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Micronutrient deficiencies of soil are causing wide spread nutritional disorder in horticultural crops, grown in the calcareous soils. Keeping in view the limitations of classical statistics for explaining spatial heterogeneity a survey in the farmer grown apple orchards was conducted for indexing micronutrient using geo-statistics and GIS as a diagnostic tools. Geo-referenced soil samples were collected from 30 apple orchards. Recently matured leaves were sampled from associated apple trees. Widespread deficiency of Zn existed in the foliage of apple orchards followed by site specific Mn, Fe and Cu, respectively. Bioavailable Zn in soil was deficient in 30, 33 and 50%, and marginal in 10, 15 and 30% of total analyzed samples collected from the surface (0-15 cm), subsurface (15-30 cm) and lower soil depth (30-45 cm). Moderate to strong spatial dependence of studied micronutrients in three soil depths provided an opportunity to prepare contour maps for classifying the whole area in to various zones on the basis of having differential micronutrient content levels for regional scale information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the ample increase in peach growing area, improvement in quality and average yield is still negligible. The influence of foliar application of calcium chloride (CaCl2), putrescine (PUT) and salicylic acid (SA) on fruit yield and physicochemical characteristics of 'Florida King' peach cultivar was evaluated for two consecutive years (2011 and 2012). Results indicated that, application of CaCl2 (1%), PUT (1, 2 and 3 mM) and SA (2 and 3 mM) increased fruit weight, fruit diameter, pulp: stone ratio and yield compared to control. In addition, fruit harvested from these growth elicitors treated trees did not show significant difference in total soluble solids and total sugar contents. All treatments resulted in higher fruit firmness, acidity and ascorbic acid contents than control. Higher calcium treatments proved toxic and significantly increased the calcium level in leaves and fruit. From present work it can be referred that spraying of CaCl2, PUT and SA, significantly affected yield, and physico-chemical characteristics of peach cv. 'Florida King'. These growth elicitors are considered safe chemicals and can be applied to enhance production and improve fruit quality of peach without compromising the food safety standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aloe vera (Syn Aloe barbadensis Mill.), a medicinal plant, has a great potential in cosmetic and drug industry due to presence of more than 200 bioactive compounds. Natural propagation of Aloe vera, by means of suckers, is very slow and insufficient to meet the increasing demand of pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Shoot tip was used as an explant for in vitro regeneration of Aloe vera. Explants were disinfested with the use of 0.1% mercuric chloride and 0.5% sodium hypochlorite, and washed thoroughly with autoclaved distilled water. Solid MS medium was used with addition of different concentrations of 6-benzyl aminopurine and α-naphthalene acitic acid. After 7 weeks of inoculation, greatest number of shoots (11.18) and highest shoot length (12.15cm) were found in MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg 1-1 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) along with same concentration of a-naphthalene acitic acid (NAA). Best rooting (84.67%) was found in medium supplemented with 1.5 mg 1-1 of indole butyric acid (IBA). The rooted explants were then gradually acclimatized and shifted to green house. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey was carried out to examine and map the Fe status in the soil and foliage of apple orchards in the Murree region to assess the Fe status. Thirteen apple orchards were selected and surveyed from apple producing area on Union Council basis. Sixty five apple trees were selected to collect plant and 130 soil samples from surface and subsurface profile. Foliage Fe concentration was deficient in 46% of the surveyed apple orchards. AB-DTPA extractant technique was used to determine soil available Fe content. Soils of all apple orchards were adequate in plant available Fe content. Factors positively influencing the availability of Fe content included organic matter, clay and silt, whereas pH, sand and calcium carbonate negatively influenced the availability of Fe in orchard soils. Contradictory behavior of soil and foliage Fe content in terms of no or poor correlation indicated a need to mitigate this contradictory behavior by evaluating various extractants and their critical values for the apple orchards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Jasminum L., of the family Oleaceae, includes many species occurring in the wild, or cultivated worldwide. A preliminary investigation based on inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) was performed to assess the genetic diversity among 28 accessions, representing nine species of Jasminum from various regions, representing a range of altitudes in Pakistan. A total of 21 ISSR primers were used, which produced 570 amplified bands of different sizes, with a mean polymorphic band percentage of 98.26%. The maximum resolving power, polymorphism information content, and index values of the ISSR markers recorded for primers 6, 16, and 19 were 0.40, 12.32, and 24.21, respectively. Based on the data of the ISSR markers, the resulting UPGMA dendrogram with the Jaccard coefficient divided the 28 accessions into two main clades. At the species level, the highest values for Shannon's information index, polymorphism percentage, effective allele number, Nei's genetic variations, and genetic unbiased diversity were found in Jasminum sambac L. and J. humile L., while the lowest were observed in J. mesnyi Hance and J. nitidum Skan. Based on Nei's unbiased genetic identity pairwise population matrix, the maximum identity (0.804) was observed between J. elongatum Willd and J. multiflorum (Burm. f.) Andrews, and the lowest (0.566) between J. nitidum Skan. and J. azoricum L. Molecular variance analysis displayed a genetic variation of 79% among the nine populations. The study was aimed to established genetic diversity in Jasminum species using ISSR markers. With the help of this technique, we were able to establish immense intra- and interspecific diversity across the Jasminum species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]