Micronutrient malnutrition has been recognized as massive health issue, affecting over two billion people, mostly women, children and infants worldwide especially in developing countries. Agricultural approaches including crop based food products and micronutrient (Fe and Zn) biofortified crop cultivars can provide the most cost effective and sustainable solution for this problem. Micronutrient bio-fortification in agricultural crops can be done with conventional breeding strategies, because traits for micronutrient enrichment exist within their genomes and can be used for considerable micronutrient levels in food grain crops without any significant negative impact on crop productivity. In the efforts to address this problem, pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R.Br.), field trials were conducted during kharif 2013 and 2014, to investigate the magnitude of variation in Fe and Zn contents. Composition of the genotypes tested was not affected to an appreciable extent by the growing season. During kharif 2013 and 2014, Fe content in 92 diverse genotypes (Inbreds and B-lines) varied from 23 to 123 mg/kg and 28 to 101 mg/ kg while Zn content varied from 26 to 72 mg/kg and 34 to 70 mg/kg. The correlation co-efficient between Fe and Zn content was positive and highly significant (r =0.523 to 0.702, p<0.01) during both the seasons, indicating likely usefulness of simultaneous improvement of both the micronutrients. Four promising parental lines (HMS 53B, HMS 40b HMS14B and DPHBL 11-123) with >85 mg/kg grain Fe and >55 mg/kg grain Zn content, have the potential to be used as seed parents for development of Fe and Zn biofortified pearl millet hybrids or composites.

Eight chickpea STMS primers were used to amplify 31 genotypes of eight Vigna & one Phaseolus species collected from GBPUA & T, Pantnagar, PCPGR, Pantnagar & Banaras Hindu University Banaras. Number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 for STMS primer TA59, which varied in size from 100 to 500 bp. Amplification of genomic DNA of thirty one genotypes, yielded 10 fragments, with an overall mean of 0.8 alleles per locus of which 9 were polymorphic while the remaining one was monomorphic. The eight STMS primers show an overall of 95.833% polymorphism. The PIC value ranged from 0.54, for locus TA59, to 0.375, for locus TA27, with a mean of 0.29. The cluster analysis using the UPGMA method displayed three clusters with 2, 5 & 24 genotypes respectively. The locus-wise total gene diversity (HT) ranged from 0.177 at TA59 to 0.499 at TA27, with an overall mean of 0.354 & the major allele frequency ranged from 0.516 for TA27 to 0.8925 for TA59, with an overall mean of 0.740. Five out of the eight chickpea STMS primer-pairs were >70% successfully transferable across the Vigna & Phaseolus species. The highest level of successful amplifications with a single primer TA110 was 83.87%. The present study indicates that the locus-specificity, co-dominant nature & transferability of STMS markers permit the fast & high throughout fingerprinting of genotypes from one genus to other to estimate their genetic diversity.

A field experiment was carried out to study the vegetative growth and yield performance of Bottle Gourds- All India Co- ordinated Vegetable Improvement Project (AICVIP) varietal trials (AVT-I) were conducted from 2013 to 2014 at the Department of Vegetable Crops, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications, which included the seeds of the Bottle Gourds entries viz. 2012/BOGVAR-1, 2012/BOGVAR-2, 2012/BOGVAR-3, 2012/BOGVAR-4, 2012/BOGVAR-5, 2012/BOGVAR-6, 2012/BOGVAR-7, 2012/BOGVAR-8, NDBG-104 (C) and CO1 (LC) were chosen for this study. The Bottle gourd genotypes were sown with care in the field during the year 2013 to 2014 at the spacing of 300 X 75cm with the plot size of 7.5 m X 3.0 m. Significant differences were observed among the genotypes for growth and yield parameters. Among the different bottle gourds genotypes tested (AVT-I), the highest fruit yield (253.6 q/ha) was recorded in 2012/BOGVAR-5 followed by 2012/BOGVAR-8 (240.3 q/ha). Whereas the checks, NDBG-104 (C) and CO1-(LC) recorded the yield of 225.5 and 226.4 q/ha respectively.

Rice production in India depends on low land ecosystem and Rice varieties that can grow and produce well on upland are indispensable. Increasing the rice productivity remains a major concern due to change in climate variables and related factors. The use of in- vitro selection method for crop breeding has been widely used to improve the tolerant properties against biotic and abiotic factors. Germination of seeds and establishment of seedlings assume great significance for effective screening of genotypes for biotic and abiotic stresses. With this background, this study was aimed to screen traditional rice landraces for drought tolerance under in-vitro condition. Evaluation for drought tolerance during germination was accomplished by placing 100 seeds in germination paper with three replications in completely randomized design (CRD) using PEG 6000, at three levels of osmotic potential viz., (-) 10 bars, (-) 12.5 bars, and (-) 15 bars against a control. Significant mean sum of squares obtained for all the traits studied indicated the existence of variation among the genotypes. Under in-vitro condition, 15% of genotypes germinated at maximum osmotic potential (-) 15 bars, of which only six genotypes possessed > 40% germination efficiency. Among the six number of genotypes tested, Kuliyadichan recorded the highest root-shoot ratio (R/S) and signifies better source-sink relationship followed by Chandaikar, Mallikar, Mattaikar, Rajalakshmi and Sivappumalli. Hence it was concluded that these landraces, with highest drought tolerant potential, may be utilized in breeding programme to evolve drought tolerant varieties or hybrids.

The evaluation of germplasm is essential for its effective utilization in the silkworm crop improvement and sustainable maintenance of silkworm genetic resources. In the present study, bivoltine silkworm genetic resources comprising of 369 bivoltine silkworm genotypes (209 indigenous and 160 exotic) were evaluated on 11 important quantitative & qualitative parameters. Based on the performance, silkworm genotypes have been grouped into 20 clusters by Ward’s minimum variance cluster analysis. High variability was observed in the different genotypes for different parameters studied ranging 3.83 to 14.64% showing highly heterozygous in nature. Further the accessions are assigned the ranking based on the evaluation index of the performance in particular trait.