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Nowadays, hulless barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is gaining importance as a raw material for food industry due to its highly nutritive value. Non-availability of high yield and disease resistant varieties has restricted its production in marginal areas over the last two decades. Therefore, an experiment was conducted during 2017–18 and 2018–19 at the Seed and Research Farm of ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, Haryana to characterized 11 exotic hulless barley genotypes and 4 Indian barley cultivars for morpho-physiological characters and stripe rust resistance. Seedling resistant test for stripe rust was done at Regional Station (ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research), Flowerdale, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Highly significant genotypic differences were found for morpho-physiological traits during analysis of variance. Genotype DWRNB28 showed a good combination of desirable traits, viz. early maturity (118 days), dwarf plant height (64.4 cm) and high 1000-grain weight (55.2 g). Maximum number of tillers per meter (149) was observed in DWRNB17. Genotype DWRNB25 was found resistant to maximum pathotypes (6S0, 7S0, and Q) at the seedling stage. DWRNB23 and DWRNB25 with pooled ACI=0 and ACI=0.04 respectively, were found immune to stripe rust in field conditions. These promising genotypes can be utilized as donor parents for the development of high-yielding and stripe-rust-resistant hulless barley varieties.

A field study was carried out during winter (rabi) seasons of 2015–16 to 2017–18 at Karnal, Hisar, Ludhiana, Durgapura and Agra to evaluate the efficacy of plant growth regulators (CCC, ethephon and their combination) to reduce lodging and enhance productivity of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) under high nitrogen level. Results revealed that application of 75 kg N/ha increased the grain yield by 3.17% over the recommended 60 kg/ha. The pooled mean lodging score with the application of growth regulators, viz. CCC, ethephon and combination of both was 5.21, 4.28 and 3.03 respectively, while without growth regulators application the lodging score was 9.57. With the application of plant growth regulator, the yield increased in the range of 2.5–4.1 q/ha (5.7–9.4%). The effect of CCC was relatively lesser as compared to ethephon, however the combination of both gave additive effect on yield increment (8.78%). Application of growth regulators increased 1000-grain weight by 6.21% over control. Therefore, the use of plant growth regulators i.e. CCC and ethephon under high nitrogen (75 kg N/ha) can be advocated as a sustainable strategy to enhance the productivity of barley through decreasing lodging problem.

Wheat stripe rust caused by Puccinia striiformis Westend. f.sp. tritici (Pst) is a global threat to wheat production. Genetic modification of defense-responsive factors in wheat rust interactions could help devise strategies to control stripe rust on wheat. This experiment studied the interaction between Pst pathotype 78S84 in PBW343 and FLW-3 by evaluating the quantitative temporal transcription profiles of defense-related genes at different time points. This is the first attempt to exhibit inter-connections among different proteins and depict a hypothetical model for the mechanism of R gene-mediated resistance. Transcript levels of LTP, AQP1, PR1, PR2, PR4, and PR10 were relatively higher under compatible interaction, while under incompatible interaction, transcript levels of COMT1, PRA2, WCAB, and PR9 were significantly high. This study projected the role of defense-responsive genes, inter-networking of proteins, and R gene-mediated resistance between wheat and stripe rust.

Wheat is the staple food crop of global importance for its grain nutrient quality. Grain iron and zinc content of the wheat grain is an important quantitatively inherited trait that is influenced by the environmental factors such as drought and heat stress. Phenotypic evaluation of 295 advanced breeding lines from the wheat stress breeding program of IARI was carried out under timely sown irrigated (IR), restricted irrigated, and late-sown conditions at New Delhi during the cropping season of 2020–21, and grain iron (GFeC) and zinc (GZnC) contents were estimated from both control and treatments. A statistically significant increase in GFeC and GZnC was observed under stress conditions compared to that of the control. Genotyping was carried out with the SNPs from the 35K Axiom Breeder’s array, and marker–trait association was identified by GWAS analysis. Of the 23 MTAs identified, seven were linked with GFeC and sixteen were linked with GZnC. In silico analysis revealed a few important transcripts involved in various plant metabolism, growth, and development activities such as auxin response factor, root UVB sensitive proteins, potassium transporter, glycosyl transferase, COBRA, and F-box-like domain. The identified MTAs can be used for molecular breeding after validation and also for rapid development of micronutrient-rich varieties of wheat to mitigate hidden hunger.