Biology and life table of Diaeretiella rapae against Brevicoryne brassicae on different cultivars of cauliflower

Phytoparasitica - Diaeretiella rapae (McIntosh) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is one of the most promising, effective and a common endoparasitoid of different aphid species including cabbage aphid,...     

Spermatophore cryopreservation and artificial insemination of black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon (Fabricius)

To develop an appropriate cryopreservation protocol for spermatophores of black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, three cryoprotectants (dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO), methanol (MeOH) and ethylene glycol (EG)) at two concentrations (5% and 10%) were examined. Artificial implantation of spermatophores was also carried out to assess the fertilizing ability of fresh and post‐thaw spermatophores. Spermatophores were collected during consecutive regenerations (15‐day intervals) and assessed for qualitative and quantitative changes and also for fertilizing ability by implantation. The mean fertilization rate for artificial insemination using post‐thaw spermatophore was 79.9±3.7%, lower than the fertilization rates observed for artificial implantation using fresh spermatophore and natural mating. Mean hatch rates for fresh spermatophore, frozen‐thawed spermatophore and natural mating were 88.8±0.6%, 87.8±0.4% and 88.3±0.5%, respectively; and there was no difference among the three groups. The mean fertilization rate of spermatophores collected during the first stripping was higher (90.6±0.6) than during the second stripping (85.7±2.6), but the mean hatch rate was not different between the two strippings. The highest mean sperm viability (79.7±0.4%) was obtained from DMSO (5%), with no survival observed in the 10% MeOH treatment. Spermatophore weight, total sperm count and percentage of abnormal sperm were not different between spermatophores collected at the first and second stripping. This is the first study to report high fertilization and hatch rates from cryopreserved spermatophore using artificial implantation of spermatophore before spawning.     

Inheritance of plant elongation ability at seedling stage in rice

Summary In a comparison of methods to study inheritance of plant elongation ability, 15-, 20-, 25-, 30-, and 35-day-old F₂ populations of a cross between Baisbish (floating variety) and IR42 (nonelongating semidwarf modern variety) of rice, (Oryza sativa L.) were subjected to 65 cm water depth for 7 days. Frequency distribution of plant height before and after submergence was obtained. Bimodal curves in 15-, 20- and 25-day-old populations gave good fits to 9:7 elongating: nonelongating plants, suggesting that elongation was due to two dominant complementary genes. Segregation in the 30-day-old population was not clear-cut. A seedling age of 20 days was subsequently chosen for further studies.Two F₂'s involving floating rice and a nonelongating semidwarf; four F₂'s involving floating rice and an elongating semidwarf; and two F₂'s involving elongating and nonelongating semidwarf parents were studied with 20-day-old seedlings in the same way. Floating rice combinations with nonelongating semidwarf parents as well as with elongating semidwarf parents segregated into 9:7 elongating: nonelongating ratio. It is possible that because elongating and nonelongating dwarf parents did not differ much in elongation ability at seedling age, their combination with floating rice parents provided similar segregation. The F₂ distributions for height in elongating and nonelongating dwarf cross combinations were continuous with one peak.Genetic constitution of parents proposed are Sd1 Sd1 El El for floating parents, sd1 sd1 El El for semidwarf elongating, and sd1 sd1 el el for dwarf nonelongating.     

To pool or not to pool? Guidelines for pooling samples for use in surveillance testing of infectious diseases in aquatic animals

Samples from multiple animals may be pooled and tested to reduce costs of surveillance for infectious agents in aquatic animal populations. The primary advantage of pooling is increased population‐level coverage when prevalence is low (<10%) and the number of tests is fixed, because of increased likelihood of including target analyte from at least one infected animal in a tested pool. Important questions and a priori design considerations need to be addressed. Unfortunately, pooling recommendations in disease‐specific chapters of the 2018 OIE Aquatic Manual are incomplete and, except for amphibian chytrid fungus, are not supported by peer‐reviewed research. A systematic review identified only 12 peer‐reviewed aquatic diagnostic accuracy and surveillance studies using pooled samples. No clear patterns for pooling methods and characteristics were evident across reviewed studies, although most authors agreed there is a negative effect on detection. Therefore, our purpose was to review pooling procedures used in published aquatic infectious disease research, present evidence‐based guidelines, and provide simulated data examples for white spot syndrome virus in shrimp. A decision tree of pooling guidelines was developed for use by peer‐reviewed journals and research institutions for the design, statistical analysis and reporting of comparative accuracy studies of individual and pooled tests for surveillance purposes.     

Comparative Performance of Rice with System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Conventional Management using Different Plant Spacings

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) reportedly enhances the yields of rice (Oryza sativa L.) through synergy among several agronomic management practices. This study was conducted to investigate the effects on rice plant characteristics and yield by comparing the plants grown with different methods of cultivation – SRI vs. recommended management practices (RMP) focusing on the impact of different plant spacings. Performance of individual hills was significantly improved with wider spacing compared with closer‐spaced hills in terms of root growth and xylem exudation rates, leaf number and leaf sizes, canopy angle, tiller and panicle number, panicle length and grain number per panicle, grain filling and 1000‐grain weight and straw weight, irrespective of whether SRI or RMP was employed. Both sets of practices gave their highest grain yield with the spacing of 20 × 20 cm; however, SRI yielded 40 % more than the recommended practice. At this spacing, canopies also had the highest leaf area index (LAI) and light interception during flowering stage. The lowest yield was recorded at 30 × 30 cm spacing under both the practices, as a result of less plant population (11 m^?2), despite improved hill performance. During the ripening stage, hills with wider spacing had larger root dry weight, produced greater xylem exudates, and transported these towards shoot at faster rates. These features contributed to the maintenance of higher chlorophyll levels, enhanced fluorescence and photosynthesis rates of leaves and supported more favourable yield attributes and grain yield in individual hills than in closely‐spaced plants. Moreover, these parameters further improved in SRI, apart from the enhanced percentage of effective tillers and showed substantial and positive impacts on grain yield (17 %) compared with recommended practice. In conclusion, wide spacing beyond optimum plant density, however, does not give higher grain yield on an area basis and for achieving this, a combination of improved hills with optimum plant population must be worked out for SRI.     

Effects on rice plant morphology and physiology of water and associated management practices of the system of rice intensification and their implications for crop performance

Field experiments were conducted in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, during the dry season (January–May) in 2008 and 2009 to investigate whether practices of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), including alternate wetting and drying (AWD) during the vegetative stage of plant growth, could improve rice plants’ morphology and physiology and what would be their impact on resulting crop performance, compared with currently recommended scientific management practices (SMP), including continuous flooding (CF) of paddies. With SRI practices, grain yield was increased by 48% in these trials at the same time, there was an average water saving of 22% compared with inundated SMP rice. Water productivity with AWD-SRI management practices was almost doubled (0.68 g l⁻¹) compared to CF-SMP (0.36 g l⁻¹). Significant improvements were observed in the morphology of SRI plants in terms of root growth, plant/culm height, tiller number per hill, tiller perimeter, leaf size and number, leaf area index (LAI), specific leaf weight (SLW), and open canopy structure. These phenotypic improvements of the AWD-SRI crop were accompanied by physiological changes: greater xylem exudation rate, crop growth rate, mean leaf elongation rate (LER), and higher light interception by the canopy compared to rice plants grown under CF-SMP. SRI plants showed delayed leaf senescence and greater light utilization, and they maintained higher photosynthetic rates during reproductive and grain-filling stages. This was responsible for improvement in yield-contributing characteristics and higher grain yield than from flooded rice with SMP. We conclude that SRI practices with AWD improve rice plants’ morphology, and this benefits physiological processes that result in higher grain yield and water productivity.     

Short term effect of applied nitrate on nitrogen metabilism of Acacia catechu seedlings

Nitrogen metabolism of Acacia catechu seedlings was studied after 5, 10 and 15 days of daily 20 mM nitrate application. Fresh weight of shoots and total nitrogen content of the plants increased significantly with applied nitrate but there was no effect on nodulation. An increase in the nitrate reductase activity, nitrate and nitrite content in nodules and leaves of the treated plants was also observed. However, the total soluble protein content declined and the amino acid content increased in different parts of the treated plants.     

Mining of rice blast resistance gene Pi54 shows effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms on phenotypic expression of the alleles

The rice blast resistance gene Pi54 (formerly Pi-k ^h ) isolated from indica rice line Tetep confers broad spectrum resistance to different strains of Magnaporthe oryzae in India. In this study, we performed PCR based allele mining for blast resistance gene Pi54 from six cultivated rice lines and eight wild rice species to understand its structural variation and its impact on the phenotypes. Sequence analysis indicates presence of more variation between cultivated and wild species (35–90 %) than variation found among cultivated species (1–20 %). Structural analysis of alleles showed presence of variable number of Open Reading Frames (0–2) principally having point mutations in the leucine rich repeats (LRR) regions. The Ka/Ks ratio of LRR region was >1, which shows the effect of selection pressure at this domain. The Pi54 alleles have 142 polymorphic sites with average nucleotide diversity of 0.04522. The K_a/K_s ratio of coding region ranged from 0 to >1 and Tajima’s D test showed negative as well as Darwinian selection within the alleles, which corresponded well with their phenotypic reaction to M. oryzae. The results obtained in this study shows divergent nature of Pi54 allele in wild species and land races of rice. The resistance alleles identified in this study can be used in effective management of rice blast disease through gene pyramiding.