Silicon (Si) being considered as a non-essential element for plant growth and development finds its role in providing several benefits to the plant, especially under stress conditions. Thus, Si can be regarded as "multi-talented" quasi-essential element. It is the most abundant element present in the earth's crust after oxygen predominantly as a silicon dioxide (SiO 2), a form plants cannot utilize. Plants take up Si into their root from the soil in the plant-available forms (PAF) such as silicic acid or mono silicic acid [Si(OH) 4 or H 4 SiO 4 ]. Nevertheless, besides being abundantly available, the PAF of Si in the soil is mostly a limiting factor. To improve Si-uptake and derived benefits therein in plants, understanding the molecular basis of Si-uptake and transport within the tissues has great importance. Numerous Si-transporters (influx and efflux) have been identified in both monocot and dicot plants. A difference in the root anatomy of both monocot and dicot plants leads to a difference in the Si-uptake mechanism. In the present review, Si-transporters identified in different species, their evolution and the Si-uptake mechanism have been addressed. Further, the role of Si in biotic and abiotic stress tolerance has been discussed. The information provided here will help to plan the research in a better way to develop more sustainable cropping system by harnessing Si-derived benefits.

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Increase in food production viz-a-viz quality of food is important to feed the growing human population to attain food as well as nutritional security. The availability of diverse germplasm of any crop is an important genetic resource to mine the genes that may assist in attaining food as well as nutritional security. Here we used 15 RAPD and 23 SSR markers to elucidate diversity among 51 common bean genotypes mostly landraces collected from the Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. We observed that both the markers are highly polymorphic. The discriminatory power of these markers was determined using various parameters like; percent polymorphism, PIC, resolving power and marker index. 15 RAPDs produced 171 polymorphic bands, while 23 SSRs produced 268 polymorphic bands. SSRs showed a higher PIC value (0.300) compared to RAPDs (0.243). Further the resolving power of SSRs was 5.241 compared to 3.86 for RAPDs. However, RAPDs showed a higher marker index (2.69) compared to SSRs (1.279) that may be attributed to their higher multiplex ratio. The dendrograms generated with hierarchical UPGMA cluster analysis grouped genotypes into two main clusters with various degrees of sub clustering within the cluster. Here we observed that both the marker systems showed comparable accuracy in grouping genotypes of common bean according to their area of cultivation. The model based STRUCTURE analysis using 15 RAPD and 23 SSR markers identified a population with 3 sub-populations which corresponds to distance based groupings. High level of genetic diversity was observed within the population. These findings have further implications in common bean breeding as well as conservation programs.

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The genetic variation, marker attributes and population structure was assessed in 104 genotypes of cucumber using 23 SSR primer pairs. The total number of alleles produced was 67 with an average of 2.91 per locus. Allele frequency was in the range of 0.215 to 0.561 with mean value of 0.403, polymorphic information content ranged from 0.158 to 0.495 with the mean of 0.333, marker index ranged from 0.316 to 1.54 with an average value of 0.954 and resolving power ranged from 0.346 to 2.692 with mean of 1.392. The maximum allele frequency was reported with primer SSR65, whereas the maximum value of polymorphic information content and resolving power was found with SSR61 and the maximum value of marker index was reported with SSR60. Jaccard's similarity coefficient ranged from 0.07 to 0.897 with maximum similarity between genotype G40 and G41 and minimum between G16 and G20, and G16 and G100. Clustering and PCA grouped the genotypes in two clusters, and majority of them were found in cluster B. The population structure analysis also showed two major populations, in which 47 genotypes were found in population 1, 39 genotypes in population 2, whereas remaining 18 genotypes were admixtures. The study provides researchers a valuable information for genotype identification, gene mapping, molecular breeding, and future exploration of cucumber germplasm in India and other major cucumber growing countries.