A study was undertaken to evaluate effectiveness of foliar spray with 33 plant extracts against leaf spot (Tikka) of groundnut caused by Cercospora arachidicola and Cercosporidium personatum. Bavistin and BAU-Biofungicide were included in the experiment as checks and spray of plain water represented control. Almost all treatments gave considerable reduction in disease incidence and increase in ...

Nutrient conservation is considered important for the adaptation of plants to infertile environments. The importance of leaf life spans in controlling mean residence time of nutrients in plants has usually been analyzed in relation to nutrients that can be retranslocated within the plant. Longer leaf life spans increase the mean residence time of all mineral nutrients, but for non-mobile nutrie...

The Catharanthus roseus L. plant leaf extracts were prepared by using solvents such as acetone, ethanol, and chloroform and tested against pathogenic microorganisms to determine their antimicrobial potential. Catharanthus roseus leaf extracts showed maximum antibacterial activity against all the pathogenic microorganisms. Among the solvents tested, ethanol showed maximum antibacterial activity ...

OBJECTIVES The leaf and bark of Thevetia peruviana (Family: Apocynaceae) plant was administered for 24 h to the freshwater fish Catla catla (Hamilton) to evaluate their piscicidal activity in laboratory and cemented pond condition. MATERIALS AND METHODS AND RESULTS The LC0 values of lef and bark extracts of different solvents (i.e., acetone, diethyl ether, ethyl alcohol, chloroform and carbon...

Although clouds are the most recognisable and defining feature of tropical montane cloud forests, little research has focussed on how clouds affect plant functioning. We used satellite and ground-based observations to study cloud and leaf wetting patterns in contrasting tropical montane and pre-montane cloud forests. We then studied the consequences of leaf wetting for the direct uptake of wate...

The use of hydroponic systems for cultivation in controlled climatic conditions and the selection of suitable genotypes for the specific environment help improving crop growth and yield. We hypothesized that plant performance in hydroponics could be further maximized by exploiting the action of plant growth-promoting organisms (PGPMs). However, the effects of PGPMs on plant physiology have been...

The resistances to liquid water transport in the soil and plant were determined directly and simultaneously from measurements of soil, root, and leaf water potentials and the flux of water through the soil-plant system to the sites of evaporation in the leaf. For soybean (Merr.) transporting water at a steady rate, water potential differences between soil and root were smaller than between root...

This study addresses the question of how size-related changes in leaf morphology and physiology influence light absorption and carbon gain of the epiphytic bromeliad Vriesea sanguinolenta. A geometrically based computer model, Y-plant, was used for the three-dimensional reconstruction of entire plants and for calculation of whole plant light interception and carbon gain. Plants of different siz...

Leaf hydraulic supply is crucial to maintaining open stomata for CO2 capture and plant growth. During drought-induced dehydration, the leaf hydraulic conductance (Kleaf) declines, which contributes to stomatal closure and, eventually, to leaf death. Previous studies have tended to attribute the decline of Kleaf to embolism in the leaf vein xylem. We visualized at high resolution and quantified ...

Background. To cope with their natural enemies, plants rely on resistance and tolerance as defensive strategies. Evolution of these strategies among natural population can be constrained by the absence of genetic variation or because of the antagonistic genetic correlation (trade-off) between them. Also, since plant defenses are integrated by several traits, it has been suggested that trade-off...