RESUMEN
The relevance of Water in human life and agro-ecosystems has been extensively illustrated for decades around the globe. Despite the reality that the earth is mostly surrounded by water, its utility has been limited to domestic consumption and agricultural purposes. Thus, tweaking water usage in agricultural systems has been a tricky problem in order to meet the requirements of the growing population and to obtain more crop yield per drop of water in agriculture. In this review, an attempt has been made to revisit the methods available to improve water use efficiency in agriculture.
RESUMEN
The selection of breeding material heavily relies on genetic variation and its inherited components. A thorough understanding of genetic variation is necessary in order to develop an improved variety. Thus, genetic parameters were assessed in the F2 population of the cross between DDK-1029 and GPM DIC 66. The genetic variability results indicated a moderate to high phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation for characters like days to 50% flowering, plant height, productive tillers per plant, spike length, spikelets per spike, grains per spike, thousand grain weight and grain yield. In contrast, the protein, iron and zinc contents exhibited low to moderate phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation. All the traits had higher heritability except for grain yield which exhibited a moderate heritability. All the characters exhibited significant GAM except for days to maturity, iron content and protein content which exhibited moderate GAM. This suggests that high genetic variation, heritability, and GAM for such traits will aid in their improvement through both direct and indirect selection.
RESUMEN
Genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis for 8 yield contributing traits were studied in multi-parent derived F2 population obtained from crossing 4 commercial hybrids (S-85×IndamRohini) × (Mahyco-701×Indus-1105). For the current study, 285 multi-parent derived F2 plants were used. The study indicated the presence of immense variability for all the traits under study viz, days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of secondary branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight and fruit yield per plant. High variability was witnessed due to the higher values of PCV and GCV and large variation in the F2 range for all the traits in comparison with the parental range of all the traits. This might be due to the involvement of the genome constitution from multiple parents. All the characters exhibited high estimates of heritability coupled with high genetic advance, hence all the characters can be improved through selection. Correlation indicated that yield per plant was significantly and positively associated with average fruit weight and number of fruits per plant. Average fruit weight and number of fruits per plant showed the highest positive direct effect on fruit per plant. Direct selection can be executed considering these traits as the main selection criteria to minimize the indirect effect of other traits. The genetic variability displayed in the present study can be well exploited to broaden the genetic base of the crop. Meantime, the efficient use of significant correlation and the relatedness in the commercially target traits can yield fruits of rapid trait improvement in near future.