Category Archives: b_original_articles

Sana Ullah¹, Tariq Mehmood Khan², Usman Khan³, Khaista Rahman⁴, Naseer Ullah¹, Tauseef Ahmad*⁵

¹Department of Animal Sciences, ³Department of Anthropology, ⁴Department of Biotechnology,

Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan.²Morgah Biodiversity Park,

Attock Refinery Limited, Morgah Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

 ⁵Department of Microbiology, Hazara University Mansehra,

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

This preliminary study was conducted in order to know the perception of local communities of tehsil Timergara, district Dir (Lower), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan towards climate change during September through November 2014. The study was aimed to identify the impacts of climatic changes on the lives of local people of the study area, based on the last few years or a decade or two. The study was conducted through administering a questionnaire to educated subjects while semi-structured interviews were conducted from illiterate ones. The local communities’ perception was assessed both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. All recruited respondents were of the opinion that climate change has visible changes in their lives. All the respondents pointed out a reasonable risk of climate change affected their lives and still continue. Their response demonstrated that change in climate is having an equitable risk to lives of Dirvis. The recruited subjects was more inclined towards the negativism (negative impacts of climate change) than positivism (positive impacts of climate change), as perceived by them. Mass awareness campaigns by government and environmental protection agencies is recommended in order to educate local communities regarding basic threats from climatic change through pollution. All those anthropogenic activities and sources that lead to trigger climatic changes, global warming, and greenhouse gases production should be addressed properly on priority basis.

Keywords: climate change, global warming, greenhouse effect, droughts, biodiversity

Ehsanullah¹, Umair Ashraf², Shakeel Ahmad Anjum^1*, Farrukh Ehsan³, Imran Khan¹ and Abdul Ghaffar¹

¹Deaprtment of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

²Department of Crop Science and Technology, College of Agriculture,

South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642 P.R. China

³Deaprtment of Farm Machinery and Power, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

ABSTRACT

Adequate tillage practices and sowing of crops at suitable time with proper sowing methods are among the main factors that regulate the crop growth and ultimate yield. This experiment was conducted to assess the effects of different tillage practices and sowing methods on maize hybrid ‘32T16’ that was grown under field conditions where treatments were assigned in split plot arrangement by keeping tillage practices (conventional tillage, minimum tillage and deep tillage) in main plots while sowing methods (flat sowing, ridge sowing and bed sowing) in sub-plots and repeated thrice. Conclusively, tillage practices and sowing methods significantly improved maize growth, yield and yield contributing traits. Ridge sowing under deep tillage resulted in maximum grains and grain weight per cob, 1000-grain weight, grain and biological yield as well as harvest index. Regarding economics of the crop, maximum marginal rate of return (2232.79%) was recorded in ridge sown maize under conventional tillage.

Keywords: Maize, Tillage, Sowing methods, Growth, Yield

M. E. Morojele*¹, D. N. M. Mbewe²

¹Small Grain Institute, Private Bag X29. Bethlehem. 9700. South Africa.

²The University of Zambia, Lusaka. Zambia

ABSTRACT

Different cultivars of common bean are grown in Lesotho for home consumption originating from Zambia, South Africa and America. These have created a wide genetic diversity and duplication such that it is not easy to distinguish them. The study was conducted in Lusaka to distinguish the same common bean cultivars using morphological markers and to estimate their degree of similarity. A collection of 42 cultivars were included in the study. Seventeen morphological characters were used following International Plant Genetic Resource Unit descriptor (1982). Data collected were analysed using principal component and cluster analysis. Principal component analysis was used to identify the characters which caused major variation among cultivars. Out of 10 principal components generated from 17 characters, only the first three components which constituted 54.57% of the total variation were considered for analysis. The first, second and third components accounted for 23.23%, 16.80% and 14.54%, respectively. The characters responsible for separation along the first principal component and loadings (parenthesis) were plant height (0.57), growth habit (0.55) and seed pattern (-0.27).The characters influencing separation along the second principal component include number of flowers per node (0.50), number of locules per pod (0.44), seed colour (0.44) and leaflet length (0.30). Along the third principal component, cultivars were separated according to the pod colour (0.64) and flower colour (0.14).Thirty-five individual cultivars and two groups of cultivars were distinguished by cluster analysis.  One group consisted of three cultivars from Zambia, while the other group consisted of two cultivars from Zambia and two from Lesotho.

Keywords: Common bean, morphological markers, principal component analysis, cluster analysis