plant over better parent and standard check (JOH 2) was observed to be 62.12 and 44.11 per cent, respectively. The cause of heterosis may be due to its component traits, viz., days to first flowering, nodes per plant, length of inter node, fruit weight and fruits per plant. The best hybrid AOL 09-25 x AOL 09-26 recorded 44.11 per cent heterosis for yield over standard check, may be exploited for commercial cultivation.