Water stress has adverse impacts on crop growth, yield and quality parameters thus, considered among serious constraints to agriculture production. Under depleting natural resources, environmental fluctuation and increased risk of epidemic outbreak, the task of sufficient wheat production has become a serious problem. In this study, effect of seed size and water stress was analyzed in three wheat varieties (PBW-154, UP-2338, and UP-2425). Three seed size classes (large, medium, small) of each wheat variety were kept under four water stress levels. It was observed that the shoot length and root length were highly sensitive to water stress and showed minimum growth at highest water stress level. The comparison of varieties, seed size classes and water stress levels showed that in terms of seedling growth variety UP-2338 was more resistant to water stress as compared to other varieties, whereas in terms of germination variety PBW-154 was more resistant. Variety UP-2425 showed maximum reduction in seed germination with increasing water stress (33.3% at -15 bar stress level). Among seed size, large sized seeds showed highest seed germination (91.9%) followed by medium (89.7%) and small (82.8%) sized seeds.

Vigna is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae with worldwide distribution. In the present study, effect of salt stress was investigated in four species of Vigna viz. V. mungo (urd), V. angularis (rais), V. radiata (moong) and V. aconitifolia (moth) at germination and seedling growth stages in a glasshouse experiment. Seeds of selected crops were surface sterilized and placed under three salt stress levels of 0 (control), 50mM and 100mM using NaCl solutions. Three replicates for each treatment was used for this experiment. The results indicated that increase in salt stress levels caused a reduction in germination percentage, germination rate, shoot length, root length and seedling dry weight of each Vigna species. The overall results indicated that among the four species, V. aconitifolia was the most sensitive, whereas V. mungo was the least sensitive species to the salinity in almost every aspect of growth.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the second most important cereal crop in India after rice. In the present study, response of wheat variety PBW-154 against three size classes and six salinity levels was assessed at germination and early seedling stages. For this, seeds of wheat variety PBW 154 were categorized into three size classes (large, medium and small) and kept under six salinity levels ( 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 g/l NaCl). Salinity stress registered the highest detrimental effects on germination percentage of medium sized seed class (83.3%), whereas small size seed class (91.7 %) experienced least ill-effects on germination percentage. The shoot length, root length and total dry weight were significantly influenced by the salinity stress. The maximum shoot length (18 cm) and root length (15.7 cm) were measured for large seed size class at controlled conditions. In general, most of the measured traits showed a significant decline at higher salinity levels suggesting that the most stress tolerant and stress avoider seed size can be explored and economically implicated in farmers' fields.

Among abiotic stresses, drought and salinity are two major determinants due to high magnitude of their impact and wide occurrence. Salinity considerably limits the productivity of crops and thus, considered as the most destructive abiotic factor. In the present study, response of Macrotyloma uniflorum and Vigna mungo to salt (NaCl) stress imposed at germination and seedling growth stages was investigated. The aim of the study was identify the physiological and morphological responses of selected leguminous crop. Seeds were obtained from the healthy plants, surface sterilized and placed under six salt stress levels (0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 dsm-1). Complete randomized design with three replicates was used for this experiment and the experiments were conducted during the year 2015 in the glasshouse of Department of Botany, DSB, Campus, Kumaun University, Nainital. In comparison to Macrotyloma uniflorum (77%), higher germination percentage was observed in Vigna mungo (99%) at all salinity levels. In both the species, germination percentage and seedling growth decreased with the increase in salinity stress. Though Vigna mungo showed higher values for root (0.17 g) and shoot dry mass (0.27 g) the dry weight percentage reduction was higher in this species as compared to Macrotyloma uniflorum. Decrease in biomass of seedling with increasing salt stress indicated that the stress not only affected germination but also the growth of seedlings, which indicates that the synthetic ability of seed and biomass of the seedlings was also affected. Seed vigor index declined with the increase in salt concentrations. Outcomes from the study could be helpful in understanding the plant’s nature against different levels of salt stress and that could be economically exploited by various able agencies. At each salinity level, M. uniflorum showed higher salt tolerance index as compared to V. mungo so it can be cultivated in fields with salty soil.

The aim of present study was to analyse the status, plant diversity and their utilization in homegardens of Kumaun Himalaya. After the recognizance survey, 12 villages were selected in Hill and Bhabhar regions and in each village10 homegardens were selected for detailed study. Out of 120 selected homegardens, 51 were large (>0.004 ha), 42 were medium (0.001-0.004 ha) and 27 were small (<0.001 ha). A total of 70 plant species belonging to 35 families were recorded. Herb density was maximum in large sized homegardens (479 ind./ha) followed by medium (317 ind./ha) and small sized homegardens (249 ind./ha). Tree density was maximum in large (825 ind./ha) as compared to medium (750 ind./ha) and small sized homegardens (317 ind./ha). Similarly, frequency of species occurrence increased with increasing homegarden size. Shannon-Weiner Index for both herbs (H'= 3.65) and trees (H' = 2.51) were maximum in the large sized and minimum in small sized homegardens. Among the usable components, vegetable shared the half (50.78%) of the total plant diversity followed by fruits (22.57%), medicinal plants (18.03%), fodder (12.21%), fuel wood (7.35%) and ornamental species (1.43%) across all the homegardens in both the regions. Mangifera indica, Artocarpus integrifolia, Litchi chinensis, Bohermaria olerosa were the most frequent and dominant trees in all sized homegardens. This study suggested that large homegardens are more efficient than the small and medium sized homegardensand are ecologically, socially and economically diversified.