The objective of marker assisted recurrent selection (MARS) is to increase the frequency of favorable marker alleles in a population before inbred line extraction. This approach was used to improve drought tolerance and grain yield (GY) in a biparental cross of two elite drought tolerant lines. The testcrosses of randomly selected 50 S1 lines from each of the three selection cycles (C0, C1, C2)...

Improving crop yields are essential to meet the increasing pressure of global food demands. The loss of high quality land, the slowing in annual yield increases of major cereals, increasing fertilizer use, and the effect of this on the environment all indicate that we need to develop new strategies to increase grain yields with less impact on the environment. One strategy that could help addres...

The Arabidopsis SUMO E3 ligase gene AtSIZ1 plays important roles in plant response to abiotic stresses as loss of function in AtSIZ1 leads to increased sensitivity to drought, heat and salt stresses. Overexpression of the AtSIZ1 rice homolog, OsSIZ1, leads to increased heat and drought tolerance in bentgrass, suggesting that the function of the E3 ligase SIZ1 is highly conserved in plants and i...

Experiments were conducted to determine methane emission from a rainfed lowland rice field (water depth about 3–30 cm) and an irrigated shallow rice field (4–6 cm), both planted to the same cultivar, cv. ‘Gayatri,’ as influenced by fertilizer management practices. Methane emission peaked from 100 to 125 days after transplanting followed by a decline in rainfed lowland field plots. Application o...

Yields of dryland (rainfed) wheat in Australia have increased steadily over the past century despite rainfall being unchanged, indicating that the rainfall-use efficiency has increased. Analyses suggest that at least half of the increase in rainfall-use efficiency can be attributed to improved agronomic management. Various methods of analysing the factors influencing dryland yields and rainfall...

A quantitative understanding of yield response to water and nutrients is key to improving the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems. Here, we quantified the effects of rainfall, fertilization (NPK) and soil organic amendments (with straw and manure) on yields of a rainfed wheat-soybean system in the North China Plain (NCP), using 30-years' field experimental data (1982-201...

Drought is one of the major constraints limiting agricultural production worldwide and is expected to increase in the future. Limited water availability causes significant effects to plant growth and physiology. Plants have evolved different traits to mitigate the stress imposed by drought. The presence of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) could play an important role in improving pla...

to investigate the effects of sowing date (sd) and single irrigation (si) on grain yield of rainfed wheat varieties, this experiment was conducted as split-split plot arranged in a randomized complete block design (rcbd) with three replications from sep.2000 to sep.2004 at the main station of dryland agricultural research institute (dari) in maragheh. the treatments included three sowing dates ...

A total of 10 field experiments were carried out during the 1998 and 1999 growing seasons both in the north (Lleida) and the south (Granada and Jerez) of Spain. In Lleida and Granada, the experiments were conducted under both irrigated and rainfed conditions, while the Jerez trials were carried out only under rainfed conditions. Ten durum wheat genotypes were used in this study. Quality determi...

Agriculture in rainfed dry areas is often challenged by inadequate water and nutrient supplies. Summerfallowing has been used to conserve rainwater and promote the release of nitrogen via the N mineralization of soil organic matter. However, summerfallowing leaves land without any crops planted for one entire growing season, creating lost production opportunity. Additionally, summerfallowing ha...