Blackgram is an important short-duration grain legume, but its yield is highly affected by various stresses. Among biotic stresses, yellow mosaic disease (YMD) is known as a devastating disease that leads to 100% yield loss under severe conditions. The cultivated lines possess resistance, but exploring more diverse sources of resistance may be useful for pyramiding to improve the durability of said resistance. Some wild Vigna species have potentially demonstrated a high level of resistance. R-genes, including gene families of leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) and leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (LRR-RLKs), are known for modulating the resistance in plants against various biotic stresses. The first comprehensive analysis of the LRR and LRR-RLK gene families in mungbean is reported in the present study. A total of forty-six candidate genes were identified and grouped into eight clades. Protein motif analysis showed that the “Pkinase domain” and “LRR domains” were conserved in most of the R-proteins. The expression of candidate genes viz. VrNBS_TNLRR-8, VrLRR_RLK-20, VrLRR_RLK-17, and VrLRR_RLK-19 demonstrated significantly up-regulated expression upon YMD infection in control and salicylic acid-primed (SA-primed) plants. The analysis provides insight into the diversity and robust candidate genes for functional studies modulating YMD resistance altered by salicylic acid.

The biology and morphometrics of Sitophilus oryzae on rice variety 'Sonam' revealed that the S. oryzae completed its life cycle in four distinct stages viz., egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The observed fecundity of female was 231.00 ± 3.09 eggs with an incubation period of 5.76 ± 0.09 days. The larval period was completed in 26.88 ± 0.08 days with four instars under laboratory conditions. The larval duration was 4.88 ± 0.04 (1st instar), 5.72 ± 0.08 (2nd instar), 8.70 ± 0.10 (3rd instar) and 7.58 ± 0.04 (4th instar) days and the pupal period was 7.62 ± 0.08 days. Adult male lived for 60.18 ± 0.82 days while female for 76.94 ± 0.50 days. The pre-oviposition, oviposition and post-oviposition period was 4.80 ± 0.07 days, 55.82 ± 0.53 days and 19.52 ± 0.39 days, respectively. The entire life cycle of male and female was completed in 100.44 ± 0.85 days and 119.90 ± 0.44 days, respectively. Sex ratio (male to female ratio) was recorded 1:1.42. The morphometrics (length × width) of the larval instars 1^st to 4^th instars were 0.58 × 0.41, 0.90 × 0.52, 1.23 × 1.04 and 2.12 × 1.58 mm, pupa (2.41 × 1.61 mm), adult male (2.59 × 0.78 mm) and adult female (3.01 × 0.84 mm).

Present survey was undertaken to determine the diversity of insect fauna associated with rabi onion at three crop growth stages in ten localities representing two agroecological zones of Himachal Pradesh during 2018. A total of 13 insect species including ten pestiferous and three beneficial insects from six orders and nine families were observed. The pestiferous insects were Altica sp., Chromatomyia horticola (Goureau), Euconocephalus sp., Gryllus sp., Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner), Melolontha furicicauda Ancey, Nezara viridula L., Spodoptera litura (F.), Thrips tabaci Lindeman and Trichoplusia orichalcea F. and beneficial insects namely, Coccinella septempunctata L., Coccinella transversalis F. and Hippodamia variegata Goeze. Among these, T. tabaci and C. septempunctata were prevalent in all the ten localities during bulb initiation and development stage. Maximum diversity was observed during bulb initiation stage followed by bulb development, and Zone II was more diverse than Zone I; T. tabaci was found to be the dominant species on onion with relative abundance of 96.9%.

Population dynamics of Thrips tabaci Lindeman was evaluated on three cultivars of onion viz., Palam Lohit, Palam White and Patna Red during rabi, 2016–17 and 2017–18 in midhill regions of Himachal Pradesh. Thrips infestation was observed to be initiating in mid- February with peak being in the 2^nd fortnight of April. Palam Lohit cultivar was showing maximum infestation. The analyses revealed that among the weather factors, T_max and T_min influenced the incidence in a positive relationship and significantly. The effect of relative humidity (morning and evening), rainfall, number of rainy days, bright sunshine and wind speed was found to be non- significant. Temperature of 12.2 to 17.7 (T_min) and 26.4 to 31.9C (T_max) was favouring the buildup of incidence. Based on diurnal activity of T. tabaci, the appropriate time of population estimation was observed to be in the afternoon (13:00 hr).

Spatial distribution of Thrips tabaci Lindeman on rabi onion was assessed in mid-hill regions of Himachal Pradesh, representing north-western Indian Himalayas. Thrips followed negative binomial distribution in onion. Based on the Lewis index, Index of dispersion, Morisita coefficient of dispersion, Lloyd’s mean crowding and Index of patchiness it was observed that in early stages of crop growth stages of rabi onion, thrips were distributed randomly whereas in later crop stages, thrips distribution was aggregated/ overdispersed/ clumped. Aggregated distribution of thrips was also confirmed by Taylor’s power law and Iwao’s patchiness regression index with the corresponding values of 1.29 and 2.65. For estimation of thrips population in vegetative, bulb initiation and bulb development stage, the mean number of samples needed were 15476, 760 and 270, respectively at P = 0.1 (precision level of 90%). Whereas at 80% (P = 0.2), relatively small number of samples were needed (869, 190 and 68) for corresponding crop stages.

Linseed is an important minor oilseed crop, which is well known for food, feed, oil, fiber, and pharmaceutical industries. The higher concentrations of ome