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Thirty-six F1 hybrids were generated from nine lines and four testers through line x tester mating design, these F1’s along with 13 parents and 1 commercial check (Punjab-8) were evaluated to study the magnitude and direction of heterosis for growth and earliness over various characters in okra. Heterosis was studied to compare traits such as days to 50% flowering, days to picking, plant height, number of internodes, number of branches per plant, fruit length at commercial maturity and final maturity, number of fruits per plant, number of seeds per fruit, 100 seed weight, fruit weight, and yield per plant. Significant heterosis was found over better parent (Heterobeltiosis), mid parent and commercial checks for all the traits studied in desirable direction. The present study showed that the crosses L3 x T2 (19.04, 15.41, 8.28), L5 x T2 (41.90, 14.55, 7.47), L8 x T3 (23.75, 6.48, 8.46) recorded significant positive heterosis for yield per plant over mid parent, better parent and over standard check. Same hybrid L3 x T2 exhibited negative and highly significant heterosis for days to 50% flowering and days to first picking (-11.65,-12.00, -8.33) and (-11.79, -12.12, -15.94) respectively that are earliness character over mid parent, better parent and standard check. These hybrids may further be tested over various locations before release for commercial cultivation. High estimates of heterosis obtained in hybrid combinations revealed considerable genetic divergence among the parental lines and reveals good scope for commercial exploitation of heterosis in okra.

Peanut production is growing annually in Brazil, but with frequent droughts throughout the country, it is necessary to identify an earliness germplasm for the improved environmental adaptation of peanuts. Here, a mini-core collection of peanuts was studied to select germplasms for further use in breeding, with a focus on dry environments. Twelve agronomic traits were adopted and later used in multivariate methods based on hierarchical models (UPGMA) and graphical dispersion (canonical variables), which aimed to identify earliness accession clusters. Statistically significant differences were found for most traits, indicating that there was genetic variability among accessions. Multivariate analyses subsequently revealed coherence in the formation of three clusters, one of which (G3: PI-268-689 and AHK-85-3) combined the most promising accessions for pod production and reproductive efficiency, previously identified through analysis of variance. Therefore, both germplasms are recommended here for use in future breeding studies focused on water-restricted environments.

Gene effects associated with earliness and yield-related traits offer an advantage in the selection ofappropriate breeding strategies to bring improvement of fruit yield in Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Therefore,a generation mean analysis study was conducted to investigate the gene effects present in traits like plantheight, days to first female flower, number of female flower-bearing nodes, number of lateral branches, daystook to first fruit harvest, fruit length fruit and fruit width using three cross combinations viz., Pusa Barkha ×Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, Pusa Uday × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Punjab Naveen × PusaParthenocarpic Cucumber-6. All six generations P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1P1 and BC2P2 were developed. Scaling testresults indicated that the simple additive-dominance model is inefficient to describe gene effects in all threecrosses and interallelic interactions are present for all traits under study. Additive gene effects were significantin at least one cross out of three crosses for all traits under study except the number of lateral branches and fruitwidth. In cross Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, a significant negative dominant gene effectwas recorded for days to the first female flower and days took to first fruit harvest which indicates earliness inthis cross combination. For the number of female flower-bearing nodes, significant positive dominant effectswere present in cross combinations of Pusa Barkha × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Pusa Uday × PusaParthenocarpic Cucumber-6. For fruit length, Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 combinationpossessed significant additive gene effect which can be tapped through a simple selection procedure

Late-sowing and high-density cultivation are typical cotton planting models that are widely applied in the Yellow River Valley of China. The model can easily lead to late maturity and reduced yields. Plant topping and ethephon spraying have been shown to improve cotton earliness and yields. However, the optimal topping date and ethephon concentration are yet to be established. A two-year field experiment (2020–2021) was thus conducted to assess the effects of spraying high-concentration ethephon and early topping on the growth, yield, and earliness of cotton under late-sowing and high-density cultivation models. The experiment employed a split-plot design, in which the main plots were sprayed with varying ethephon concentrations (2000 mL/ha, E2000; 4000 mL/ha, E4000; 6000 mL/ha, E6000), while subplots were plant topping dates (T13, 13 July, early-topped; T20, 20 July, suitable-topped; T27, 27 July, late-topped). Higher ethephon concentrations (E4000) increased the earliness of early-topped (T13) plants. Boll-setting and boll-opening rates increased by 12.00% and 16.83% in T13 plants, respectively, relative to T27 plants. However, the shedding rate for T13 plants decreased by 12.00%. Earliness and harvest index (HI) for the T13 plants were higher than those of the T27 plants by 8.01% and 18.91%, respectively. Even though the T13 plant yield decreased slightly, their boll weight increased by 3.99% and 12.27%, respectively, relative to those of the T20 and T27 plants. Earliness increased with increasing ethephon concentration. In conclusion, early topping and higher ethephon concentrations can effectively improve cotton yield and earliness.

The study, conducted at the research area of Raja Wala farm, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, assessed the sunflowers’ (Helianthus annuus L.) early maturity and yield improvement. Experimental material came from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Research Centre. Cytoplasmic male sterile lines and restorers, grown in the field, had their data gathered regarding early maturity. Then, the crossing of selected lines employed the line × tester design. The following season, the resulting crosses and their parents’ evaluation proceeded in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) using three replications. The crosses declared as best hybrids in terms of early maturity and yield were 7-A × 86-R, 11-A × 83-R, 23-A × 81-R, 25-A × 80- R, 25-A × 94-R, and 27-A × 80-R. These best hybrids further underwent oil content and quality analysis. The crosses 23-A × 81-R and 25-A × 80-R revealed good performance for oil contents (palmitic, stearic, linoleic, and oleic acids) and quality traits like early maturing with better yield. Using RAPD markers, the authenticity assessment of the best hybrids through the presence and absence of bands compared with parents ensued. These hybrids will be helpful in future breeding programs for the development of early maturing varieties with improved achene yield and quality, which is rare in Pakistan. This material will also help develop the required hybrids.

Breeding has significantly improved drought tolerance in green gram but marked yield losses continue due to damage by insect pests. Important pests of green gram are pod borers, Maruca vitrata (F.), aphids, Aphis gossypii Glover and whiteflies, Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood). Management of these pests has partly been constrained by the limited understanding of crop traits that modulate their infestation. Field experiments were conducted in southeastern Kenya to evaluate a collection of old and new green gram varieties for tolerance to field pests, and to identify traits that confer resistance. The old varieties were KS20 and N26, both released in 1990s whereas the modern counterparts were Biashara, Karembo, and Ndengu-Tosha. Results showed significant differences among the varieties in maturity, leaf area, leaf hair density, leaf moisture content, and pod wall thickness. Earliness significantly reduced pest infestation, whereby KS20 matured early while N26 was late, and the new varieties were intermediate. On average, across the three environments, leaf area (R2 ≥ 0.32) and leaf moisture content (R2 ≥ 0.18) positively correlated with pest infestation while leaf hair density (R2 ≥ 0.30), and pod wall thickness (R2 ≥ 0.54) showed a negative association with pod borer and aphid counts. However, results did not reveal any particular traits that associated with the varieties, which implied that breeding of green gram in Kenya has not selected for tolerance to field pests. Nonetheless, green gram field pest management practices could select for varieties with early maturity, open plant canopy, pubescent leaves, and thicker pod walls.

Knowledge of productivity and genetic control of the rate of ultra-early lines development will facilitate their use in breeding of common wheat Tritium aestivum L. for high adaptive capacity. The research focused on ultra-early lines Rico (k-65588), Rimax (k-67257) (progeny of F3 Rico × ‘Max’, k-57181), Fori 1-8 line series (progeny of F4 ‘Photon’ × Rico) and Rifor 1-13 (progeny of F7-8 Rico × ‘Forlani Roberto’), as well as on the accessions ‘Photon’ (k-55696) and ‘Forlani Roberto’ (k-42641). The varieties ‘Leningradskaya 6’ (k-64900) and ‘Leningradskaya 97’ (k-62935) were used as standards in VIR, and ‘Chelyaba 2’ (k-64379) was used in Сhelyabinsk ARI. The alleles of Vrn and Ppd genes were identified by PCR using the published allele-specific primers. Responses to vernalization (30 days at 3°C) and to a short 12-hour day were determined according to the VIR guidelines. The ultra-earliness of common wheat lines is associated with the presence of dominant alleles Vrn-A1, Vrn-B1, Vrn-D1, Ppd-B1, Ppd-D1, and possibly Eps. The shortest emergence-to-heading period at two experimental locations was noted for Rico (39.9 ± 1.49 days), which is 14.8 ± 1.22 days earlier than the development of region-adapted varieties. The Rico genotype contains Vrn-A1, Vrn-B1, Vrn-D1, Ppd-B1 and Ppd-D1. In the Rimax genotype, different alleles of the Ppd-D1 and Vrn-B1 genes were found, possibly being a result of recombination processes in Rico × ‘Max’ hybrids. Under a short photoperiod (12 hours), the Rico and Rimax genes can interact in a cumulative polymeric mode, which is not the case in long-day environments. Unlike other Rifor lines, Rifor 4 and Rifor 5, as well as ‘Forlani Roberto’, have a recessive vrn-A1a allele. However, Rifor 4 and Rifor 5 do not respond to vernalization, while ‘Forlani Roberto’ is responsive to this factor. The absence of response to vernalization in Rifor 4 and Rifor 5 possessing the recessive vrn-A1a allele is possibly provided by a complex of modifier genes along with the dominant Vrn-D1 gene, which was formed during recombination in F7-8 Rico × ‘Forlani Roberto’ hybrids. Recombinants of spring common wheat, combining ultra-earliness and relatively high ear productivity, have been identified. Grain yield per 1 m2 of new ultra-early lines in some years can reach 90% of that of the ‘Leningradskaya 97’. It is expedient to use ultra-early lines as donors of high-rate development in common wheat breeding, considering genetic peculiarities of the source lines.

Aim: Determine the degree of heterosis for the yield and earliness component qualities in order to generate hybrids for early and high yield through heterosis breeding. Study Design: The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Vegetable Research in Varanasi, which is located about 20 kilometres to the southwest of the city on the Ganga River's bank at an elevation of 128.93 metres above mean sea level and lies between 82.52 degrees east and 25.10 degrees north (MSL). The experiment was carried out in late Kharif in 2015 and 2016, as well as in the summer of 2017. Methodology: In total 33 crosses were developed using 14 tomato genotypes, including the tomato leaf curl virus susceptible variety Punjab Chhuhara and the advanced breeding line H-88-78-2, a mutant resistant to leaf curl with altered inflorescence and ripening, in order to evaluate the heterosis for earliness and yield attributes. Three cultivars were the male parents (testers), while eleven cultivars were the female parents (line). As a result, 33 tomato hybrids were developed adopting the line tester method. Each line in this design is paired with one of the "t" testers using a random sample of "I" lines. Over the better parent, the mid parent, and the standard/check (Arka Rakshak) heterosis was estimated according to Singh and Chaudhary (1979). Results: Based on results from both seasons, the cross P7×P13 showed the highest significant negative heterosis per cent for earliest traits like days to first flower (-46.43, -43.80), days to 50% flowering (-35.66, -50.00), and days to first ripening (-30.09, -28.74) over superior parent in first and second seasons, respectively. The hybrid P9×P13 displayed the highest significant heterosis per cent for the features linked to yield in the first and second seasons, for the number of fruits per plant (71.78, 592.04) and yield per plant (75.11, 425.88). The outcome showed that minimum days of first blooming and first ripening are indicative of earliness, and the maximum yield per plant was associated with the highest possible number of fruits per plant. Conclusion: Based on the results of both seasons, it was determined that the tomato mutant (P13) generated hybrids had low and negative heterosis for qualities associated to earliness and high and positive heterosis for traits related to yield. As a result, the number of fruits per plant and the number of days before the first fruit ripens are better measures of output and earliness. By altering this particular attribute, it would be possible to improve productivity with early crops. Breeders should therefore concentrate largely on the number of fruits and the days to first ripening in order to achieve a high and early yield.

Araştırmanınamacı, Antalya ekolojik koşullarında plastik serada saksıda yetişen Aurora, Ninfa ve Roxanakayısı çeşitlerinde erkenciliği sağlamaktır. Bitkiler içerisinde %60torf:%40 çiftlik gübresi karışımı bulunan 30 litrelik saksılardayetiştirilmiştir. Bitkilere kontrol, %2.5 Dormex, 200 ppm GA3 vesoğuk depoda (30 gün/720 saat) uygulamaları yapılmıştır. Daha sonra plastikseralara taşınmışlar ve meyve hasatları yapılıncaya kadar plastik seradabekletilmişlerdir. Deneme süresince bitkilerde bazı fenolojik ve pomolojiközellikler belirlenmiştir. Kayısı çeşitleri arasında, en erken çiçeklenme vehasada gelme bakımından %2.5 Dormex uygulanmış Ninfa olmuştur. Diğer taraftan,soğukta bekletilmiş Ninfa, meyve tutumu ve bitki başına verim bakımından en iyisonuçları vermiştir. En iyi suda çözünebilir kuru madde miktarı 200 ppm GA3uygulanmış Roxana çeşidinden elde edilmiştir. Araştırma sonuçları, Antalyaekolojik koşulları için Ninfa gibi soğuklama ihtiyacı düşük çeşitlerinseçiminin önemliliğini göstermiştir. Aurora ve Roxana çeşitlerinin kontrolbitkileri meyve verimleri düşük olmuştur. Bu durum soğuklamanın yeterli karşılanamamasıile ilgili olabilir. Aynı uygulamalar yapılmasına rağmen, sera koşullarındayetişen kayısılarda dış koşullarda ortamda yetişenlere göre yaklaşık 7-10 günerkencilik sağlanmıştır., Theaim of this research was to induce earliness in apricot cultivars Aurora, Ninfaand Roxana grown in containersin greenhouse under the Antalya environmental conditions. The plants were plantedin 30 L black plastic containers filled with peat: manure (%60:%40) mixture.The plants were treated with control, Dormex 2.5%, 200 ppm gibberellic acid (GA3)and artificial chilling (30 days/720 hours at 5 oC). Then they were transferred into thegreenhouse, and kept there until harvest. During the vegetation periods, somephenological and pomological parameters were determined. Among the apricotcultivars, Ninfa treated with Dormex %2.5 was the earliest one in flowering andharvesting time. On the other hand, artificial chilled Ninfa was the best interms of fruit set ratio and yield. The better results were recorded in respectto soluble solid content in Roxana cultivars treated with 200 ppm GA3.Theresults showed that selection of suitable cultivars such as Ninfa for Antalyaclimatic conditions in apricots seemed quite important. Aurora and Roxanaapricots were poor in fruit sets in control plants. The low production could berelated to inadequate chill requirements. About 7 to 10 days earliness in fruitharvesting can be obtained in selected apricot cultivars under the sameconditions when all the required treatments and cultivation practices areproperly followed.

Thirty-six genotypes of chilli (Capsicum spp.) from diverse sources were evaluated at the Regional Spices Research Station, BARI, Gazipur during February 2017 to November 2018 to select the promising genotype(s) for breeding. Distinct variation among the genotypes was observed in all the qualitative parameters except seed colour and fruiting behavior. The genotype CO 525 and CO 634 took minimum days for 1st flowering (50 days) and first fruit set (59 days), while the genotype CO 633 took the maximum for 1st flowering and first fruit set (125 and 141 days). Plant height ranged from 46 cm (CO 610) to 119cm (CO613). Single fruit weight ranged from 0.72 g (CO629) to 7.81g (CO642), while fruit length ranged from 2.90cm (CO645) to 12.68 cm (CO631). Pedicel length was maximum in CO643 (5.52 cm) and minimum in CO639 (1.50 cm). The genotype CO 611-2 had the maximum number of fruits/plant (342) whereas the genotype CO640 had the minimum no. of fruits/plant (41.33). The genotype CO631 produced the maximum weight of fruits/plant (628.33g). The maximum number of fresh seeds was obtained from CO635 (93.20/fruit) and it was the lowest in C0645 (18). The highest weight of fresh seeds/fruit was obtained from CO525 (0.61 g) and the lowest from CO 639 (0.13 g). The maximum fruit yield was recorded from CO 631 (23.88 t/ha) closely followed by CO635 (19.21 t/ha) and CO 637 (19.12 t/ha). Results revealed that the genotypes differed significantly in most of the parameters and offer a good scope for selection of better genotypes as parents for the desired traits. Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 45(3): 335-348, September 2020

Background. Development of early-ripening high-yielding cultivars of spring bread wheat is a complicated and difficult process. Striving for higher yields has triggered a trend to prolong the growing season pf the cultivars released by the Tatar Research Institute of Agriculture (TatRIA). Our breeding efforts to produce early cultivars, based on using an early-ripening sample as one of the parents, were unsuccessful. This paper presents a search for solutions to the said problem.Materials and methods. We studied spring bread wheat accessions from the collections of the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) and Baicheng Academy of Agricultural Sciences (China) as well as promising lines developed by TatRIA. The study of the material was based on conventional spring bread wheat breeding methods. Phenological phases of wheat development were identified using the Zadoks scale.Results. An ambiguous role played by the vernalization response (Vrn) and photoperiod sensitivity (Ppd) genes in wheat earliness was shown, which is consistent with the data repeatedly presented in other publications. We identified accessions with the shortest period from sprouting to heading. Under our climate conditions, the earliest cultivars were those from Novosibirsk Province, Russia, and the North-Eastern China, where wheat development from sprouting to heading lasted 36–46 days.

Real-life project scheduling environments are often dynamic and subject to disruption. Early or late completion of interrupted projects can create costs for the business. At the same time, there is an alternative to producing multiple projects at multiple different costs. In this study, a new mixed integer linear programming model that minimizes the sum of weighted earliness and tardiness penalties and mode selection costs is proposed to solve the real-life problem faced by a boutique furniture company. A proposed dynamic model also considers the cost of deviation from the baseline schedule in case disruption scenarios corrupt the resulting baseline schedule. The problems are solved with the CPLEX solver using the GAMS program. The results show that the interruption scenarios partially change the baseline schedule and increase the total cost. In case of more than one interruption in the same schedule, the number of late completed activities and their delay times increased.

In Earliness-Tardiness (E/T) scheduling approach, the Just-In-Time (JIT) schedule is a schedule with zero earliness and zero tardiness. However, this is an optimal schedule and even notional in some instances where tardiness and earliness are inevitable. However, minimizing the deviation at the upper region (tardiness) and the lower region (earliness) from the JIT schedule is a challenge. This work proposes solutions. Two proposed heuristics; TA1 and TA2 as well as some existing heuristics were explored to solve simulated problems ranging from 5≤n≤400 and the results obtained were benchmarked against the JIT schedule. The results obtained show that one of the heuristics, TA2 yielded JIT schedules for many problem sizes at the lower and upper deviation than other solution methods.

This paper proposes exact algorithms to generate optimal timing schedules for a given sequence of operations in job shops to minimize the total weighted earliness and tardiness. The algorithms are proposed for two job shop scheduling scenarios, one involving due dates only for the last operation of each job and the other involving due dates for all operations on all the jobs. Computational experiments on benchmark problem instances reveal that, in the case of the scheduling scenario involving due dates only for the last operation of each job, the proposed exact algorithms generate schedules faster than those generated using a popular optimization solver. In the case of the scheduling scenario involving due dates for all operations on all the jobs, the exact algorithms are competitive with the optimization solver in terms of computation time for small and medium size problems.

To estimate the extent of heterosis in sunflower for earliness and oil content, ninety-six hybrids were tested in line × tester mating fashion consisting of six CMS lines and sixteen testers (10 R × R S3 high oil content restorer lines and 6 R × R S4 early restorer lines) were evaluated in a simple lattice design, simultaneously parents were also evaluated in RCBD design at Main Agricultural Research Station, Hebbal, Bangalore during summer 2020-21. Analysis of variances revealed that the genotypes, parents, lines, crosses and parent vs crosses showed highly significant differences for earliness and oil content. The high oil content hybrids viz., CMS 903A × 5-2-1 (79.50 days) and CMS 903A × 44-2-1 (80 days), and early hybrids i.e., CMS 903A × 2-3-1-2 (76 days) and NDCMS4A × 2-3-1-2 (78.50 days) recorded good mean performance and high significant heterosis for earliness in a negative direction over the standard check KBSH-44 (National check). With regard to the oil content, the high oil content hybrids like NDCMS2A × 30-10-1 (41.63%), CMS 903A × 38-4-1 (41.61%) and CMS 234A × 38-4-1 (41.61%), in the case of early hybrids viz., CMS 911A × 25-2-4-2 (41.11%), CMS 911A × 4-1-3-1 (39.69%) and CMS 911A × 2-3-1-2 (39.59%) were showed good mean performance and highest significant standard heterosis over the standard checks like KBSH-44 and KBSH-53. Similarly, regarding the seed yield plant-1 (g), the hybrids viz., CMS 911A × 8-5-5-1[E] (70.60g), CMS 234A × 31-1-1[H] (66.20g) and CMS 1103A × 30-10-1[H] (65.95g) were manifested desirable mean performance and also higher significant heterosis over standard check KBSH-44.

The present study was carried out in 9 diverse parents, their 36 hybrids and 2 checks evaluated during Rabi 2020-21 at Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Mpuat, Udaipur in RBD with three replications in three different environments in wheat for earliness and heat tolerant traits viz., days to 50 per cent flowering, leaf canopy temperature, total protein content in grains, heat injury, proline content and total chlorophyll content on pooled basis. The pooled analysis for above characters revealed that mean squares due to environments, genotypes, parents, crosses as well as parents v/s. crosses were significant indicating presence of overall heterosis for the traits. Out of thirty six crosses 5 crosses viz., GJW 463 x RAJ 4120, DBW 173 x RAJ 4120, GJW 463 x DBW 173, GW 451 x LOK 1 and DBW 173 x RAJ 3777 were found superior with maximum significant heterobeltiosis and economic heterosis for heat tolerant traits and earliness over the environments. These genotypes could be used to maintain transgressive segregants in future breeding programme.

An investigation was carried out to assess the general combining ability effect (gca), specific combining ability effect (sca) of the hybrids for earliness and high oil content by crossing six CMS lines with sixteen testers viz.,10 R × R S3 high oil content restorer lines and 6 R × R S4 early restorer lines following line × tester mating design. The resulting 96 hybrids along with four checks (KBSH-44, KBSH-53, KBSH-78 and RSFH-1887) were evaluated in a simple lattice design, simultaneously parents were also evaluated in RCBD design at Main Agricultural Research Station, Hebbal, Bangalore during summer 2020-21. Among the sixteen testers, high oil content tester viz., 44-2-1[H] and early maturing tester viz., 2-3-1-2[E] (75 days) were identified as good general combiners for earliness, seed yield plant-1 and oil content. Out of six CMS lines, CMS 903 B was found to be good general combiners for earliness whereas, NDCMS 2B is for seed yield plant-1 with oil content. Among the 96 hybrids CMS 1103A × 25-2-4-2 [E] (79 days), CMS 1103A × 21-9-5-2 [E] (80 days) and CMS 903A × 5-2-1 [H] (79.50 days) were identified as desirable specific combiner for earliness. Whereas, CMS 911A × 8-5-5-1 [E], CMS 911A × 21-9-5-2 [E] and NDCMS 4A × 31-1-1[H]were recorded high sca effect for seed yield. Whereas, NDCMS 2A × 30-10-1[H] (41.63%), CMS 911A × 25-2-4-2 [E] (41.11%) and NDCMS 4A × 11-4-1[H] (39.73%) showed high sca effect for oil content.

Field experiments were conducted to study the earliness traits and yield of the cotton under mechanized and conventional cultivation methods with varying crop geometry during the summer season of 2015 and 2016 on sandy clay loamy soil at the irrigated upland farm of Eastern Block, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The experiments were laid out in split plot design and replicated thrice. The treatment comprised of two cultivation methods viz., mechanized cultivation (M1) and conventional cultivation (M2) were assigned in main plot and four spacings viz., 45 cm x 15 cm (1,48,148 plants/ha) (S1), 60 cm x 15 cm (1,11,111 plants/ha) (S2), 75 cm x 15 cm (88,888 plants/ha) (S3) and 75 cm x 30 cm (44,444 plants/ha) (S4) in subplot. The results of this study revealed that the earliness traits of cotton viz., the appearance of the first square, the appearance of the first flower, days to attain 50 per cent flowering, days to first boll open and boll maturation period were significantly influenced by crop geometries, whereas cultivation methods did not show any variation regarding earliness traits and the cotton cultivated under mechanized cultivation method with the spacing of 45 x 15 cm registered higher seed cotton yield.

Early heading is a very important character for bread wheat cultivated under end season heat and drought stress conditions. Heading time is influence by three groups of genes including photoperiod (Ppd), vernalization (Vrn) and earliness per se (Eps). Among the identified genes for heading time, Ppd- D1 is the only gene that worth marker assisted selection/backcrossing. Despite of recognized effect of Ppd-D1a on earliness, its effect on yield, yield component and important agronomic traits is under debate. In the present research, near isogenic lines were developed for Ppd-D1a in two genetic backgrounds, Roshan and Kalheydari, to investigate the precise pleiotropic effect of Ppd-D1a on yield and yield components of bread wheat. Two pairs of isogenic lines were assessed under rain-fed and well-watered conditions in Kerman and Sepidan during two successive growing seasons, 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. Compared to photoperiod sensitive allele (Ppd-D1b), photoperiod insensitive allele (Ppd-D1a) reduced days to heading and ripening by 5.14 and 7.53 days, respectively. Results also showed that Ppd-D1a improved 1000-grain weight (+ 17%) and decreased grains number per spike (-14%) to finally improve grain yield under rain-fed conditions (+ 13%). However, Ppd-D1a had a different effect on the mentioned traits under well-watered conditions where decreased 1000-grain weight (-18%) and improved grains number per spike (+ 10%) with insignificant effect on grain yield. These findings showed that pleotropic effect of Ppd-D1a on yield and yield component strongly depends on target environment.

The present study was conducted to estimate the magnitude of heterosis for thirteen characters in brinjal. The analysis of variance revealed that the genotype selected were having sufficient amount of genetic variability amongst them to carry out further genetic analysis. Forty five F1 hybrids (generated by line x tester mating design using diverse fifteen lines and three testers) along with 18 parents and standard check hybrid (Punjab Sadabahar) were evaluated in a randomized block design with three replications at The Research Farm of Department of Vegetable Science, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. Highest heterotic value for fruit yield per plant was observed in cross combinations HE-100 x H-8 (42.27%) followed by HE-100 x HLB-12 (40.97%), HE-106 x BR-112 (37.54%) and HE-101 x BR-112 (36.46%). The cross combinations HE-100 x BR-112 followed by HE-100 x H-8 and HE-100 x HLB-12 showed earliness among all the crosses.

The no-wait flow shop scheduling problem (NWFSP) plays a crucial role in the allocation of resources in multitudinous industries, including the steel, pharmaceutical, chemical, plastic, electronic, and food processing industries. The NWFSP consists of n jobs that must be processed in m machines in series, and no job is allowed to wait between consecutive operations. This project deals with NWFSP with sequence-dependent setup times for minimizing earliness and tardiness. From the literature review of the last five years in NWFSP, it is noticeable that only around 1.92% of the researchers have studied that multi-objective function, which could help to improve the productivity of industries where methods such as just in time are considered. Besides, there is no information about previous researchers that have solved this problem with sequence-dependent setup times. Firstly, a MILP model is proposed to solve small instances, and secondly, a genetic algorithm (GA) is developed as a solution method for medium and large instances. Compared with the mathematical model for small instances, the GA obtained the optimal solution in 100% of the cases. For medium and large instances, the GA improves in an average of 31.54%, 38.09%, 44.58%, 47.72%, and 37.33% the MDD, EDDP, ATC, SPT, and LPT dispatching rules, respectively.

Life cycle timing is critical for yield and productivity of Brassica napus (rapeseed) cultivars grown in different environments. To facilitate breeding for earliness traits in rapeseed, SNP loci and underlying candidate genes associated with the timing of initial flowering, maturity and final flowering, as well as flowering period (FP) were investigated in two environments in a diversity panel comprising 300 B. napus inbred lines. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using 201,817 SNP markers previously developed from SLAF-seq (specific locus amplified fragment sequencing) revealed a total of 131 SNPs strongly linked (P 0.6) or in 100 kb regions around significant trait-associated SNPs were screened, revealing 57 B. napus genes (33 SNPs) orthologous to 39 Arabidopsis thaliana flowering time genes. These results support the practical and scientific value of novel large-scale SNP data generation in uncovering the genetic control of agronomic traits in B. napus, and also provide a theoretical basis for molecular marker-assisted selection of earliness breeding in rapeseed.

Inspired by a real industrial case, this study deals with the problem of scheduling jobs on uniform parallel machines with past-sequence-dependent setup times to minimize the total earliness and tardiness costs. The paper contributes to the existing literature of uniform parallel machines problems by the novel idea of considering position-based learning effects along with processing set restrictions. The presented problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer linear programming (MILP) model. Then, an exact method is introduced to calculate the accurate objective function in the just-in-time (JIT) environments for a given sequence of jobs. Furthermore, three meta-heuristic approaches, (1) a genetic algorithm (GA), (2) a simulated annealing algorithm (SA), and (3) a particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) are proposed to solve large size problems in reasonable computational time. Finally, computational results of the proposed meta-heuristic algorithms are evaluated through extensive experiments and tested using ANOVA followed by t-tests to identify the most effective meta-heuristic.

The global and local climate changes determine the producing of highly-adaptive common (bread) wheat commercial cultivars of a new generation whose optimal earliness matches the climatic features of the territory where the cultivars are farmed. Principal component analysis involving our own and published data has been applied to investigate 98 commercial common wheat cultivars from Western and Eastern Siberia comparing their morphotypes; cultivar zoning time; length of the vegetation period; 1000-grain weight, and inheritance of spring growth habit. It demonstrated that the dominant Vrn gene polymorphism determining the spring growth habit of the Siberian cultivars was minimally polymorphic. In 75 % of the tested cultivars, the spring growth habit was controlled by digenic, namely dominant Vrn-A1 and Vrn-B1 genes. In 25 % of them (24 cultivars), spring growth habit is controlled by a single gene. In 19 and 5 of these cultivars spring growth habit is controlled by only one dominant gene, Vrn-B1 or Vrn-A1, respectively. In cv. Tulun 15, a trigenic control was identified. A conclusion about the optimality of the digenic control for the climatic conditions of both Western and Eastern Siberia has been confirmed. However, since none of the tested cultivars had the dominant Vrn-D1 gene typical of the regions of China and Central Asia bordering Siberia, it can be considered as an additional argument in favor of the European origin of Siberian common wheat cultivars. The revealed high frequency of the Vrn-B1c allele in the Western Siberian cultivars and the Vrn-B1a allele in the Eastern Siberian cultivars suggests their selectivity. The analysis also confirmed the dominance of red glume (ferrugineum, milturum) and awned spike (ferrugineum, erythrospermum) varieties in the Eastern Siberian cultivars, and white glume and awnedless spike (lutescens and albidum) ones in the Western Siberian cultivars. Small grain size cultivars are more typical of Eastern than Western Siberia. The retrospective analysis based on the cultivars' zoning time included in the "State Register for Selection Achievements Admitted for Usage" brought us to the conclusion that the earliness/lateness of modern Siberian commercial cultivars was not regionally but rather zonally-associated (taiga, subtaiga, forest-steppe and steppe zones).Глобальное и локальное изменение климата обусловливает создание высокоадаптивных сортов яровой мягкой пшеницы нового типа с оптимальной скороспелостью, отражающей региональные особенности климатических условий территорий ее возделывания. Методом главных компонент с использованием собственных данных и результатов, опубликованных другими исследователями, проведено сравнение 98 селекционных коммерческих сортов яровой мягкой пшеницы Западной и Восточной Сибири по морфотипу, времени районирования, длине вегетационного периода, массе 1000 зерен и характеру наследования ярового типа развития. Полиморфизм по доминантным генам Vrn, контролирующим яровость у селекционных сортов Сибири, минимален. У 75 % из них он контролируется дигенно доминантными Vrn-A1 и Vrn-B1; у 25 % – моногенно доминантными генами (у 24 сортов, из них у 19 и 5 соответственно только одним доминантным геном – Vrn-A1 или Vrn-B1). У одного сорта, Тулун 15, описан тригенный контроль. Подтвержден вывод об оптимальности для климатических условий как Западной, так и Восточной Сибири контроля яровости двумя доминантными генами Vrn. Ни у одного из сортов не обнаружено характерного для приграничных с Сибирью областей Китая и Центральной Азии доминантного гена Vrn-D1. Данное наблюдение может служить дополнительным аргументом в пользу гипотезы европейского происхождения сортимента Сибири. Выявлена повышенная частота встречаемости аллеля Vrn-B1с у сортов Западной Сибири и аллеля Vrn-B1а у сортов Восточной Сибири, что позволяет говорить об их селективности. Подтверждено преобладание красноколосых (ferrugineum, milturum) и остистых (ferrugineum, erythrospermum) разновидностей в Восточной Сибири, безостых и белоколосых (lutescens и albidum) – в Западной Сибири. Для Восточной Сибири характерны более мелкозерные сорта. Выполненная ретроспектива по годам районирования (включения в «Государственный реестр селекционных достижений, допущенных к использованию» РФ) позволяет отметить, что скороспелость/позднеспелость современных сортов Сибири не имеет ярко выраженной региональной компоненты, а является зональной (тайга, подтайга, лесостепь, степь).

Cotton is a long duration crop which effects the timely sowing of wheat in Pakistan. Information of various earliness and yield related traits are pre-requisite to develop early maturing and high yielding cotton cultivars. Therefore, the present research was conducted to determine the heterotic potential for six earliness and six yield related. For this purpose, 10 F1 hybrids were developed through crossing between nine upland cotton cultivars. These hybrids along with their parental lines were sown in the field conditions of Faisalabad, Pakistan. All the hybrids showed significant differences for observed traits. The maximum recorded values of heterosis for earliness index and seed cotton yield were 66.05% and 70.39%, respectively. Hybrid VH-289 × AGC-501 showed maximum significant heterosis (66.05%), heterobeltiosis (50.43%) and standard heterosis (32.52%) for earliness index was due to the negative heterosis in days to flowering, days to first boll opening, node number for first fruiting branch and height of first fruiting branch. Hybrid ARK-3 × AGC-501 showed maximum significant heterosis (70.39%), heterobeltiosis (28.52%) and standard heterosis (72.01%) for seed cotton yield was due to the positive heterosis showed by its yield contributing traits. This study can be used for breeding program to develop early maturing and high yielding varieties.

Current Applied Science and Technology, 20, 2, 186-197

A field experiment was carried out at El-Gemmeiza Agricultural Research Station, El-Gharbia Governorate, Egypt in 2018 season and repeated in 2019 season, to assess the effects of transplanting cotton seedlings of 4 weeks old with their complete root system compared with early and late direct seeding with or without Pix treatments on cotton Giza 86 cultivar productivity. A strip-plot design with four replicates was used. The obtained results indicated that planting with transplanting or early direct seeding significantly increased sympodia, monopodia, earliness attributes, yield components and uniformity index in both seasons, except plant height, internode length, shedding% and first sympodium node which were decreased. Early direct seeding and transplanted cotton significantly increased seed cotton yieldfed-1 by 16.53 and 11.82%; 17.54 and 12.99% as compared to late direct seeding in the first and second seasons, respectively. Application of Pix at the two levels examined (2.5 cm3/L and 5 cm3/L) significantly decreased growth traits, whereas significantly increased earliness attributes, seed cotton yield, yield components and uniformity index in both seasons, as well as seed index, fiber length and strength in one season only, except days to first flower and shedding% in both seasons which were decreased, whereas first sympodium node did not affected. It could be concluded that early sowing or transplanting seedlings of 4 weeks old and sprayed with Pix three times at the low level (2.5 cm3/L) gave high productivity. That is recommended to overcome the delay of planting and its negative impact under conditions similar to El-Gemmeiza location.

We consider a single-machine scheduling problem such that the due dates are assigned to each job depending on its order, and the lengths of the intervals between consecutive due dates are identical. The objective is to minimize the total penalty for the earliness and tardiness of each job. The early penalty proportionally increases according to the earliness amount, while the tardy penalty increases according to the step function. We show that the problem is strongly NP-hard, and furthermore, polynomially solvable if the two types of processing times exist.

Combining ability for grain yield and other traits were evaluated in a half diallel fashion in maize. Eight yellow maize inbred lines were crossed in half diallel fashion excluding the reciprocals during the summer season of 2018 at Gemmeiza station, the resulting 28F1 were evaluated along with check SC168 at two locations (Gemmeiza and Sids) in 2019 summer season. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications was used. Mean squares of GCA and SCA were highly significant for all the studied traits at combined data, except SCA for ear diameter. The non-additive gene effects were most responsible for controlling the inheritance of days to 50% silking, plant height, ear length and grain yield. While the additive gene effects had the important role in the inheritance of ear height and ear diameter. The parents; P6 and P7 were significant for general combiner for yield and p 4 for earliness. The crosses P3 xP7, P5 x P8 andP6 x P7 had desirable SCA effects for earliness. Meanwhile, the crosses P2 xP8, P3 x P6, P4 x P5 and P5 x p 7 showed high SCA effect for grain yield. The single crosses; P2 xP7, P2 x P8,P3 x P6, P5 x P7, P6 xP7 andP7 x P8 had desirable mean values for earliness and grain yield.

Sweet corn (Zea mays L. var. saccharata [Sturtev.] L.H. Bailey) is a thermophilic crop that is sensitive to cold stress and thus may be cultivated by raising seedlings. The aim of this work was to determine the impact of transplanting and direct sowing on the yield and earliness of the sweet corn crop. The treatment protocol used had a combination of two different cultivation technologies (transplanting and direct sowing) and two different sowing periods (8 and 15 May during both growing seasons). The results show that the different cultivation technologies both had significant effects on the productive properties and earliness of sweet corn. The transplanting variants had about 34% more plants per hectare compared with the direct sowing yield. The ear length and mass were higher in crops grown using transplanting (22.2 cm and 278.0 g, respectively) than in crops grown using direct sowing (21.2 cm and 270.3 g, respectively). During the research period, a significantly higher ear yield was noted in the transplanted variants (11.7 t ha-1) compared with those of direct sowing (7.6 t ha-1). The transplanting variants had earlier harvests by 18 and 16 d in the first and second sowing periods, respectively, compared with those of direct sowing.

Scheduling jobs in a no-wait flow shop with the objective of minimising total earliness and tardiness is the problem addressed in this paper. Idle time may be needed on the first machine due to the...

We present phenological data for two time periods (1985–1987 and 2014–2016) on major tree species (Shorea robusta, Pinus roxburghii, Myrica esculenta, Quercus leucotrichophora, Rhododendron arboreum, Quercus floribunda, and Machilus duthiei) occurring along an altitudinal gradient of 300–2,200 m asl of Himalayan forests (a data-deficient region identified by the IPCC, 2007), and show that bud break and leafing in trees has advanced at 0.20 days/year, which is associated with a significant (P

Research on non-regular performance measures is at best scarce in the deterministic machine scheduling literature with machine unavailability constraints. Moreover, almost all existing works in this area assume either that processing on jobs interrupted by an interval of machine unavailability may be resumed without any additional setup/processing or that all prior processing is lost. In this work, we intend to partially fill these gaps by studying the problem of scheduling a single machine so as to minimize the total deviation of the job completion times from an unrestrictive common due date when one or several fixed intervals of unavailability are present in the planning horizon. We also put serious effort into investigating models with semi-resumable jobs so that processing on a job interrupted by an interval of machine unavailability may later be resumed at the expense of some extra processing time. The conventional assumptions regarding resumability are also taken into account. Several interesting cases are identified and explored, depending on the resumability scheme and the location of the interval of machine unavailability with respect to the common due date. The focus of analysis is on structural properties and drawing the boundary between polynomially solvable and $$\mathcal {NP}$$ -complete cases. Pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithms are devised for $$\mathcal {NP}$$ -complete variants in the ordinary sense.

The paper presents materials related to using foreign and local patterns of gene pool as a raw material for the creation of new early maturing, high-yielding cotton varieties with high quality characteristic features.

Competition between cotton, winter, and summer crops is the greatest obstacle for plant breeders in Egypt. Breeders are thus seeking early maturing, high-yielding cultivars that are suited for planting following winter crops. This study was conducted during the 2016 and 2018 growing seasons at the Sakha agriculture research station, Egypt's agricultural research facility. This research used breeding material from the F2, F3, and F4 generations that resulted from crossing Giza 94 and Uzbekistan. During the 2016 growing season, the F2 population was cultivated, and the top 5% of the F2 population (75 plants) were chosen based on the selection criteria. In the summer of 2017, the F3 families were cultivated, and 5% of the superior F3 families were chosen to become the F4 fam-ilies, which were planted in the summer of 2018 at the single plant and bulk studies in a randomised full block design with three replications. The average performance of the characteristics boll weight, seed cotton yield, lint percentage, and lint index increased as generations passed from F2 to F4. In the meanwhile, the characteristic value of the first flower to open decreased, showing the accu-mulation of advantageous alleles. For all examined characteristics, the phenotypic coefficient of variance was greater than the genotypic coefficient of variation. In addition, the data demonstrated that heritability in a broad sense was greater in F4 populations than in F3 and F2 populations. With a few exceptions, the phenotypic and genotypic associations for all investigated characteristics were positive and very significant. According to the data, initial opening flowering and boll weight had a substantial impact on seed cotton output per feddan. In general, five superior families No. 9, 13, 18, 19, and 20 were chosen from the F4 population, which were more significant for yield and yield component than the commercial variety, and these genotypes may be promising for the breeding programme to develop new genotypes with superior yield.

This paper studies the single-machine due-date assignment problem with past-sequence-dependent setup times (denoted by $$ST_{psd}$$ ). Under common due-date (denoted by CON-DD) assignment, slack due-date (denoted by SLK-DD) and different due-date (denoted by DIF-DD) assignment, the objective function is to minimize the linear weighted sum of earliness-tardiness, number of early and delayed jobs, and due-date cost. Optimal properties of the problem is given and then prove that the problem can be solved in polynomial time. Three extensions to the problem are also offered by assuming position-dependent, time-dependent, position-and-time-dependent processing times.

In this paper, parallel machine scheduling problem is considered under due date assignment, earliness, weighted number of tardy jobs, facilities costs and shipping products by limited vehicle capacity. The orders of the customer are presented with a due date. Each order is scheduled and assigned to one of the machines according to due date, delay weight and penalty of increasing of due date and shipped in the batch. The problem is known as NP-hardness, therefore a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed to solve the problem. The results are also compared with the CPLEX solver in the GAMS. Finally, sensitivity analysis for the problem parameters is performed in relation to the objective function. The results showed a direct relationship between objective function with the weighted tardiness and processing time, also an inverse relationship with the number of machines and vehicle capacity.