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Water scarcity and soil nutrient depletion significantly constrain global maize productivity amidst recurrent droughts due to climate change. So, this study was designed in a two-factorial pot culture, comprising twelve treatments and four replications in a completely randomized design, to examine the synergistic impacts of nitrogen (N) fertilizer sources and soil moisture levels on maize growth and nitrogen uptake. The treatments included nitrogen fertilizer sources (100% urea, 100% nanourea, 50% urea + 50% nanourea, control) and distinct soil moisture regimes (75% FC, 50% FC, and 35% FC). Elevated soil moisture positively correlated with increased plant height, leaf area, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), while dry root biomass displayed opposing trends. Notably, the 50% Urea + 50% Nano Urea treatment exhibited superior aboveground biomass (350 gm, 314 gm, and 236 gm) and N uptake (2.15%, 1.89%, and 1.99%) across all moisture regimes (75% FC, 50% FC, and 25% FC, respectively). Moreover, plants at 50% FC demonstrated enhanced water use efficiency, surpassing 35% FC and 50% FC by 52% and 63%, respectively. Overall, the combined application of 50% urea and 50% nanourea under optimal soil moisture (75% FC) notably improved growth, nitrogen uptake, and photosynthetic activity. However, their efficacy declined under water stress conditions, with singular nanourea exhibiting a relatively milder susceptibility to water stress.

Breeding for aluminium (Al) tolerance is a vital approach for enhancing the productivity of field crops in acidic soil regions where Al toxicity seems to be the most restraining factor for crop performance. Sunflower is generally considered extremely sensitive to Al toxicity; although no comprehensive information on the evaluation of sunflower genotypes for Al tolerance is available. In this study, 50 sunflower genotypes (set-I and set-II) were evaluated for Al tolerance at the seedling stage under hydroponic conditions. Substantial genetic variability in Al tolerance was observed among the studied genotypes. High estimates of heritability were obtained for both the total root length (TRL) and root regrowth (RRG), together with high estimates of genetic advance. A cluster analysis separated the genotypes into five different groups among the studied germplasm, the genotypes; NDLR-06 and EC-601861 were observed to be highly Al tolerant in terms of root regrowth under Al stress. In conclusion, the findings lreveal the complex mechanisms of Al tolerance in sunflower and may help to find new genetic resource for the improvement of Al tolerance in sunflower breeding.

Root rot in brinjal is one of the most important problems. In the present research, five different fungicides; Mancozeb, Copper oxychloride, Hexaconazole, Metalaxyl+Mancozeb, and Carbendazim, at 100 ppm were evaluated for their efficacy against the causative agent of this disease, Fusarium solani, In-vitro. The experiment was carried out in Completely Randomized Design with seven replications. Our result shows the difference in the efficacy of all tested fungicide against this pathogen. The application of Carbendazim at 100 ppm gave the highest inhibition of mycelium growth (100%) followed by Mancozeb (85.08%) and Metalaxyl+Mancozeb (64.3%) (at the same dose) on the 7th day of incubation suggesting Carbendazim (100 ppm) as a better one to use for the management of F. solani.

The comprehensive use of organic, inorganic, and biological components of nutrient management in rice ecologies can potentially address the twin challenges of declining factor productivity and deteriorating soil health. A field study was thus conducted at Varanasi, India during the year 2013–14 and 2014–15 to assess the effect of the recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF) along with cow product (blends of 5 cow by-products i.e., dung, ghee, curd, urine, and milk that is known as panchagavya) on soil health, energy budget, and rice productivity. The results revealed that the inclusion of panchagavya as seedling root dip + 6% spray at 30 days after transplanting (DAT) + an application with irrigation water (15 l ha−1) at 60 DAT (D4) along with 100% RDF (F3) noted significantly higher rice grain yield (6.34 t ha−1) and higher dehydrogenase activity. However, the soil bacterial and actinomycetes population, soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC), urease, and alkaline phosphatase activities were significantly higher with D4 along with 120% RDF (F4). Carbon output (5,608 kg CO2 eq ha−1), energy use parameters viz. energy output (187,867 MJ ha−1), net energy returns (164,319 MJ ha−1), and energy intensity valuation (5.08 MJ ) were significantly higher under F4. However, the energy ratio (8.68), energy productivity (0.292 kg MJ−1), and energy profitability (7.68) remained highest with 80% RDF (F2), while the highest carbohydrate equivalent yield (4,641 kg mha−1) was produced under F3. The combination of F3 with D4 resulted in the highest productivity, optimum energy balance, and maintaining soil quality. Therefore, a judicious combination of cow product (panchagavya) with RDF was found to improve the rice productivity, energy profitability, and soil quality under south Asian eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGPs).

Potato varieties grown in Nepal have low levels of general resistance to late blight. Mostly the commercial potato farmers rely on fungicide applications for control of Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight. Field study was conducted in winter 2017 at research field of Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Lamjung Campus, Sundarbazar, Lamjung, Nepal to evaluate the efficacy of commercially available fungicides against late blight of potato. Experiment was laid in randomized complete block design with five replications. Treatments consisted of Dimethomorph 50% WDG@1.5g/L, Cholothalonil 75% WP @ 2g/L, Mancozeb 75% WP@ 2.5g/L and Trichoderma @ 2ml/L as recommended for field use and a variant with no application of fungicide (only tap water) was used as a control. Spore suspension of respective plant pathogen was inoculated twice @ 500 ml per plot (4m2). Treatments were applied after the appearance of first blight symptom and level of disease development was followed. The best control was obtained with application of Dimethomorph with significant reduction in AUDPC (139 dsu) while the control treatment gave the highest AUDPC of 223.2 dsu. Same pattern was seen for tuber production where application of Dimethomorph gave 170.8 g tuber/plant, which was significantly higher than that of control treatment (73.7 g). Chlorothalonil and Mancozeb gave the intermediate level of disease control still significantly superior than control treatment. However; the application of Trichoderma showed the AUDPC of 228 dsu with 89.7 g of tuber yield per plant which was statistically indifferent with the control treatment. Thus, this study recommends Dimethomorph 50% WDG@1.5g/L in controlling the prevailing strain of P. infestans and multi-location trial is necessary in future for general validation.

Soil phosphorus (P) availability is critical for the early growth and development of maize (Zea mays L.). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of P on early growth of maize varieties. A pot experiment was conducted at Lamjung campus during February to March, 2018 to investigate the effect of P application on early growth of maize plants in Ultisols. The experiment was conducted in two factorial combination of five P level (0 kg ha-1, 15 kg ha-1, 30 kg ha-1, 45 kg ha-1 and 60 kg ha-1) and three varieties of maize (Arun-4, Rampur Composite and Manakamana-3). The treatments were laid out on complete randomized design (CRD) with three replications. The effect of P on root biomass, plant height, number of leave and, shoot dry matter of plant was investigated. Results showed that application of 60 kg P ha-1 appeared to be superior to improve the yield attributes. Varietal responses also appeared to be significantly different. Rampur composite responded significantly better in plant height than Manakamana-3 but it did not differ significantly with Arun-4. Although, significant response were found on growth parameters with higher P levels, further investigation is needed to optimize the P rate for enhancing maize yield attributing parameters.

Non-model plants i.e., the species which have one or all of the characters such as long life cycle, difficulty to grow in the laboratory or poor fecundity, have been schemed out of sequencing projects earlier, due to high running cost of Sanger sequencing. Consequently, the information about their genomics and key biological processes are inadequate. However, the advent of fast and cost effective next generation sequencing platforms in the recent past has enabled the unearthing of certain characteristic gene structures unique to these species. It has also aided in gaining insight about mechanisms underlying processes of gene expression and secondary metabolism as well as facilitated development of genomic resources for diversity characterization, evolutionary analysis and marker assisted breeding even without prior availability of genomic sequence information. In this review we explore how different Next Gen Sequencing platforms, as well as recent advances in NGS based high throughput genotyping technologies are rewarding efforts on de-novo whole genome/ transcriptome sequencing, development of genome wide sequence based markers resources for improvement of non-model crops that are less costly than phenotyping .