TH Singh

Aim: Dinanath grass is a drought tolerant multipurpose species with high potential for quality fodder in tropical regions. In India, it is distributed in eastern and southern parts. The gap in collection and exploitation of genetic diversity exists in Dinanath grass. Therefore, genetic diversity of Dinanath grass was collected and evaluated for utilization in genetic improvement of Pennisetum species for future fodder security. Methodology: A total 28 accessions of Dinanath grass were collected from western and southern regions of Karnataka. Collected accessions were grown under rainfed conditions and evaluated for six qualitative and ten quantitative traits and response to leaf blight reaction. The evaluated accessions were analyzed by using different univariate and multivariate statistical tools. Results: Dinanath accessions were categorized as per qualitative traits. Quantitative traits exhibited low (7.43%) to high (62.88%) coefficient of variation. Dry matter yield showed positive association with plant height, leaf area and tillers per plant. Cluster analysis classified Dinanath accessions into four distinct groups. The first five principal components explained >85% of the total variation. Three accessions viz., IG-15-26, IG-15-30, IG-15-4 were identified as resistant against leaf blight disease; and donor accessions for agronomic traits were selected. Interpretation: The indigenous Dinanath grass collection from Western Karnataka has ample diversity with reference to qualitative and biomass contributing traits; and resistance against leaf bight disease. The information generated on collected germplasm will assist the researchers in designing the Pennisetum genetic improvement programme.

Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum, one of the important disease affecting brinjal and yield loss ranges from 11.67 to 96.67%. The conventional disease control strategies are not effective, hence use of resistance varieties and hybrids is the only way to control the disease. The experimental materials consisted of seven germplasm viz., CARI–1, Surya, WCGR, IIHR-3, S–75, Rampur Local and IIHR–586. The experiments were conducted in bacterial wilt sick plot with artificial inoculation of R. solanacearum culture. The highest variance was observed for fruit weight and lowest variance was observed on fruit yield per plant. The germplasm Surya was recorded as a better performed germplasm in respect to fruit yield per plant, number of fruits per plant, days to first flowering, number of primary branches per plant and percent disease incidence (bacterial wilt). The other germplasm CARI–1 was found to be immune to bacterial wilt disease with better yield performance.

Three Decco Commercial food-grade fruit coatings WT-12, WT-22 and WT-23 controlled the fungal fruit rot of bananas in storage. However, at the lowest concentration of 0.01 cc/100 g fruits used Gloeosporium the main spoilage fungus was more effectively controlled by WT-23 than by the other two formulations and it also controlled Rhizopus and Aspergillus.