Harnessing root phenotyping and root growth plasticity of landraces of maize ( L.) for enhancing waterlogging tolerance in fragile and challenging agro-ecologies of Eastern Himalaya.

Maize is a major crop of the Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR) which faces significant environmental challenges including waterlogging (WL) under changing climate. Through microcosm and field experiments, this study aimed to evaluate the phenotypic plasticity and adaptive mechanisms of maize landraces under WL conditions at the seedling and flowering stages. Based on the response coefficient and waterlogging tolerance coefficient 14 landraces at the seedling stage were found to be WL tolerant whereas RCM-12-19, RCM-32-19, and RCM-16-19, emerged as WL tolerant at both stages.

Harnessing weedy rice as functional food and source of novel traits for crop improvement.

A relative of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.), weedy or red rice (Oryza spp.) is currently recognized as the dominant weed, leading to a drastic loss of yield of cultivated rice due to its highly competitive abilities like producing more tillers, panicles, and biomass with better nutrient uptake.

Bioactivity and nutritional quality of nutgall ( Murray), an underutilized fruit of Manipur.

Introduction: Underutilized fruits plays a significant role in socio economic, cultural, nutritional and ethnomedicinal status of tribal people. However, scientific studies on the nutritional and other pharmaceuticals/biological activities of these fruits are meagre. Hence, the present study dealt with the quantification of nutritional quality and deciphering the bioactivity of nutgall ( Murray syn.

Elucidating the impact of boron fertilization on soil physico-chemical and biological entities under cauliflower-cowpea-okra cropping system in an Eastern Himalayan acidic Inceptisol.

Information on the role of boron (B) on soil physico-chemical and biological entities is scarce, and the precise mechanism in soil is still obscure. Present field investigation aimed to assessing the implication of direct and residual effect of graded levels of applied-B on soil biological entities and its concomitant impact on crop productivity. The treatments comprised of five graded levels of B with four replications.

Role of biostimulants in mitigating the effects of climate change on crop performance.

Climate change is a critical yield-limiting factor that has threatened the entire global crop production system in the present scenario. The use of biostimulants in agriculture has shown tremendous potential in combating climate change-induced stresses such as drought, salinity, temperature stress, etc. Biostimulants are organic compounds, microbes, or amalgamation of both that could regulate plant growth behavior through molecular alteration and physiological, biochemical, and anatomical modulations.