Soil salinity is a major problem of this century. It effects crop productivity as well as plant growth and development. Salt ions are responsible for several types of plant organelle damage. Salinity stress is the most dangerous stress among all abiotic stresses in the environment. During salinity stress various cellular and biochemical mechanisms get up regulated to protect the plant. Cabbage family has a large number of plant species with significant variation of chromosome number as well as significant variation in salinity stress responses. This family has the model plant named Arabidopsis thaliana which is a salt susceptible plant where the lungiella halophila shows salt resistant. Members of the Brassica ceae family show a wide range of reaction to salt stress to survive. High salinity stress causes membrane rupture, electrolyte leakage, ionic and osmotic equilibrium disruption even the death of plants. Pathway like SOS (Salt Overly Sensitive) helps Cabbage plants to survive in this kind of conditions. Along with biochemical pathways, Cabbage (Brassica ceae) family plants always up regulate salt stress removing compounds like several carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids and queternary ammonium compounds which act as osmoprotectants. This chapter describes the cellular as well as biochemical responses of Brassica ceae family member plants to fight against salinity stress.
Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important staple food crops feeding more than half of the world’s population. One of the requirements for future sustainable rice production is to develop drought tolerant varieties. We have identified a number of drought sensitive tagged lines by screening our rice activation tagging population. Two of the sensitive lines, AH13391 and AH17392, exhibit reduced drought tolerance compared to the controls, and have a single T-DNA in a region next to an ATPase-associated with diverse cellular activities (AAA)-like gene, respectively. Constitutive overexpression of either AAA-like gene (OsAAA-1 and OsAAA-2) significantly reduced the drought tolerance, whereas knocking them out by CRISPR-Cas9 significantly increased grain yield under both drought and well-watered field conditions. Comparative analysis of different OsAAA-1-edited variations shows that the core AAA ATPase domain and the C-terminal end of OsAAA-1 protein are important for its function in drought sensitivity; and OsAAA genes may regulate drought sensitivity through interacting with other drought-stress responsive partners. Our results show that OsAAA genes play an important role in drought sensitivity and demonstrate the feasibility of improving drought tolerance by CRISPR-mediated knockouts of native rice drought sensitive genes.
The rheological, baking and eating quality of foods are depends on the relationship among the proximate and starch compositions of flour. In the present study four finger millet varieties (Axum, Padet, Tadese and Tesema), one pearl millet variety (Kola-1) and one tef variety (Qucnho) which was used as control were considered for investigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the chemical compositions and rheological properties of flours for injera making quality. A significant (p<0.05) variations were observed among the five millet flours and Quncho in their proximate compositions and starch components. The highest contents of crude protein (11.62%), crude fat (6.42%), iron (61.7 mg/kg) and zinc (53.55 mg/kg) and the lowest contents of ash (1.72%), carbohydrate (55.37%), amylose (17.5%) and calcium (0.02%) were noticed for Kola-1compared to finger millet cultivars. Pasting properties were positively correlated with starch and amylose contents, and negatively correlated with fat content. Injera making quality was positively correlated with fat and protein contents and negatively correlated with starch content. The result indicated that the highest the protein content the more preferred injera quality. In its consumer acceptance, injera made from Kola-1 was preferred similar with the control.
Tef (Eragrostis TefM) is one of a few endemic crops of Ethiopia having very attractive nutritional profile. Gluten free nature of Tef grain has been highly advocated by consumers outside of Ethiopia. However, wide use of unimproved cultivars and poor management practices, combined with inherent low productivity nature of the crop itself has been a major challenge in Tef production. Since Ethiopia is source of origin and diversity for Tef, there are an enormous opportunity to breed and develop relatively better yielding Tef varieties. In the present study, 18 Tef Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) and two check varieties such as Quncho and Ajora were evaluated at three selected Tef based research sites (Areka, Hossana and Halaba) of Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia in 2014 and 2015. The RILs were evaluated for grain yield and other yield related traits; however, the present article focused on grain yield potential of Tef lines. Two RILs such as DZ-01-974 x DZ-01-2788 and DZCr- 37 x DZ-01-2786 with overall mean grain yield of 1681 (ranged from 1701 to1877) and 1600 (ranged from 1545 to 1649) kg/ha, respectively were promoted to Variety Verification Trial (VVT). The two selected RILs and two check varieties such as Quncho and Boset were further evaluated at VVT-phase at the three research stations and on two farmers’ fields nearby each of the three-station using large plots in 2017. All trials under VVT-phase across locations were evaluated by group of farmers, group of researchers and National Variety Releasing Committee (NVRC). During evaluations at VVT-phase, a line DZ-01-974 x DZ-01-2788 was realized by all evaluators to exhibit overall better field performance across the three research stations and farmers’ fields. Thus, it was decided to release the line DZ-01-974 x DZ-01-2788, which was later given a breeder name “Areka-1”. Therefore, we recommended Areka-1 for production to midlands of SNNPR.
Food security in changing climate is the major challenge to feed the ever growing world population. Advancements in plant breeding in the form of novel techniques is the ultimate solution for the development of high yielding, disease-resistant, nutritious varieties in rapid time. In this scenario speed cloning from wild relatives can lead to manipulation of desirable genes in crops using genome editing which eventually through speed breeding may lead to the development of varieties in half of the time than normal. In this review, we described the novel technical breakthroughs that have great potential and are being employed for enhancing crop improvement.
