In tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.), the effects of combined drought (D) and high temperature (HT) stress during the flowering stage had not been studied in detail. Therefore, this study was conducted with an objective of quantifying the effects of foliar spray of melatonin under individual and combined drought and HT stress. At flowering stage, D stress was imposed through withholding irrigation, while HT stress was imposed through exposing the plants to ambient temperature (AT) along with an increase of +5 °C. Under D + HT, plants were first subjected to drought followed by a + 5 °C increase in AT. The duration of individual or combined stress was ten days. At 80% available soil moisture, 100 µM melatonin was sprayed on D, HT, or D + HT treated plants. Among the stresses, D + HT stress increased the thylakoid membrane damage and decreased the photosynthetic rate and fruit yield more than D or HT stress. Foliar spray of 100 µM melatonin produced decreased thylakoid membrane damage [D: 31%, HT: 26%, and D + HT: 18%] and increased antioxidant enzyme, viz., superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase, and glutathione reductase, activity over stress-control plants. The photosynthetic rate [D: 24%, HT: 22%, and D + HT: 19%] and fruit yield [D: 32%, HT: 23%, and D + HT: 16%] were increased over stress-control plants. Hence, it is evident that the increased photosynthetic rate and fruit yield in D + HT and 100 µM melatonin-sprayed plants may be associated with an increased antioxidant defense system. Melatonin as a novel biostimulator has a great potential in scavenging free radicals through increased antioxidant activity, which shields the photosynthetic membrane from damage and therefore helps in stress mitigation.

To explore the feasibility of utilization of maize flour in noodle preparation, eight different combinations (T₁ to T₈) with varied amount of maize flour (MF), refined wheat flour (RWF), rice flour (RF), wheat gluten (WG), soya protein isolate (SPI), kansui (Sodium Carbonates), potato starch (PS) were extruded to standardize good quality noodles. Among various combinations tested, the combination T₅ (50 %MF + 30 %RWF + 10 %SPI + 7 %RF + 3 %WG) was rated the best for appearance (8.3) colour (8.25) taste (8.5) elasticity (8.3) with an overall acceptability of 8.2 on a nine point hedonic rating sensory scale. There was no significant difference in normal noodle (NN) and Quality protein maize (QPM) noodle (QN) for T₅ with respect to sensory characteristics when compared to control noodle (CN) prepared out of refined wheat flour. The cooked yield was more for maize based noodle (234 g NN and 220 g QN) with lower cooking loss of 7.80 and 7.76 respectively for NN & QN. The nutritional composition of maize noodles revealed that addition of 10 % soya protein isolate had increased the protein content of noodles to the tune of 16.6 and 12.7 % in QN and NN respectively. The soluble (3.18NN, 3.76QN) and insoluble fiber (21.67NN, 21.87QN) contents of both NN & QN was significantly more compared to CN (0.15 and 9.3 g).There was non- significant increase in moisture and peroxide values up to 3 months of storage with high overall acceptable sensory scores (4.0, 4.1, & 4.2 respectively for NN, QN and CN but beyond third month of storage the increase was significant. However the noodles were within the acceptable range up to 6 months of storage with an overall acceptability score of 3.0, 3.4 and 3.2 for NN, QN and CN respectively on a five point hedonic scale.