Advancements and prospects of CRISPR/Cas9 technologies for abiotic and biotic stresses in sugar beet.

Sugar beet is a crop with high sucrose content, known for sugar production and recently being considered as an emerging raw material for bioethanol production. This crop is also utilized as cattle feed, mainly when animal green fodder is scarce. Bioethanol and hydrogen gas production from this crop is an essential source of clean energy. Environmental stresses (abiotic/biotic) severely affect the productivity of this crop. Over the past few decades, the molecular mechanisms of biotic and abiotic stress responses in sugar beet have been investigated using next-generation sequencing, gene editing/silencing, and over-expression approaches. This information can be efficiently utilized through CRISPR/Cas 9 technology to mitigate the effects of abiotic and biotic stresses in sugar beet cultivation. This review highlights the potential use of CRISPR/Cas 9 technology for abiotic and biotic stress management in sugar beet. Beet genes known to be involved in response to alkaline, cold, and heavy metal stresses can be precisely modified via CRISPR/Cas 9 technology for enhancing sugar beet's resilience to abiotic stresses with minimal off-target effects. Similarly, CRISPR/Cas 9 technology can help generate insect-resistant sugar beet varieties by targeting susceptibility-related genes, whereas incorporating Cry1Ab and Cry1C genes may provide defense against lepidopteron insects. Overall, CRISPR/Cas 9 technology may help enhance sugar beet's adaptability to challenging environments, ensuring sustainable, high-yield production.

Post-harvest biology and recent advances of storage technologies in sugarcane.

Sugarcane deteriorates at a quick rate, just like other perishable crops. The quick loss of sucrose content in sugarcane from the time it is harvested has a significant impact on sugar recovery. This problem of post-harvest sucrose losses in sugarcane is a serious concern in cane-producing countries, as it not only leads to low sugar recovery in mills, but also to poor sugar refining. Unreasonable delays in cane transportation from the fields to the mill are frequently linked to a number of problems related to primary or secondary sucrose losses, all of which contribute to a significant reduction in cane weight and sugar recovery. In sugar mills, the processing of damaged or stale canes also presents a number of challenges, including increased viscosity due to dextran generation, formation of acetic acid, and dextrans due to Leuconostoc spp. invasion, and so on. The combination of all of these variables results in low sugar quality, resulting in significant losses for sugar mills. The primary and secondary losses caused by post-harvest sucrose degradation in sugarcane are enlisted. The employment of physico-chemical technologies in farmers' fields and sugar mills to control and minimize these losses has also been demonstrated.

Impact of chemical treatments on Leuconostoc bacteria from harvested stored cane/stale cane.

Post-harvest sucrose losses are always a critical problem for sugar industries. A predominant factor which is causing these post-harvest losses that affects sugar recovery is the bacterium Leuconostoc spp. This study aims to check the efficacy of certain chemical treatments in reducing the proliferation of this bacterium. Our study based on a Leuconostoc-specific media revealed that application of 0.5 % aqueous solution of benzalkonium chloride and sodium metasilicate (BKC + SMS), formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, sodium chloride and pine oil showed significant reduction in zone of proliferation. Considering formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde as control, the most effective treatments were chemical formulations of benzalkonium chloride along with sodium metasilicate, pine oil and sodium chloride in checking the proliferation of this bacterium. The application of these treatments has an immense potential in the sugar industry for reducing post-harvest sugar losses.

Morphological assessment of water stressed sugarcane: A comparison of waterlogged and drought affected crop.

Abiotic stress is recurrent occurring problem for sugarcane crop in terms of hindrance in achieving good and high production. In India, drought coverage is 2.97 lakh ha while 2.5 lakh ha under coverage of waterlogging which is one of the reasons behind low cane production and productivity due to alteration in metabolism, growth and development of the plant either in direct or indirect way. Therefore, we investigated the comparison of morphological losses in drought and waterlogging sugarcanes. Morphological parameters assessed were leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, stalk diameter, cane height, cane weight, internodes number and average internodal length. Also, total root weight, dry matter production of stalk, leaves and roots were observed. Results showed that leaf length was marginally increased in drought canes but it was not so in case of waterlogged canes. Besides, there was decrease in total root weight of sugarcane affected by drought by 16.99% while there was increase by 10.06% in waterlogging affected canes in comparison to normal grown canes. In cane height and stalk diameter, decrease by 18.28%, 7.52%, respectively, in drought and 11.41%, marginal decrease, respectively, in waterlogged affected canes as compared to normally grown canes. Average internodal length was also found to increase in both drought as well as waterlogged canes by 39.02% and 36.60%, respectively, in comparison to normal grown canes. Number of internodes was decreased more in drought affected canes than in waterlogged canes. This study concluded that there are higher morphological losses in sugarcane in drought condition than in waterlogging conditions with respect to normal grown canes.

Minimization of post-harvest sucrose losses in drought affected sugarcane using chemical formulation.

Sugarcane is a significant crop for production of sugar and ethanol in the world. In present perspective, drought is one of the frequently occurring abiotic stresses hampering the productivity of sugarcane causing heavy losses in sugar recovery. Post-harvest sugarcane deterioration attains more importance. Measures have been recommended in harvested canes to prevent these losses in general and under drought conditions but application of chemical formulation has not yet been tested over drought effected ones. Thus, we tried to investigate the efficacy of chemical formulation [Benzalkonium chloride (BKC) + Sodium metasilicate (SMS)] on sucrose losses occurring in harvested canes grown under drought and normal conditions. Results showed that application of chemical formulation had higher effect on drought canes in comparison to normal grown canes. Loss in cane weight was reduced to 8.25% and 11% in drought treated and normal treated grown canes, respectively, after 240 h of harvest in comparison to their respective control. In sucrose content and Commercial cane sugars %, drought treated canes showed an effect of BKC + SMS by reducing the losses to 1.26 units and 1.42 units, respectively, whereas in normal ones, reduction was of 0.38 units and 0.10 units, respectively. Biochemical analysis revealed that in reducing sugars, reduction in increase were of 44.51% and 25.50% in drought and normal grown canes, respectively, after 240 h of harvest. Dextran and soluble acid invertase estimations revealed that after application of BKC + SMS, reduction of dextran and invertase activity were of 49.74%, 66.84%, respectively, and 33.92%, 42.75%, respectively, in drought and normal grown canes, respectively. Total microbial load, showed effectiveness of 25.01% in drought grown canes while 14.41% in normal grown ones after 240 h of harvest. Our study was planned to use the anti-bacterial efficiency of both the chemicals over harvested canes so that the major sucrose losses occurring due to microbial deterioration could be inhibited. The use of this chemical formulation proves to be an effective one over post-harvest sucrose losses, particularly in drought grown canes.

Characterization of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes on the basis of morpho-physiological and biochemical traits grown under aerobic situation in rainfed ecosystem .

The objective of the present study was to examine the effect of aerobic situation on yield, physiological and biochemical traits of advanced breeding lines of rice. Experiment was conducted with two set of rice genotypes under two water regimes (aerobic and irrigated), during three consecutive wet seasons 2010-2012. Significant decrease in yield was observed in rice genotypes grown under aerobic situation as compared to the irrigated ones. Promising rice genotypes having the ability to maintain high plant biomass, harvest index, early vegetative vigour, improved physiological and biochemical traits in terms of relative water content (RWC), leaf area index (LAI), total soluble sugar, starch, protien and proline content help to sustain higher grain yield under aerobic situation. The yield gap between aerobic and irrigated rice ranged between 24% to 68%. Grain yield showed positive correlation with harvest index (0.434), test weight (0.647), plant biomass (0.411) and effective tiller numbers (0.473), whereas spikelet sterility was negative associated (-0.380). The current study suggested that promising genotypes viz., IR77298-14-1-2-130-2, IR84899-B-182-3-1-1-2, IR84887-B-157-38-1-1-3 and IR 84899-B-179-1-1-1-2 for aerobic situation, showing yield advantage due to better performance of physiological and biochemical traits, might be adopted in large area of rainfed ecosystem as well as in irrigated areas where water scarcity was a major problem.

Prevalence and pattern of congenital heart disease in school children of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The prevalence of congenital heart disease (CHD) is not known in our country. The aim of present study was to find out the prevalence of CHD in school children of eastern Uttar Pradesh. METHOD: A team consisting of a cardiologist, physicians and junior residents visited schools in the area. All the children were examined for presence of cardiac murmur or history of heart disease or any intervention. Those with murmurs or previous history of heart disease were called to the Medical College Hospital for evaluation by ECG, chest X-ray and echocardiography for confirmation of the lesion. RESULTS: Out of 118,212 children examined, 142 were found to have CHD. The prevalence was 1.3 per 1000 children and the commonest lesions were ventricular and atrial septal defects, aortic stenosis with or without regurgitation, and pulmonary stenosis. CONCLUSION: CHD prevalence is 1.3 per 1000 school children that is nearly two and a half times more than that of RHD. Knowing it is important for development of facilities for CHD care in our setup.

Ovarian pregnancy. A case report emphasizing the need for careful histologic review.

BACKGROUND: A high index of suspicion and careful review of the histology are needed to recognize ovarian pregnancy. CASE: An ovarian pregnancy presented clinically as a typical tubal pregnancy; the diagnosis was missed until a careful review of the histology was repeated by the clinician and pathologist together. CONCLUSION: A missed diagnosis of ovarian pregnancy may be common without a high index of suspicion.