The stress concept, first proposed by Hans Selye in 1936, has also been applied to plants to describe adverse and environmental restrictions. The notion of plant stress, differs significantly from that of animals and humans. Due to ever fluctuating climatic circumstances and variables, the crop-environment interaction in horticultural crops leading to losses in yields and quality of produce occurs and thus climate change with respect to horticulture industry is attracting more attention. Abiotic stress is the leading cause of crop yield loss globally, lowering average yields by more than half for most main crop plants. Abiotic stressors are highly correlated and connected, causing morphological, biochemical, physiological and molecular changes in vegetable crops, leading in a significant profit drop. Water stress is the most common abiotic stress that causes significant losses in vegetable production, especially because it is often coupled by additional stresses like as salt, high temperatures, and nutritional deficits. Increased CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere, variation in amounts of precipitation causing more frequent droughts and floods, widespread runoffresulting in soil nutrient leaching and a loss in fresh-water availability are all contributing factors. Efforts to mitigate various pressures should be focused both throughout the growing season and after harvest. Stress-tolerant cultivars are being developed using a variety of methods, including traditional breeding and transgenic technology. Instead of genetic engineering, using vegetable breeding procedures or directed breeding is one the best options to improve stress tolerance in vegetables. Besides, post-harvest treatments, application of growth regulators, antioxidants, germplasm and in vitro selection, and modified environment packaging with different plastics may all help to improve tolerance and hence increase the shelf and nutritive life of vegetables.
Studies on correlation coefficients, their direct and indirect effects were conducted for economic traits of cauliflower cultivated in North-Indian plains. Estimates of phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient revealed that net curd weight was significantly and positively correlated with total plant weight. Path analysis of correlation coefficients revealed that total plant weight had highest positive direct effect on net curd weight, harvest index and curd depth.
The goal of this study was to learn more about the nature and extent of genetic diversity, heritability, and genetic progress in cherry tomatoes for various growth, yield, and quality traits. Ten diverse lines of cherry tomato were crossed in diallel fashion (excluding reciprocals) and evaluated for genetic variability studies in open field conditions. The experimental findings revealed that the phenotypic variation and the genotypic variation were equal in magnitude for all the traits indicating less influence of environment on all these traits. High PCV, GCV, and genetic advance as percent mean was observed for several fruits plant-1, average fruit weight (g), fruit yield hectare-1 (q), reducing sugar (%), non-reducing sugar (%), total sugars (%), titratable acidity (%) and ascorbic acid content (mg100g-1), indicating the additive genetic effect. Phenotypic selection for their improvement could be achieved by simple selection.
In August 2020 chili (Capsicum annuum L.) showing wilt symptoms were collected from different districts of the Kashmir: Pulwama, Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag. From each district one location was selected for sample collection and a total of 23 chili isolates were isolated. The tissue bit technique was used to isolate fungus from the infected samples on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium, purified using the single spore technique, maintained at 25⁰±1℃ and then stored at 4° C (Ferniah et al. 2014) . Initially cultural characteristics appeared as white colonies which gradually turned to pale white colored and attained a growth of 90 mm in 18 days of incubation at 25 ± 1°C. Microscopic observations revealed that mycelium was branched and cylindrical, 3.53-4.98 µm in width. Microconidia were ellipsoidal, hyaline, 0-1 septa werepresent, and 6-7 x 3-4 µm in size. Macroconidia were cylindrical, hyaline, 2-6 septa, measuring 20-60 x 40-45 µm in size. Molecular identification of the pathogens with ITS, TEF, and RPB2 was successfully carried out and the fungi was confirmed as Fusarium flocciferum infecting chili. Amplified PCR products were sequenced and were successfully submitted and accessioned in GenBank with accession number OM189458, OM441199, OR484037 for ITS, TEF, and RPB2 gene. To confirm Koch's postulates pathogenicity test was carried out using rhizosphere inoculation technique (Najar et al. 2011, Parihar et al. 2022). In total 7 replications for sand maize meal medium (potting mixture) was prepared by autoclaving 90 g of sand and 10 g of maize meal in 250 ml of erlenmeyer flask comprising 40 ml of distilled water. The spore suspension at 100 µl per pot was inoculated and was mixed with the sterilized potting mixture in a ratio of (2:1) and up to seven days pathogen was allowed to infect the soil (Davey and Papavizas 1962; Hami et al. 2021). Then chili seeds (cv. Kashmir long-1) were sown in infected potting mixture and grown for three weeks to allow the pathogen to infect the host plants. F. flocciferum took six weeks for appearance of symptoms in the infected potted plants. Control mock inoculation of the potting mixture was carried out using water droplets instead of spore suspension at 100 µl per pot. Seven replications were kept for both inoculated and un-inoculated / control mock pots. The plants developed initial symptoms from light green to yellowish discoloration of leaves followed by the drooping, shriveling, and ultimately leading to death. The collar region of the plant was cut vertically and observed that vascular bundles showed brownish spots and discoloration, indicating wilt as the cause of death. The pathogens were re-isolated and inoculated from all infected plants, then compared with their original pure culture inoculated first, which completely resembled based on morphological, cultural, and pathogenic characteristics. No symptoms were observed on control plants. A phylogenetic analysis was also carried out using ClustalW software that grouped the species identified by different genes into different clades. F. flocciferum has been reported earlier in pea, faba bean and bamboo (Kainthola et al. 2022; Šišić et al. 2020) . In solanaceous crops, this species have been explored as wilt pathogens for the first time from India, indicating diversifying nature of Fusarium flocciferum across various hosts including solanaceous crops.
This is the first report on increasing yield and nutritional content of snake melon ( Cucumis melo L. var. flexuosus ) by exploiting intraspecific genetic variation of genetically diverse melons. Inbred snake melon ‘Punjab Long melon 1’ (PLM1) was hybridized with five genetically diverse inbred melons: KP 7 (var. momordica ), AM 72 (var. acidulus ), ‘Arya 1’ (var. chate ), 04-02 (var. tibish ) and ‘Punjab Wanga’ (unknown botanical variety). The parents and hybrids were evaluated at three locations for nine traits. Hybrids PLM1 × 04-02 and PLM1 × ‘Punjab Wanga’ exhibited significant ( P 0.05 ) heterosis for the number of marketable fruits per plant, and ascorbic acid and carotenoid contents of marketable fruits.
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