Proper sowing orientation and spacing are important factors for best crop growth. A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of different planting patterns with and without lentil intercropping on sugarcane growth and yield and farm economics. Each of these treatments were planted as sole crop and intercropped with lentil. Data were collected on plant cane and first ratoon crop. The maximum stripped cane yields (154.36 t/ha and 130.28 t/ha in plant and ratoon crop, respectively) were obtained from sugarcane planted at 120 cm trench planting both as sole as well as lentil intercropped. This treatment also attained 61% and 43% higher total sugar yields compared to traditional 60 cm single rows planting in plant and ratoon crops, respectively. Lentil intercropping did not have any significant effect on sugarcane yield, but trench planting at 120 cm with lentil intercropping had the highest lentil seed yield (598.0 in 2013–2014 and 629.8 kg ha⁻¹ in 2014–2015) along with maximum land equivalent ratio (1.40 and 1.37), net return (Rs.321254/ha), net field benefit (Rs.491703/ha) and benefit cost ratio (2.01). Sugarcane at 120 cm trench planting with lentil intercropping also outperformed other planting patterns in improving economic returns.

Tri-genomic Brassica napus L.wasdeveloped by the cross between Brassica napusand Brassica nigra. The crop is animportant source of vegetable seed oil in Pakistan,after cotton. The low oilseed rape yield is attributed to high temperature in the production zones. Interspecific hybridization using these two speciescan be helpful to produce heat resistant hybrids. On the other hand, it has been found that foliar application of different plant growth regulators can be used to reduce the heat stress in Brassica. The objectiveof this studywas to test the response of three different tri-genomic hybrids to high temperature stressat seedling stage. Seedlings were foliar sprayed with 0.13 mM salicylic acid (SA) prior to exposure tohigh temperatureat two true leaf stage. The plants were harvested after 30 days of sowing for growth and biochemical analysis. Plants ofV38 showed the highest values for all morphological traits and biochemical activities among the threehybrids. In general, plants exposed to the temperature stress exhibited a significant decline in growth, chlorophyll content and enzyme activity.Foliar application of SA significantly improved leaf and root biomass under heat stress.Further, antioxidativeenzyme activities significantly increased in response to SA either compared to control or to plants exposed to temperature stress.It is concluded thatapplication of salicylic acid elevated activity of antioxidative enzymes and was helpful in mitigating the detrimental effects of high temperature inoil seed rape.

Glycinebetaine (GB) plays an imperative role to mitigate the opposing impact of several environmental stresses in various crops. The objective of this investigation was to scrutinize the response of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) to the foliar application of GB. Diverse levels of GB (0, 10, 20 and 30 mM) were applied three times with fifteen days interval to grape cv. King’s Ruby. All levels of GB improved the physiological, biochemical and growth attributes of the grape. As compared to control treatment, foliar spray of GB applied at 30 mM increased the number of leaves/vine, leaf area and number of newly emerged branches/plant by 20.55%, 12.28% and 48.13%, respectively. The pH of grape juice was decreased by increasing GB levels. However, total soluble solids, total chlorophyll contents, grape yield and photosynthesis rate was recorded maximum with foliar spray of GB applied at 30 mM. The regression model predicted that each increment in GB level enhanced the number of leaves/plant and the number of newly emerged branches/plant by 1.8 and 0.7, respectively. Thus, it is concluded that exogenous application GB applied at 30 mM might be more useful to obtain the optimum growth and quality of grapes.