Anil Kumar

Plant establishment, encompassing seed germination and early seedling development, represents one of the most critical and vulnerable phases in the plant life cycle. During these transitions, plants encounter a wide range of abiotic stresses, which impair survival and establishment, ultimately affecting crop productivity. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms during the seed-to-seedling transition and responses to major abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, waterlogging, nutrient imbalances, and variable light. During germination, drought and salinity disrupt water uptake and imbibition kinetics and trigger hormonal signaling, osmotic adjustment, and antioxidant defense responses. Extreme temperatures further alter metabolic activation, enzyme stability, and membrane integrity, thereby affecting germination success. In contrast, waterlogging induces hypoxic conditions, which impair aerobic respiration and trigger adaptive responses such as anaerobic metabolism, fermentation, and aerenchyma formation. In parallel, the transition from skotomorphogenesis to photomorphogenesis requires precise coordination of phytochrome- and cryptochrome-mediated signaling networks, ensuring successful seedling emergence under variable light environments. Nutrient stress, including both deficiency and toxicity, affects reserve mobilization, root system architecture, and early seedling vigor. Emerging strategies, including seed priming, biopriming, nanotechnology-based interventions, and molecular breeding, are also discussed as approaches to enhance stress resilience during establishment. A deeper understanding of stage-specific regulation and mechanisms during seed-to-seedling development can provide critical insight for developing climate-resilient crops that maintain robust establishment under increasingly variable environmental conditions.

LncRNAs, defined as transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides with limited protein-coding potential, have emerged as important regulators of gene expression across multiple levels of cellular regulation. These molecules influence chromatin organization, transcriptional activity, and post-transcriptional processes through diverse interactions with DNA, RNA, and protein complexes. Although initially considered transcriptional byproducts, accumulating evidence now indicates that lncRNAs participate in a wide range of physiological processes and are implicated in numerous human diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disorders, neurological diseases, and immune related conditions. However, the strength of mechanistic evidence varies substantially across the field, with robust functional validation currently limited to a relatively small number of well-characterized lncRNAs. In many cases, proposed regulatory roles remain supported primarily by expression correlations or limited perturbation studies, highlighting the need for careful evaluation of reproducibility, context dependence, and locus-specific effects. In addition, translating lncRNA discoveries into therapeutic strategies faces several practical challenges, including efficient tissue-specific delivery, subcellular localization constraints, isoform complexity, and potential off-target effects. This review provides an overview of current knowledge on lncRNA classification, biogenesis, and molecular mechanisms, evaluates their roles in human disease, and discusses emerging therapeutic approaches in the context of translational feasibility. By integrating mechanistic insights with current limitations and unresolved questions, we highlight priorities for future research aimed at harnessing lncRNAs for diagnostic and therapeutic applications in precision medicine.

Large weed infestation is a major problem in dry direct-seeded rice (DSR). Chemical weed control serves as a crucial component for integrated weed management in DSR. Over the last decade, herbicide use has increased from 42 to 55%, and the worldwide contamination of water resources and food by herbicides is a major health issue. In the present study, the use of herbicides in three different establishment methods of rice was examined with the objective to present and discuss the herbicide use pattern and cost of weed control. For this, a field-wide survey was conducted over an area of 165.4 ha in eight villages of the Tarn Taran District of Punjab, India. For two DSR methods, during the initial stage of crop growth, the weed infestation was reported to be less in moist fields sown with direct seeding (soil moisture in the field capacity stage) after pre-sowing irrigation (DSR-PSI). The herbicide use and cost of weed control under DSR-PSI conditions were similar to that of puddled transplanted rice, but were significantly lower than that of direct seeding in dry fields (rice seeds are sown in dry fields, and irrigation is applied immediately after sowing), i.e., DSR-IAS. Therefore, the DSR-PSI method of rice establishment can ensure minimum dependence on herbicides, as well as other benefits of direct seeding. Thus, there is a need to promote the DSR-PSI method over the DSR-IAS method among farmers in order to reduce herbicide use in DSR and ensure environmental safety.

ChTI (Cocculus hirsutus trypsin inhibitor), a plant serine protease inhibitor, is a natural plant defense protein effective against phytophagous insects by inhibiting digestive proteases in guts. We modified the ChTI gene by codon optimization and expressed it in E. coli, purified it, and performed insect bioassay, where significant weight loss with reduced larval growth was observed in both the insect pests; Helicoverpa armigera and Spodoptera litura. Further, we expressed the ChTI protein in Arabidopsis thaliana and Solanum lycopersicum, either individually or pyramided with Bt-Cry1Ab toxin and quantified the toxicity of the expressed proteins against both insects in the transgenic plants. We also performed transcriptomic analysis of transgenic Arabidopsis and tomato plants expressing ChTI protein, where the enhancement of different pathogenesis-related proteins was observed. Earlier reports say that insects gradually develop resistance against toxins, so we developed transgenic plants, co-expressing the two different toxins from diverse origin, achieving resistance against insects, and reducing the tendency of insects to develop resistance against the toxins. Comparative analysis of all the expressed gene constructs viz. pChTI, pcry1Ab, and pChAb was completed by molecular and insect biassays. Complete mortality against both insects was observed without compromising the yield.

‘Participatory-mode’ adaptive research was conducted in wheat in north-western Himalayas (NWH) during 2008–2014 to develop an improved chemical weed management (ICWM) technology. First of all, two years ‘on-farm experimentation’ was performed in a randomized block design at 10 locations in NWH using seven treatments (Clodinafop @ 60 g a.i./ha (Clod); Clod followed by 2,4-D (Na-salt) @ 1.0 kg a.i./ha (Clod-fb-D); Isoproturon 75 WP @ 1.0 kg a.i./ha (Iso); Iso + D; Sulfosulfuron 75% WG @ 25 g a.i./ha + Metsulfuron 5% WG @ 2 g a.i./ha (Sulf + Met); weed-free-check; and un-weeded-check). In this study, the post-emergence application of Sulf + Met reported the lowest weed-index and NPK depletion by weeds with higher weed control efficiency (86.4%), weed control index (81.1%) and herbicide efficiency index (2.62) over other herbicides. Sulf + Met exhibited significantly higher wheat productivity (3.57 t/ha), protein yield, net-returns and water-productivity, which was followed by Iso + D and Clod-fb-D, all of which remained statistically at par with each other. An impact assessment of intensive technology-transfer programme (2008–2014) revealed a higher technology adoption rate (71–98%) of ICWM leading to higher wheat productivity (~22%) and net income gains (2.8–26.4%) in NWH. Overall, Sulf + Met proved highly effective against mixed weed flora in wheat to boost wheat productivity, profitability, quality and water productivity in addition to a higher technology adoption rate and NIGs to transform rural livelihoods in NWH.

The emerging infectious diseases are increasing in frequency exerting significant impact on human health and severely threatening global economy. Now at present, the whole globe is facing the challenges evolved owing to Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has set the clock backwards on the developmental progress of several nations including India and pauses the global economy owing to repeated lockdowns. The agricultural sector owing to its diverse output (crops, horticulture, dairying, fisheries, etc.) only showed positive growth in Indian GDP (gross domestic product) despite various challenges faced by this sector especially labour shortage, transportation, marketing, etc. The central as well as several state governments also issued supportive steps to favour agricultural related activities and provided incentives to farmers to unlock growth. Still, there is necessity to support and promote digital platforms to scale up on an emergency basis and provide an outlet for the farmers’ produce immediately. The government should think to build storage facilities on villages’ level as well as brought policies to support pricing (minimum support price) for other nutritious cereals like sorghum and millets.

Artemisia absinthium is a herbaceous perennial plant with fibrous root and it belongs to the family Asteraceae. Due to having strong fragrance and pungent taste it has ability to defend itself from the herbivore animals. Essential oil extracted from leaves, stem and seeds of A. absinthium were analyzed for termite mortality as well as termite repellency. Chemical constituents of essential oil from all three parts were identified and compared by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy. Total 16 compounds identified in the essential oil of leaves, stem and seeds in which boronyl acetate was present in major amount 26.59 %, 27.17 % and 26.63 % respectively. L-terpenen-4-ol was also identified in higher amount in leaves, stem and seeds; 18.24 %, 17.07 % and 17.3 % respectively. Leaf, stem and seed essential oil tested for termite mortality and repellency against Microcerotermes beesoni. Leaf essential oil showed significant and seed essential oil all were found to have moderate activity.

Today, use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in agricultural crops is the need of the hour to meet-out nutrient needs economically, rationalizing water-use and maintaining soil health under changing climate and impeding resource and production vulnerabilities. Adoption of AM-fungi as a biofertilizer in crop production might has proven as a very effective tool in mitigating various biotic and abiotic stresses. AMF is an inexpensive and eco-friendly input capable of enhancing phosphorus (P) and water use efficiency (WUE) of different crops and cropping systems. Besides P, AMF also supply other plant nutrients such as nitrogen (N), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) etc. to the plants, which are absorbed by AMF from soil, leading to increased input economy as well as higher crop yields and quality. Several researchers have reported an increase in plant growth resulting from AMF association with crop plants and the same has been attributed by them to increased mineral element uptake mediated by AMF hyphae in the soil, improved soil-plant-water relations and plant tolerance to a variety of abiotic stresses, etc. Further, an economy of about 25% in soil test based fertilizer P has been registered following seed inoculation with AM fungi. AMF-plant root symbiosis often results into altered rates of water movement into, through and out of host plants with consequent effects on tissue hydration and leaf physiology. Mycorrhizal hyphae penetrate the soil pores which are inaccessible to root hairs thereby absorbing water which is unavailable to non-mycorrhizal plants. Studies have been shown that mycorrhizal plants maintained higher tissue water content imparting greater drought resistance to plants over non-mycorrhizal plants at moisture stress. Moreover, it enhances water- use efficiency of crops by about 15–30%. Studies conducted under Himalayan acid Alfisol has been indicated that integrated application of AM fungi and P at varying irrigation regimes improved the plant water relations vis-à-vis drought resistance, crop productivity, water productivity, soil aggregation and water holding capacity in different cropping system. Integrated use of AM fungi and P at varying irrigation regimes exhibited higher relative leaf water content and xylem water in comparison with plants without AMF inclusion. A number of workers have reported improvement in soil structure following AMF inclusion in different cropping systems. The AMF resulted in improvement in soil structure by way of binding of soil aggregates, involving their hyphal network and producing a glycoprotein called glomalin which is capable of binding soil particles leading to aggregate formation and in turn, improve soil structure/soil moisture retention capacity. Inclusion of AMF in different cropping systems exerted a significant impact on water holding capacity and mean weight diameter of soil particles. The AM fungi are capable of mineralizing organic-P and solublizing inorganic-P in soils by releasing various enzymes and organic acids. Overall, AMF use in crop production systems is of paramount importance in enhancing nutrient use efficiency and quality of produce. This is a low-cost farm input for resource-poor farmers, who ill afford expensive external inputs especially P. AMF also revealed a tremendous potential in enhancing water use efficiency, improved fruit succulence and imparting drought resistance to plants at moisture stress. Thus, AMF inoculation improves nutrient and water acquisition from soil significantly under nutrient and water stress situations.