Plants are constantly exposed to a variety of different environmental stresses, including drought, salinity, and elevated temperatures. These stress cues are assumed to intensify in the future driven by the global climate change scenario which we are currently experiencing. These stressors have largely detrimental effects on plant growth and development and, therefore, put global food security in jeopardy. For this reason, it is necessary to expand our understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which plants respond to abiotic stresses. Especially boosting our insight into the ways by which plants balance their growth and their defense programs appear to be of paramount importance, as this may lead to novel perspectives that can pave the way to increase agricultural productivity in a sustainable manner. In this review, our aim was to present a detailed overview of different facets of the crosstalk between the antagonistic plant hormones abscisic acid (ABA) and auxin, two phytohormones that are the main drivers of plant stress responses, on the one hand, and plant growth, on the other.

A sound breeding program for maize improvement is very important to meet the demands of the growing population. Therefore, combining ability and heterosis were studied in a 4 x 4 full diallel cross in maize for growth attributes, yield and its contributing traits. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replicates was used to study the general combining ability of parents, specific combining ability of F1s (including reciprocals) and heterosis of the F1s over commercial check variety on selected agronomic characters. Genotype was highly significant for all the traits studied. The combining abilities (GCA and SCA) and reciprocal mean squares were highly significant for most studied characters. The ratio of GCA/SCA was not less than unity for studied traits excepted for days to anthesis and ear height. The results indicated that the additive genetic effects were more important and played major role in studied traits. Thus, results revealed GCA effects for the parental lines (PL). Where ‘PL2’ was excellent combiner for number of tassels and cob circumference and ‘PL3’ was good combiner for days to silking and grain yield (t.h-1). While ‘PL4’ for short height. Majority of the F1s from the GCA effects showed high SCA effects. This F1 (PL2 x PL3) performed best amongst. However, several reciprocals were not desirable. Heterosis estimation was carried out using a commercial check, Oba super II. When commercial check was used, the percent heterosis especially on grain yield varied from -8.89 to 22.62%. Among the twelve F1s, nine of the crosses exhibited significant positive heterosis for grain yield (t.h-1). Those F1s that showed significant positive and/or negative desirable traits for SCA effects and significant positive heterosis could be used for varietal development in maize breeding. And conservation of those parents that exhibited high GCA effects be considered as well.

The research was carried out to test the effect of turmeric and garlic extracts on seed borne fungi pathogens of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranean) in Awka South of Anambra State Nigeria. Seed health test of Bambara groundnut seeds sampled from Awka main market was achieved by blotter paper method. The potentials of the isolated organisms to cause diseases was tested in a pathogenicity test using Koch's procedures. Antifungal effect of methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of tumeric (Curcuma longa) and garlic (Allium sativum) was investigated in an in-vitro experiment against the isolated seed borne pathogens of Bambara groundnut and synthetic fungicide (Mancozeb) as a standard control. The result of pathogenicity test revealed that Aspergillus niger, isolated from Bambara groundnut seeds was pathogenic. The result also showed that all the two plant extracts and synthetic fungicide were effective in inhibiting radial growth of Aspergillus niger which was the only fungi pathogen isolated. Curcuma longa performed closely rated to Mancozeb in the in-vitro experiment, having (75.00, 75.00 and 75.00%) and (72.56, 60.82 and 50.94%) respectively in the three days in culture. The higher the concentration the higher the inhibition values as 30 g/ml consistently gave the highest inhibition values. Also Soxhlet extraction method did better than cold maceration in days 2, 3 in culture. The research have shown that fungitoxic compounds from Curcuma longa could be explored as an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic fungicide (Mancozeb) in the control of Aspergillus niger on Bambara groundnut seeds.

Yield instability and pod shattering are the major problems associated with soybean production in Nigeria. To study Genotype × Environment interaction effects on seed yield and pod shattering behaviour of some soybean genotypes in Nigeria, an experiment was conducted in three (3) environments within the country. In each environment, the experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. During the harvest, pod shattering evaluation was conducted using the sun-dry method. Data were collected on seed yield and pod shattering percentage and analyzed using Additive Main Effect and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) and Genotype plus Genotype × Environment Interaction (GGE) bi-plot analyses. Genotypes NCRI SOYAC18, NCRI SOYAC78, NCRI SOYAC9, NCRI SOYAC20, NCRI SOYAC61, NCRI SOYAC22, NCRI SOYAC28 and NCRI SOYAC76, with yields above 1.23 ton/ha recorded high and stable yield across environments. For pod shattering resistance, nine genotypes (NCRI SOYAC3, NCRI SOYAC69, NCRI SOYAC77, NCRI SOYAC29, NCRI SOYAC9, NCRI SOYAC7, NCRI SOYAC67, NCRI SOYAC76 and NCRI SOYAC22) had stable pod shattering resistance across environments. Therefore, only three genotypes (NCRI SOYAC9, NCRI SOYAC22, and NCRI SOYAC76) were stable in both high yield and resistance to pod shattering. Consequently, any soybean breeding programme that involves high yield and pod shattering resistance could consider these three genotypes.