In this review, we describe the role of plant-derived biochemicals that are toxic to insect pests. Biotic stress in plants caused by insect pests is one of the most significant problems, leading to yield losses. Synthetic pesticides still play a significant role in crop protection. However, the environmental side effects and health issues caused by the overuse or inappropriate application of synthetic pesticides forced authorities to ban some problematic ones. Consequently, there is a strong necessity for novel and alternative insect pest control methods. An interesting source of ecological pesticides are biocidal compounds, naturally occurring in plants as allelochemicals (secondary metabolites), helping plants to resist, tolerate or compensate the stress caused by insect pests. The abovementioned bioactive natural products are the first line of defense in plants against insect herbivores. The large group of secondary plant metabolites, including alkaloids, saponins, phenols and terpenes, are the most promising compounds in the management of insect pests. Secondary metabolites offer sustainable pest control, therefore we can conclude that certain plant species provide numerous promising possibilities for discovering novel and ecologically friendly methods for the control of numerous insect pests.

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous and persistent pollutants, and have been detected in a wide variety of media, from soils to aquatic systems. MPs, consisting primarily of polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyacrylamide polymers, have recently been found in 12% of samples of honey collected in Ecuador. Recently, MPs have also been identified in honey bees collected from apiaries in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as nearby semiurban and rural areas. Given these documented exposures, assessment of their effects is critical for understanding the risks of MP exposure to honey bees. Exposure to polystyrene (PS)-MPs decreased diversity of the honey bee gut microbiota, followed by changes in gene expression related to oxidative damage, detoxification, and immunity. As a result, the aim of this perspective was to investigate whether wide-spread prevalence of MPs might have unintended negative effects on health and fitness of honey bees, as well as to draw the scientific community’s attention to the possible risks of MPs to the fitness of honey bees. Several research questions must be answered before MPs can be considered a potential threat to bees.

Screening for drought tolerance requires precise techniques like phonemics, which is an emerging science aimed at non-destructive methods allowing large-scale screening of genotypes. Large-scale screening complements genomic efforts to identify genes relevant for crop improvement. Thirty maize inbred lines from various sources (exotic and indigenous) maintained at Dryland Agriculture Research Station were used in the current study. In the automated plant transport and imaging systems (LemnaTec Scanalyzer system for large plants), top and side view images were taken of the VIS (visible) and NIR (near infrared) range of the light spectrum to capture phenes. All images were obtained with a thermal imager. All sensors were used to collect images one day after shifting the pots from the greenhouse for 11 days. Image processing was done using pre-processing, segmentation and flowered by features’ extraction. Different surrogate traits such as pixel area, plant aspect ratio, convex hull ratio and calliper length were estimated. A strong association was found between canopy temperature and above ground biomass under stress conditions. Promising lines in different surrogates will be utilized in breeding programmes to develop mapping populations for traits of interest related to drought resilience, in terms of improved tissue water status and mapping of genes/QTLs for drought traits.

The study was carried out in temperate conditions of Kashmir valley during 2013–2015. The patches of cherry crop were located in different landscape categories, and the maximum insect pollinator species richness of 45 was observed in Budgam, belonging to 5 orders, 31 families and 20 genera. Amongst these, the genus Lasioglossum was the most abundant flower visitor followed by the less abundant genera Xylocopa spp., Andrena spp., Megachile spp., Syrphus spp. and Musca spp. The maximum Simpson and Shannon diversity indices and Simpson's dominance were observed to be 8.319, 6.506 and 0.879, respectively in district Srinagar. The equitability index, Pielou's evenness, Nakamaru's richness, Menhinick's and Margalef's varied significantly across the landscapes studied. Species richness showed a corresponding and parallel increase with various indices estimated. The unequal distribution of species abundance on cherry allow the use of dominance index of Berger-Parker to express the proportion of individuals accounted for by the most abundant species (Lasioglossum marginatum) in each site. The mean dissimilarity coefficients of species richness were 6.57-halictid species (Lasioglossum spp.) exhibited hourly abundance commencing from early morning, but generally the pollinators increased in course of day, becoming maximum at mid day (÷²=0.97, p-valued”0.05%), and decrease in afternoon (1400-1500hr) and the least was observed late afternoon (1500-1600hr). Hymenoptera was the most abundant of all the insect orders with rank (K) one and K-dominance of 0.683 followed by Diptera with rank value 2 and K-dominance value-0.958.

An experiment was conducted at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during 2014–15 and 2015–16, keeping four sowing dates {25th Oct (D₁), 10th Nov (D₂), 25th Nov (D₃) and 10th Dec (D₄)} in main plots and five irrigation schedules {irrigation at 15 (FC₁₅), 25 (FC₂₅), 35 (FC₃₅) and 45 (FC₄₅) % depletion of soil moisture from field capacity (FC) and a conventional practice} in sub plots. The objective of the study was to evaluate the performance of CERES-Wheat model for simulating yield and water use under varying planting and soil moisture regimes. The simulated and observed grain yield was higher in D₁, with irrigation applied at FC₁₅ as compared to all other sowing date and irrigation regime combinations. Simulated grain yield decreased by 19% with delay in sowing from 25th October to 10th December because of 8% reduction in simulated crop evapotranspiration. Simulated evapotranspiration decreased by 16%, wheat grain yield by 23% and water productivity by 15% in drip irrigation at 45% depletion from field capacity as compared to drip irrigation at 15% of field capacity. It was further revealed that the model performed well in simulating the phenology, water use and yield of wheat.