Generally, flooding causes waterlogging or submergence stress which is considered as one of the most important abiotic factors that severely hinders plant growth and development. Plants might not complete their life cycle even in short duration of flooding. As biologically intelligent organisms, plants always try to resist or survive under such adverse circumstances by adapting a wide array of mechanisms including hormonal homeostasis. Under this mechanism, plants try to adapt through diverse morphological, physiological and molecular changes, including the closing of stomata, elongating of petioles, hollow stems or internodes, or maintaining minimum physiological activity to store energy to combat post-flooding stress and to continue normal growth and development. Mainly, ethylene, gibberellins (GA) and abscisic acid (ABA) are directly and/or indirectly involved in hormonal homeostasis mechanisms. Responses of specific genes or transcription factors or reactive oxygen species (ROS) maintain the equilibrium between stomatal opening and closing, which is one of the fastest responses in plants when encountering flooding stress conditions. In this review paper, the sequential steps of some of the hormone-dependent survival mechanisms of plants under flooding stress conditions have been critically discussed.

Plant grows in nature facing various types of abiotic stresses for their normal growth and development. During abiotic stress, plants evolve different types of mechanisms to survive in a hostile environment. Phospholipase D (PLD) plays important role in the regulation of diverse cellular processes including stress responses in plants. Member of PLD genes are well studied in different model plants; however, their functions in the jute are not clear yet. In the present study, a total of 12 and 11 PLD genes were identified in the genome of C. capsularis and C. olitorius, respectively. The presence of the two conserved HKD motifs in PLD genes except for CoPLDδ-2 in jute suggests their strong lipase activity. Twenty different motifs were found in the identified PLD genes, and PLD-β1, PLD-γ1, and all members of PLD-δ1 of both jute species contained the highest number of motifs. Phylogenetic analysis showed the close evolutionary relationship among the five groups of jute PLD proteins along with the PLD proteins from Arabidopsis. Tissue-specific expression pattern of PLDα1-2, PLD-α2, PLDβ1, PLDγ1, and PLDδ1 of two jute species suggested their involvement in plant growth and development. However, the expression pattern of PLDα1-2, PLDα1-3, PLD-α4, PLDδ1, and PLDδ3 indicated their association during waterlogging stress. In addition, PLD-α2, PLDβ1, and PLDδ2 seemed to be involved in drought stress as well as salinity stress. This genome-wide identification of jute PLD genes from C. capsularis and C. olitorius will help to further functional characterization of the PLD genes for developing stress-tolerant jute variety.

In fungi, like other eukaryotes, protein turnover is an important cellular process for the controlling of various cellular functions. The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway degrades some selected intracellular proteins and F-box proteins are one of the important components controlling protein degradation. F-box proteins are well studied in different model plants however, their functions in the fungi are not clear yet. This study aimed to identify the genes involved in protein degradation for disease development in the Macrophomina phaseolina fungus. In this research, in silico studies were done to understand the distribution of F-box proteins in pathogenic fungi including Macrophomina phaseolina fungus. Genome-wide analysis indicates that M. phaseolina fungus contained thirty-one F-box proteins throughout its chromosomes. In addition, there are 17, 37, 16, and 21 F-box proteins have been identified from Puccinia graminis, Colletotrichum graminicola, Ustilago maydis, and Phytophthora infestans, respectively. Analyses revealed that selective fungal genomes contain several additional functional domains along with F-box domain. Sequence alignment showed the substitution of amino acid in several F-box proteins; however, gene duplication was not found among these proteins. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that F-box proteins having similar functional domain was highly diverse form each other showing the possibility of various function. Analysis also found that MPH_00568 and MPH_05531 were closely related to rice blast fungus F-box protein MGG_00768 and MGG_13065, respectively, may play an important role for blast disease development. This genome-wide analysis of F-box proteins will be useful for characterization of candidate F-box proteins to understand the molecular mechanisms leading to disease development of M. phaseolina in the host plants.

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is becoming an essential part of the regular food menu for both health cautiousness and its dietary value over other foods. Availability of high yielding cucumber variety is one of the major obstacles for cucumber production in Bangladesh. Plant growth regulators (PGRs) play a significant role to alter the various type of physiological and morphological characters in cucumber. In this research, Bangladeshi local cucumber variety ‘Baromashi’ was used to observe the effect of PGRs on growth and yield-related characters. Four different treatments (Control: untreated plant, T1: maleic hydrazide 200 ppm, T2: ethephon 300 ppm and T3: NAA (1-naphthaleneacetic acid) 18 ppm) were used. Application of PGRs showed an increased number of primary and secondary branches however, negative effect on stem length and node for the first flower was also observed. PGRs showed the opposite effect on the time required for the first flowering where male flower needed more time and female flower required less time compared to the untreated plants. In the case of fruit-related characters, PGRs possessed positive effect and ethephon 200 ppm showed the best result among the treatments. Total yield might be directly related to the number of branches as well as with the number of female flowers in local cucumber variety.

Seed plays an important role in agricultural sector for both production and consumption purpose. Availability of vigour seed is one of the major constraints for maximizing crop production. However, healthy seed can also lose its viability during seed storage by changing different physio-chemical properties. Influence of environmental factors and seed containers during storage leading to seed deterioration. In this research, mid storage seed hardening treatment was applied in different aged seeds of jute species (C. Capsularis & C. olitorius) with two types of storage bags. Seed hardening treatment showed the less moisture content with better germination percentage compared to the untreated species of jute seeds. Seed packing in polythene bags during both short and long term seed storages had higher viable seeds compared to the cloth packing seeds. The effect of seed hardening treatment on seed oil content and pattern of oil degradation is distinct in early period of storage. The faster rate of oil degradation, soluble protein and free amino acids was found in seeds of un-treated stored seeds in cloth bag. Contrary, very slow rate of oil degradation was observed in harden seed and stored in polythene bag which indicated better storability of harden seeds.

The genus Hibiscus has more than 300 globally distributed species. This plant is well known for its bast fiber biogenesis, while its nutritional and medicinal values are largely ignored. Consequently, the nutritional properties of the Roselle variety, BJRI mesta-2, are unknown. Therefore, this study was carried out to analyze the nutritional composition of our selected Roselle tissues to support the nutritional requirements for humans in early summer in Bangladesh. Leaves were found to be a good source of calcium (2.7%), magnesium (1.6%), ash (7.34%), vitamin A (165.9%), and vitamin C (94.88%), whereas calyx was the potential source of potassium (1.9%), iron (422%), manganese (126%), and moisture (87.45%). Roselle seeds also have edible oil-producing capabilities, along with their nutritional properties. Our results indicate that BJRI mesta-2 can be an additional source of leafy vegetables, along with its herbal tea and edible oil contents.