Bypassing juvenility, first report of functional flowering and fruiting in six months old seedlings of Cordia myxa L.(lasuda)

ABSTRACTCordia myxa L. is a medium-sized broad-leaved deciduous tree of flowering plant belongs to Boraginaceae. It grows naturally from dry desert India up to hills of Himalayas in India up to 1400 m elevation above mean sea level. Fruits are mostly used for pickle making and dried for its use in local off season vegetable recipes since long time. The ripe fruits are full of vitamins and its regular use is supposed to be helpful in good growth of hair. Lasuda preparations are, thus, good for people whose constitution might have tendency to go bald. In addition to fruit, Lasuda bark and roots are also very effective as a local remedy against cough, cold and various other ailments connected with indigestion and throat problems. At regional research laboratory of Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni (India) we are working for the last 12 years on various aspects like propagation and development of promising strains of Cordia myxa. Grafting/budding techniques have been standardized to produce true to type precocious plants which bear flower and fruits in two to three years. However, flowering and fruiting has been observed in six months old seedling of seed origin, which can be ascribed to biochemical or cellular changes. Early flowering and fruiting is a rare phenomenon in tree seedlings of the species which otherwise flower at the age of 7-8 years. This could be very useful for manipulating the species at gene as well as physiological level in future to get early fruits and breeding of the species.

Mapping the Research Output of University of Kashmir

The study maps the research output from University of Kashmir, one of the premier higher education institutes of Jammu&Kashmir state, India. Elseviers SciVerse Scopus one of the leading indexing abstracting services was queried for a period of 1963- February 2015 using the affiliation search feature for University of Kashmir. The works of the authors affiliated with University of Kashmir have been analyzed. Statistical analysis of the retrieved data was performed. The publication output from University of Kashmir has shown a promising growth expect for some years in 1990s which can be attributed to the political instability in the state. The highest contributing authors are from Science disciplines with authors from Chemistry, Botany, Electronics, Biochemistry, and Centre of Research for Development departments having a higher rate of h-Index. Majority of papers are published in Indian sources followed by the sources from US, Germany and China. Majority of the authors are affiliated with University of Kashmir followed by Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (Earlier Regional Research Laboratory, Sanat Nagar), Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) and Aligarh Muslim University. Articles have remained a prime document type for publishing by the authors from University of Kashmir followed by conference proceedings and review articles. Agricultural and Biological Sciences outscore other disciplines followed by Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology and Medicine. Future emphasis on joint research, international collaboration, and publishing in indexed journals is needed.

The UK's Regional Research Laboratory Initiative

This article examines the development of a series of newly created research centres in the UK. They are of interest because of the novelty of their mission – to conduct research into the techniques and methods of handling large-scale datasets and, over a three-year period with Research Council support, to develop a portfolio of activities and customers able to sustain the Centre when core funding has expired. Christine Tiler examines the range of experience encountered by the Laboratories and draws out key factors which influenced their development. She pays particular attention to those factors which affected their ability to transform themselves into self-funding research and development organizations.