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Physiological regulation affects plant salinity tolerance. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of salt stress on the physiological regulation in sorghum at early growth stage. Two sorghum genotypes (GT), Bayeqi (salt-tolerant) and PL212 (salt-sensitive), were grown in an artificial climate chamber with a nutrition solution containing 0,80, 160, and 240 mM NaCl. Results showed that salt-tolerant sorghum had enhanced activities of antioxidant enzymes including catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), and superoxide dismutase (SOD), and increased stress-related osmolytes including free amino acids, and reducing and soluble sugars. Furthermore, ion regulation plays an important role in the osmotic adjustment. Results also suggest that K+/Na+ and Ca2+/Na+ ratios are associated with tolerance under salt-stressed environments and higher Na+ and lower K+ and Ca2+ concentrations are deleterious to sorghum growth. As a result, under salt-stressed environments, the salt-tolerant sorghum GT had better growth performance than salt-sensitive sorghum GT, which was evidenced by a greater plant high, leaf area, leaf fresh weight, and root fresh weight. Overall, under salt-stressed environments, the salt-tolerant sorghum GT had better growth performance including yield than salt-sensitive sorghum GT, which was evidenced by a greater plant high, leaf area, leaf fresh weight, and root fresh weight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although development of 40,000 MWs of hydropower plants in Nepal is said to be feasible from an engineering/economic perspective, from a financing through Nepalese banks perspective, it is impossible. Loans from international banks are needed to finance hydropower projects in Nepal as local banks do not have capacity to support large projects. However, most international banks have not yet been interested as many Nepalese projects are not yet considered "bankable' from a project finance perspective. There are many challenges to financing hydropower projects as the financing requires the project itself to be free of risk from a legal and contractual viewpoint, thus making it worthy of being used as collateral on its own right. The only way forward is for the government to change its policies significantly to ensure the bankability of projects currently being developed by many independent power producers. INSET: CALENDER OF EVENTS - HYDRO POWER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pyrenophora teres f. maculata is the cause of the foliar disease spot form net blotch (SFNB) on barley. To evaluate pathogen genetics underlying the P. teres f. maculata -barley interaction, we developed a 105-progeny population by crossing two globally diverse isolates, one from North Dakota and the other from Western Australia. Progeny were phenotyped on a set of four barley genotypes showing a differential reaction to the parental isolates, then genotyped using a restriction site-associated-genotype-by-sequencing (RAD-GBS) approach. Genetic maps were developed for use in quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis to identify virulence-associated QTL. Six QTL were identified on five different linkage groups and individually accounted for 20-37% of the disease variation, with the number of significant QTL ranging from two to four for the barley genotypes evaluated. The data presented demonstrate the complexity of virulence involved in the P. teres f. maculata -barley pathosystem and begins to lay the foundation for understanding this important interaction., (Copyright © 2017 Carlsen et al.)