Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceris (FOC), an extremely destructive pathogen, infects chickpea plants leading to over 100% losses. Although using chemicals like Carbendazim and Mancozeb control the disease but ruin the soil’s natural flora and fauna. Also, the emergence of new FOC races threatens the current genotypes. Many efforts have been made towards improving chickpea genotypes through breeding and selection, but the situation has not been improved over the last 2 decades. The current research uses pot screening and molecular-based approaches to screen out the resistant chickpea cultivars. In that view, the present research uses 16 chickpea genotypes collected from diverse agro-climatic areas and checked against FOC race-3. After the pot screening and ANOVA (P<0.001), the genotypes were categorized as highly Resistant (C 235, HC 1), resistant (GNG 2477, PHULeG 0517, GNG 2171, HC 7, PHULe G 0127), susceptible (ICCV 10) and highly susceptible (PUSA 547, RSG 931, RSG 888, ICCV 512, CSJ 513, ICCV 6). In Marker-assisted selection (MAS), the DNA of genotypes was subjected to PCR with STMS markers TA-96 and TA-27. The results revealed that the genotypes ICCV 512, C 235, GNG 2171, ICCV 10, HC 7, PHULe G 0127 and HC 1 were resistant. These results are significant for selecting resistant genotypes and can be utilized in the future validation and development of more wilt-resistant chickpea genotypes. Our results based on pot-screening and molecular-based datasets suggested a more reliable identification system for screening of FOC resistance cultivar inhibiting, which can help narrow down the selection.

A proportion of major environmental and human health problems’ are imposed by contaminated soils and water. These natural resources are prone to contamination by both organic and inorganic contaminants. Heavy metals like Cu, Cd, Zn, As, Hg are the major inorganic contaminants. These contaminants are the result of various controlled and uncontrolled human activities like disposal of waste, mining etc. The major danger from these contaminants is their entry into human food chain because of possibility of certain plants to accumulate and translocate these contaminants to edible and harvested parts. Most of the conventional remedial technologies can be successful in certain specific situations, but, they are expensive and inhibit the soil fertility; thus subsequently causes negative impacts on the ecosystem. Different emerging phytoremediation technologies which imply the use of plants to remove or lower down the metal contamination may be used to combat the problem. This cost-effective plant-based approach to remediation takes advantage of the remarkable ability of plants to extract, sequester and detoxify pollutants. There are several types of phytoremediation viz., Phytoextraction, Phytostabilization, Rhizofiltration and Phytodegradation/Phytovolatalization. Hyperaccumulators are the best candidates for phytoremediation process. In recent years, knowledge of the physiological and molecular mechanisms of phytoremediation began to emerge together with biological and engineering strategies designed to optimize and improve phytoremediation. Transgenic plants have been developed for metal uptake, tolerance and detoxification. Genetic engineering is surely a powerful tool allowing investigating, evaluating and improving the potential of phytoremediation.

Disease causing phytopathogens are responsible for an approximately 15% reduction in worldwide food production. Therefore, for efficient management of plant diseases, a systematic understanding of the harmful impacts of pathogens on economic crops is essential. The practice of sustainable agriculture aims at the development of a system that supports the growth of plants but simultaneously induces adverse effects on the existence of pathogens. Therefore, the current research was designed to monitor the seed priming effects of Trichoderma virens (as Biocontrol Agent, BCA) and Jasmonic acid (a chemical inducer) in tomato plants infected with two devastating soil-borne pathogens viz., Fusarium oxysporum lycopersici (Fol) and Rhizoctonia solani. Application of these agents in infected plants alone or together leads to the establishment of various disease-suppressive mechanisms in the host plants as observed in the form of enhanced seedling vigour index, percentage germination, morphological growth, and a substantial decrease in the percentage of disease incidence. Furthermore, pathogen inoculation in diseased plants enhances the content of two compatible osmolytes i.e., proline and glycine betaine which themselves serve as defensive molecules by acting as osmoprotectants and signalling molecules in the induction of various defence-related pathways in the stressed plants. Our study provides important insights into the effectiveness of T. virens and JA in the amelioration of pathogen-induced damage in the host plants. The inferences obtained from this research highlight the better efficiency of combined applications of T. virens and JA against these two soil-borne pathogens.