Enhancing Germination and Seedling Vigour of Interspecific F1 Hybrid Chilli Seeds through Priming with KNO3 and GA3

India is called a home for spices and also involved in the export. Chilli is an indispensable spice, essentially used in every Indian cuisine due to its pungency, taste, appealing odour and flavour. Quality seed is a key component for the successful agriculture, where the main objective is each seed should germinate and produce a vigorous seedling which ensures higher seed yield, productivity and also better storability to achieve good yield in the coming season. To achieve all the above said traits, the seed technologists have developed seed enhancement techniques. Seed enhancement techniques are post-harvest treatment of seeds to enhance the seed germination and seedling growth by facilitating the delivery of seeds with other materials at sowing time. This enhancement technique includes hydration treatments like seed priming and seed encapsulation like seed pelleting, which impacts significantly on seedling emergence and establishment. In this experiment study was conducted different priming treatments, seeds primed with KNO3 @ 1%, 2% and 3% and seeds primed with GA3 @ 50 ppm, 100 ppm and 150 ppm, the seeds treated with KNO3 @ 1% showed highest germination percentage, root, shoot, seedling length, seedling dry weight and seedling vigour index I and II which was followed by GA3 @ 50 ppm. Acknowledge of proper priming techniques in order to improve the germination in the seeds.

Studies of Skewness, Kurtosis and Transgressive Segregants in F2:3 Populations of Cowpea (Vigna Unguiculata L.)

The present investigation was carried out to study gene action and pattern of inheritance of different traits in cowpea. Two different F3 segregating generation of crosses viz., VBN-1 × RC-19 and KBC-9 × PGCP-6 were studied during summer 2021 using augmented random block design at College of Agriculture, Kalaburagi. Data were recorded on 10 different quantitative traits. Transgressive segregants with values exceeding the better parent were observed in both the F2:3 populations for seed yield. In both the populations, negative skewness was observed for days to initiation of flowering, days to physiological maturity and number of pods/plant whereas test weight exhibited positive skewness suggesting a mild and intense selection would be sufficient to gain maximum genetic-gain in negatively and positively skewed traits, respectively. In both the F2:3 populations, positive kurtosis was observed for number of branches / plant, test weight and dry matter content/plant indicating that these traits are governed by fewer numbers of genes.

Introgression of Stay Green Quantitative Trait Locus (QTLS) into Elite Sorghum Variety by MABC

Sorghum is a major staple food crop for the people in semi-arid areas of Asia. Post-flowering drought is a global constraint of sorghum production. The study aimed to improve stay-green characteristics of GS-23 sorghum variety by transferring stg3A and stg3B QTL`s respectively from donor genotypes K260 and K359w of ICRISAT by using marker assisted backcrossing. The experimental material comprised of six basic generations P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2 developed from crossing GS-23 × K260 and GS-23 × K359 were genotyped using a set of 133 SNPs and 79 SSR markers. Whereas, 53 polymorphic SNPs among parents and backcross F1s for stay green trait at maturity were used to track introgression of stay green trait. Similarly,10 SSR markers were found to be polymorphic were used to track introgression of stay green trait i.e., stay green trait QTL`s stg3A and stg3B from donor parent K260 and K359w respectively in GS-23 background across backcross population and to identify plants that were homozygous for the desired allele. In which 02 SNPs SnpSB0039 and SnpSB0093 were identified as polymorphic for both K260 and K359w. Whereas 17 SNPs identified polymorphic for K260 and 34 SNPs for K359w. These SNPs were validated in both F1 and BC1F1 populations of both the crosses. Similarly, out of 10 SSR markers utilized, 02 SSRs were identified polymorphic to K260 and 02 SSRs were identified for K359w. Whereas 06 SSRs were polymorphic to both the parents K260 and K359w. Prominent 02 SSRs viz., Xtxp 141_Fam and Xgap84_Vic found to be more reliable and polymorphic to both the parents. These SSRs were validated in both F1 and BC1F1 populations of both the crosses. The genotypic analysis revealed the presence of favorable alleles in homozygous conditions at markers loci associated with stg3A and stg3B QTL`s in BC populations, suggesting successful introgression of stay green QTLs from the donor parents to the recurrent parent. Therefore, our study demonstrated the utility of marker-assisted backcrossing for drought tolerance improvement of locally adapted sorghum variety.

Genetic Spectrum of Variation and Diversity for Yield and Yield Attributing Traits in Mutagenized Population of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench)

The present study was carried out in Agricultural Research Station, Hagari during rabi 2020, it was undertaken to assess nature of genetic variability and diversity among 200 mutant lines of M4 generation. The study revealed wide variation for yield and yield attributing traits, moderate GCV and PCV coupled with high heritability and genetic advance was observed for stem girth, panicle length and panicle width. The traits viz., stem girth, panicle length, panicle weight, panicle width, 100-seed weight, grain yield per plant and fodder yield showed high heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean. A wider genetic diversity was observed for the different traits studied among the mutant lines as evidenced by the formation of thirteen clusters for the 200 mutant lines. Out of thirteen characters studied, fodder yield contributed majorly towards divergence with value of 37.35 per cent followed by 100-seed weight contributes (20%), grain yield contributes (15%) and other traits contribute minorly for divergence.