Insect pest control in crop production incurs substantial economic costs annually on a global scale. Although broad-spectrum chemical pesticides were once considered the most effective solution, their overreliance has led to adverse effects on beneficial insects, human health, and the environment, as well as the development of pesticide-resistant insect populations. Consequently, there is an urgent need for alternative pest ma...

Key message Crop wild relatives provide essential genetic diversity for improving crop resilience; however, pre- and post-zygotic barriers often restrict interspecific hybridization. Recent approaches enable their effective use in crop improvement programs. Abstract Crop wild relatives (CWR), closely related wild taxa of cultivated crops, offer a wealth of genetic diversity essential for developing traits to help crops adapt t...

Key message Field-based phenotyping of root system architectural (RSA) traits in a diversity panel (PI-GAP) of pigeonpea was conducted across three diverse pigeonpea growing environments along with identification of genomic regions associated with these traits through GWAS analysis. Abstract Root system architecture (RSA) plays a crucial role in plant stress tolerance mechanisms serving as the main route for water and nutrient...

Arsenic (As) is a toxic environmental pollutant and a group-1 carcinogen, posing serious concern for human health. Rice and rice-based food products are considered as one of the major sources for As contamination into the human food-chain. Hence, world-wide concerted research efforts are going on, either to identify and/or develop low-As accumulating rice genotypes. The present study evaluated the natural accessions of rice, c...