Rice crop is affected by different types of floods at different stages of the crop cycle. Constant efforts of researchers resulted in the development of rice varieties for anaerobic germination, flash floods and stagnant flooding by both conventional and molecular breeding approaches. Detection of QTLs for different types of floods in new genetic source (AC39416A) is needed to combat adverse effects of climate change. Present investigation was carried out to identify QTLs for flood tolerance using recombinant inbred lines derived from Indra and AC39416A. QTL mapping resulted in identification of QTLs, qAG3.1 on chromosome 3 for anaerobic germination and qSF10.1 on chromosome 10 for plant survival % under stagnant flooding. These QTLs explain 59.08 and 13.21% of phenotypic variance respectively. Two candidate genes were identified in qAG3.1 region, LOC_Os03g42130 gibberellin 20 oxidase2 and LOC_Os03g44170 glutathione S-transferase. The underlying mechanism might be the inhibition of gibberellic acid synthesis and thereby protecting seedlings from oxidative stress under anoxia condition. Genomic region of qSF10.1 revealed LOC_Os10g35020 glycosyltransferase and LOC_Os10g35050 aquaporin protein loci, which might be responsible for adaptive mechanism for plant survival % under stagnant flooding. This indicates that the new genetic resource AC39416A has an ability to adopt to different types of flood tolerance in response to environmental stress. Unveiling physiological and molecular mechanisms for flood tolerance in AC39416A using advanced omics studies would help in precise genomic selections for sustained production in flood-prone areas.

Modern high-throughput molecular and analytical tools offer exciting opportunities to gain a mechanistic understanding of unique traits of weeds. During the past decade, tremendous progress has been made within the weed science discipline using genomic techniques to gain deeper insights into weedy traits such as invasiveness, hybridization, and herbicide resistance. Though the adoption of newer “omics” techniques such as proteomics, metabolomics, and physionomics has been slow, applications of these omics platforms to study plants, especially agriculturally important crops and weeds, have been increasing over the years. In weed science, these platforms are now used more frequently to understand mechanisms of herbicide resistance, weed resistance evolution, and crop–weed interactions. Use of these techniques could help weed scientists to further reduce the knowledge gaps in understanding weedy traits. Although these techniques can provide robust insights about the molecular functioning of plants, employing a single omics platform can rarely elucidate the gene-level regulation and the associated real-time expression of weedy traits due to the complex and overlapping nature of biological interactions. Therefore, it is desirable to integrate the different omics technologies to give a better understanding of molecular functioning of biological systems. This multidimensional integrated approach can therefore offer new avenues for better understanding of questions of interest to weed scientists. This review offers a retrospective and prospective examination of omics platforms employed to investigate weed physiology and novel approaches and new technologies that can provide holistic and knowledge-based weed management strategies for future.

Drought stress ‘particularly at seedling stage’ causes morpho-physiological differences in wheat which are crucial for its survival and adaptability. In the present study, 209 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) from synthetic wheat (W7984)× ‘Opata’ (also known as SynOpRIL) population were investigated under well-watered and water-limited conditions to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for morphological traits at seedling stage. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences (P < 0.01) among RILs, and water treatments for all traits with moderate to high broad sense heritability. Pearson's coefficient of correlation revealed positive correlation among all traits except dry root weight that showed poor correlation with fresh shoot weight (FSW) under water-limited conditions. A high-density linkage map was constructed with 2639 genotyping-by-sequencing markers and covering 5047 cM with an average marker density of 2 markers/cM. Composite interval mapping identified 16 QTL distributed over nine chromosomes, of which six were identified under well-watered and 10 in water-limited conditions. These QTL explained from 4 to 59% of the phenotypic variance. Six QTL were identified on chromosome 7B; three for shoot length under water-limited conditions (QSL.nust-7B) at 64, 104 and 221 cM, two for fresh root weight (QFRW.nust-7B) at 124 and 128 cM, and one for root length (QRL.nust-7B) at 122 cM positions. QFSW.nust-7B appeared to be the most significant QTL explaining 59% of the phenotypic variance and also associated with FSW at well-watered conditions. These QTL could serve as target regions for candidate gene discovery and marker-assisted selection in wheat breeding.

Chicken is one of the most important sources of animal protein for human consumption, and breeding programmes have been responsible for constant improvements in production efficiency and product quality. Furthermore, chicken has largely contributed to fundamental discoveries in biology for the last 100 years. In this article we review recent developments in poultry genomics and their contribution to adding functional information to the already existing structural genomics, including the availability of the complete genome sequence, a comprehensive collection of mRNA sequences (ESTs), microarray platforms, and their use to complement QTL mapping strategies in the identification of genes that underlie complex traits. Efforts of the Brazilian Poultry Genomics Programme in this area resulted in generation of a resource population, which was used for identification of Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) regions, generation of ESTs and candidate gene studies that contributed to furthering our understanding of the complex biological processes involved in growth and muscular development in chicken.

Drought tolerance (DT) is a very complex trait. For the purpose of developing DT rice cultivars, a research programme was initiated in 1997 in China, consisting of four coherent parts: the development of a DT field screen facility and evaluation standard; the collection, evaluation and enhancement of DT rice resources; DT gene/quantitative trait locus (QTL) discovery; and DT rice breeding. More than 2000 rice accessions, mostly from China, were collected and evaluated in a new DT screening facility with a powerful water management system. Eighty-six entries were selected to serve as a core DT collection. A set of 187 recombinant inbred lines was developed for the genetic mapping of DT and high yield-related QTL under drought conditions. Several DT rice cultivars adapted to southern and central China were released. DT rice CMS lines were developed and distributed to most parts of China to encourage the development of DT or water-saving hybrid rice.