The pea weevil, Bruchus pisorum L. is a major insect pest of field pea, Pisum sativum L. worldwide and current control practices mainly depend on the use of chemical insecticides that can cause adverse effects on environment and human health. Insecticides are also unaffordable by many small-scale farmers in developing countries, which highlights the need for investigating plant resistance trait...

The grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) is a dual purpose forage seed legume crop. It has a good potential as winter forage legume under Saudi Arabian conditions. This study was conducted in 1993/94 and 1994/95 seasons to evaluate 15 selection lines of the Grass Pea for forage, seed yields and other growth characters. Combined analysis of data from the two years revealed significant difference between...

Introduction To meet the protein requirement of the ever growing and predominantly vegetarian human population in India, efforts are in progress in the country to increase pulse production and to make those pulses consumable, which may otherwise adversely affect human health. Pulses constitute a primary source of proteins, add flavour and variety to a well-planned course of meals. These pulses ...

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was applied to assess the genetic variability among five selected genotypes of grasspea. Out of 30 random decamer primers tested for the present investigation 20 showed reproducible DNA amplification. A total of 257 loci were amplified of which 159 were polymorphic including 57 genotype-specific unique bands. Amplicons had molecular weights ra...

In most organisms, S-adenosyl-L-methionine decarboxylase (SAMDC EC 4.1 .I SO) plays a pivotal role in polyamine biogenesis by contributing S-methyladenosylhomocysteamine which in turn donates its propylamine moiety in a stepwise manner to putrescine and spermidine to yield spermidine and spermine, respectively [l-3]. Two distinct and separable enzymes, namely spermidine synthase (EC 2.5 .l .I 6...