Orthodox seed serves as easily accessible model to study desiccation-sensitivity in plant tissues because once they undergo germination, they become sensitive to desiccation imposed injuries. In the proposed study, effects of rate of drying on the viability, electrolyte leakage, superoxide accumulation, lipid-protein oxidation and antioxidant enzymes were explored in excised radicles of Cicer arietinum L. under dehydration and wet storage. For both the drying conditions, desiccation could be explained by exponential and inverse functions. Under rapid drying tissue viability as scored by germination efficiency and tetrazolium staining remained 100 % all through the analysis (24 h) but declined remarkably after 0.30 g g(-1) fresh mass water content (4 days) under slow drying. Moreover, precipitous fall in tissue viability was observed after 2 weeks of wet storage. Rapid drying was also accompanied with limited amounts of electrolyte leakage, superoxide radical, malondialdehyde and protein hydroperoxide, together with enhanced level of protein. Additionally, activities of both superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase were increased in rapidly dried radicles, but guaiacol peroxidase was declined. In contrary, above referred biomarkers were observed to perform either inversely or poorly during slow drying and wet storage suggesting that above documented alterations might be the resultant of ageing and not desiccation. Gathered data demonstrated that increased drying lowers the critical water content for tissue survival and also reduces the risk of damage resulting from aqueous-based deleterious reactions. Additionally, it also showed that growing radicles are a popular model to explore desiccation-sensitivity in plant tissues and/or seeds.

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Our energy requirements are almost totally provided by carbon containing fossil sources such as oil, coal and nature gas, but they cause serious environmental problems during combustion such as CO2 emission and climate changes. Bio-hydrogen production from Klebsiella oxytoca ATCC 13182 and water hyacinth was taken as a substrate. Water hyacinth are good source of cellulose and hemicelluloses content used for bio-hydrogen production. This research paper includes the effect of age of inoculation, volume of inoculation and acid pre-treatment (concentrated sulfhuric acid) on bio-hydrogen production along with their specific hydrogen production rate (SHPR), carbon consuming efficiency (CCE) and pH.

Biomass is the chief source of bio-hydrogen production which includes agricultural crops as well as their residues, various effluents generated in human habitat, aquatic plants and algae, and by-products released during food processing. Bio-hydrogen is selectively produced from biomass because of its cost-effectiveness, easy availability, high carbohydrate content and their ease of biodegradability. This research paper includes optimization of pH and temperature on bio-hydrogen producing capacity and their effect on bacterial growth.