Epichloë fungal endophytes of cool season grasses are well-known to produce a range of alkaloids of benefit to the host. Some of these compounds are advantageous to agriculture due to qualities that promote pasture persistence (e.g., the loline class of alkaloids confer insect protection) while others are detrimental to the well-being of grazing livestock. The ergot alkaloids (e.g., ergovaline)...

Improvement of economic characters like yield through selection is conditioned by the nature and magnitude of variability existing in such populations. However, the phenotypic expression of complex character like yield is a combination of genotype, environment and their interaction. This indicates the need for partition of overall variability into heritable and non-heritable components with the...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS To improve the management of grass communities, early plant development was compared in three species with contrasting growth forms, a caespitose (Lolium perenne), a rhizomatous (Poa pratensis) and a caespitose-stoloniferous species (Agrostis stolonifera). METHODS Isolated seedlings were grown in a glasshouse without trophic constraints for 37 d (761 degrees Cd). The appea...

The predicted ongoing increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is considered to be one of the main threats to biodiversity due to potential changes in biotic interactions. We tested whether effects of intraand interspecific planting density of the calcareous grassland perennials Bromus erectus and Carex flacca change in response to elevated [CO2] (600 ppm) by using factorial combinations o...

Unlike many wild grasses, domesticated rice cultivars have uniform culm height and panicle size among tillers and the main shoot, which is an important trait for grain yield. However, the genetic basis of this trait remains unknown. Here, we report that Dwarf Tiller1 (DWT1) controls the developmental uniformity of the main shoot and tillers in rice (Oryza sativa). Most dwt1 mutant plants develo...

Tillering is defined as the process of above-ground shoot production by a single plant. The number of grass tillers is one of the most important parameters in ecology and breeding studies. The number of tillers is usually determined by manually counting the separated shoots from a single plant. Unfortunately, this method is too time-consuming. In this study, a new method for counting grass till...

in order to study effects of nitrogen fertilization and cultivars on some of traits of different barley an experiment was conducted at isfahan in 2012. the experimental was split plot in a randomized complete block design with three replications. in this experiment, different levels of nitrogen in the main plots included four levels (0, 50, 100 and 150 n kg/ha (urea)) and barley cultivars inclu...

according to the contradictory reports of researchers, tillers may have positive or negative effect on wheat yield. thus, this study was conducted to investigate the role of tillers on wheat yield under two row spacing of 12.5 and 25 cm and four plant densities of 125, 250, 375 and 500 plants per m2, at gorgan university of agricultural sciences and natural resources farm in anbare-ololum reign...

Seventy genotypes of rice (Oryza sativa L.) were evaluated during Kharif 2012 to study the nature and extent of correlation among yield and yield attributing characters, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to maturity, number of effective tillers per plant, plant height, panicle length, number of grains per panicle, 1000-grain weight, grain yield per plant, kernel length, kernel breadth and L/B...