Indian Journal of Biology

Apple crop is highly sensitive to weather stress. Temperature plays an important role on successful production of apple in temperate regions. This crop requires very specific temperature at its different stages. The average summer temperature should be around 21-24oC during active growth period. Apple succeeds best in regions where the trees experience uninterrupted rest in winter and abundant sunshine for good colour development. It can be grown at an altitude of 1500- 2700 m above the sea level. Bud dormancy, break and development are affected by variation in temperature. The amount of cold needed by a plant to resume normal spring growth following the winter period is referred to as its "chilling requirement." Buds remain dormant until they have accumulated sufficient chilling units of cold weather. Apple also requires accumulated heat units for onset of flowering. Mean maximum temperature in February, March and April is found to be most important variable in apple yield prediction in Indian conditions. Besides, above ground temperature, variations in soil thermal regimes also impact on tree physiology. Fruiting is also a temperature driven process. Frost can damage the full bloom stage up to 60-70% crop when temperature is around -2.2OC. Spring frost is not damaging as much as winter frost. In the changing climatic scenarios, apple production in Uttrakhand is unquestionably going to be affected in forthcoming days.

Pathogenesis-related proteins (PRs) are a class of proteins that accumulate in response to biotic and abiotic stresses to protect plants from damage. The present study examined the defense response of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) wilt resistant and susceptible genotypes inoculated with wilt pathogen Fusarium oxyporum f.sp. ciceri (Foc). Evaluation of pre-induced and pathogen-induced defense at 3 stages i.e. 7 (S1), 15 (S2) and 30 (S3) days showed that the PRs (i.e. β-1,3-glucanase and chitinase) differed not only among the root, stem and leaves but also among susceptible and resistant genotypes and increased after inoculation with Foc. Foc inoculation induced β-1,3-glucanase and chitinase activity in all the test cultivars. Maximum induction of chitinase was observed at S2 in roots of resistant cultivars whereas un-inoculated plants showed much less conspicuous changes. β-1,3-glucanase activity was high in stem tissues. Both control and Foc inoculated plants had higher level of β-1,3-glucanase activity at S2 and S3, but the resistant cultivars recorded much higher proportionate increase.. The activity/expression pattern of these PR proteins could be used as established resistance markers and for manipulating their expression towards development of superior wilt-resistant chickpea genotypes.

Industrial effluents, agricultural run offs and sewage from households are regularly discharged into the derelict water bodies as well as fish culture ponds, which generates a potential risk for both human and fish. In the present study, one month survey (August, 2019) was conducted in eight different derelict ponds randomly selected from Kalyani subdivision of Nadia district, West Bengal, India to see its potential efficacy to be a fish culture pond by analyzing its physicochemical and microbiological parameters along with enzymatic assay. Different physicochemical parameters like dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, conductivity, phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium-N, chemical oxygen demand, hardness, organic carbon and total alkalinity of the water were statistically analyzed with the abundance of heterotrophic and phosphate solubilizing bacteria in the studied ponds. High and low bacterial enzyme activity on the other hand clearly reflected the optimum and unfavouranle nutrient enrichment conditions in water. It was found that the sample data provide strong enough evidence to conclude that the bacteria count have a pressure over water quality parameter studied in different ponds particularly on phosphates and hardness of the water as the P value is less than significance level of 0.05 causing rejection of null hypothesis. The data provides additional information regarding alteration of bacterial enzyme activity in the studied ponds. Thus, the ponds warrant for adoption of proper measures to reduce the pollution level at the point source to be a fish culture pond.