Section XIV : Plant Sciences PROCEEDINGS OF THE 107TH INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS Bangalore, 2020 PART II SECTION OF PLANT SCIENCES President: Prof. Y. Vimala CONTENTS I. Presidential Address 5 II. Abstracts of Platinum Jubilee/ Award Lectures 31 III. Abstracts of Symposium / Invited Lectures 39 IV. Abstracts of Oral / Poster Presentations 77 V. List of Past Sectional Presidents 227 VI. Authors Index 233 1 2 Section XIV : Plant Sciences 107TH INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS January 3-7, 2020, Bangalore I PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS President: Prof. Y. Vimala 3 4 Section XIV : Plant Sciences Presidential Address REALIZING ‘SSR’ INITIATIVE FOR CONSERVING ENVIRONMENT THROUGH SECONDARY PLANTATIONS ON MARGINAL / DEGRADED LAND SITES Y. Vimala Department of Botany, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut-250004 (U.P.) E-mail: [email protected], Cell: 9415545489 Hon’ble Chairperson, distinguished botanists, delegates, students and august audience! Please allow me to express my deep sense of gratitude to the almighty and members of the sectional committee providing this opportunity by unanimously electing me as the President of the Plant Sciences Section of the Indian Science Congress Association for this session. I also wish to pay my tributes to the great Indian botanists who have laid high standards of plant sciences in this country. I had the privilege of personal interaction and affection with some of them, which had sown the seeds of interest in Botany since my childhood. I owe my gratefulness to my mentors and well -wishers from Botany fraternity, my Ph.D. supervisor Prof. Debashis Banerji, and my father Prof. Y.S. Murty, who inculcated my belonging to the Plant Sciences in shaping my professional career. In my teaching and research pursuit and also in my routine, I was always inclined towards non-destructive methods of making use of plants and wished to develop ways for better sustenance of green cover on earth. My interactions with botanists on national and international platforms have strengthened my explorations. Therefore, I decided to speak today on some of those plants of medicinal value, that hold the potential not only to survive on degraded lands but could also augment cultivability, rendering utility of such land in rural development and amelioration of livelihood of local communities. Key words: Degraded marginal lands, in vivo accumulation, in vitro up -scaling of medicinal principle, sustenance of green cover, rural development 5 107th Indian Science Congress, Bangalore 2020 Presidential Address Abstract Most recently, the Department of Science & Technology, GOI is embarking on SSR (Scientific Social Responsibility) based S & T interventions as the prime thrust for scientific endeavours in India. Whereas, plant based herbal products and medicines are gaining ever increasing interest globally, but the raw material for all this is still obtained from wild and forest lands. Of course, in select cases represented by major secondary crops this is obtained through organized cultivation. Therefore, in order to reduce pressure on cultivable land, and to provide livelihood support to wild collectors as an SSR initiative a planned study was taken-up to explore and suggest the utilization of barren, marginal, degraded and polluted sites through secondary plantations of prospective medicinal and aromatic plants. Of the several species that could be planted on such degraded sites, a specific study was undertaken on two major secondary crops, one medicinal and one aromatic species, namely Withania somnifera and Chrysopogon zizanioides, respectively. Studies conducted on the plantations done on the degraded site, and its replication under experimental conditions vis-à-vis ideal cultural conditions reveal that these plants could be a good source not only to conserve and reclaim effluent afflicted, nutritionally deficient and eroded soil, but could help livelihood support to the local field dwellers, as well as achieve best utilization of barren lands. Such an approach is likely to reduce pressure on precious cultivable land that may be otherwise used for cultivation of such secondary plants. The in vitro culture studies conducted on the target plants further suggest that the source plants obtained from the degraded sites hold promise of their further improvement for enhanced harvest of economic product. Introduction: In addition to huge waste land cover under usar soil and wetlands, the land degradation continues to be quite high in India owing to several manmade reasons including excessive use of agrochemicals, change in land use pattern owing to ever growing urbanization, vagaries of environmental disasters leading to erosion, landslides and silting etc. Faulty 6 Section XIV : Plant Sciences means of agriculture adopted by marginal farmers is adding to decline in land productivity. Lack of agricultural land for staple crops and increasing demand of herbal medicines has led to constant pressure on cultivable land area. Of the several plant species that could be grown on such degraded land, the two plants, namely Withania somnifera L. Dunal (fam: Solanaceae) and Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty (Fam: Poaceae) are well known for yielding withanolides – the important immunomodulatory principles, and vetivone and vetiverols – the key perfumery component of the essential oil, respectively. These plants generally grow on fallow marginal lands, without disturbing the primary food crops. In general, growth of any plant requires suitable nutrients, aeration and water with overall pH maintained around 5.8-6.0. Deviation may result into changes in metabolism to overcome or mitigate the stress, better known as defense response by the plants, which ranges from phenological changes to biochemical expression and may even lead to genotypic adaptations in those plants in due course of time. However, such plantation can also result in improvement of soil texture, nutrient status, aeration, pH and other compositional matrix, making the soil culturable for other primary crops, as well. Among the strategies of defense response, the biochemical expression largely leads to production of such compounds (secondary metabolites) by the plants, which play the role of medicine or a drug candidate for mankind. Therefore, in order to provide holistic view with respect to utilization of degraded lands through secondary plantations, necessary studies were conducted on the two identified plants mentioned above to elucidate growth, development, and metabolic components onsite and under experimental garden and laboratory conditions. The target plants were grown in different sets of experiments in polluted degraded sites as well as control (garden) site. The in vivo potential of generating active medicinal principles was compared with callus developed from explant taken from plants growing at different sites. Their physiological aspects of growth when correlated with the yield of medicinal principle, bring out the importance of growing such medicinal plants on marginal lands which have no potential yield value in terms of nutritional principle, but have great value in terms of medicinal crops. These crops not only reap benefits for the farmers, but also protect the land from further degradation, helping in restoration. 7 107th Indian Science Congress, Bangalore 2020 Presidential Address With my interest in plant physiology I was inclined towards the study on medicinal plants inhabiting degraded lands to explore the possibility of their intended plantation from the perspective of active principle productivity, and use of such plantations in environmental conservations as SSR initiative. Choice of plants for soil reclamation and medicinal value addition: Several medicinal plants were hence investigated and their allelopathic interactions were also studied, as much as could be possible, to further ensure that there is no adverse effect on the yield of crop plants of the farmers with small holdings. The plants were studied for characteristics e.g. potential to: • Accumulate the nutrients • Change the structure of soil • Mitigate the toxicity levels of soil • Have deep and large root system • Be fast growing and non-harmful for staple crops • Require least input and negligible attention, • Grow under variety of environmental conditions, etc. • Besides, the species must have a market value. The cultivation of medicinal plants on wastelands may further be able to decrease the pressure on wild medicinal plants utilized by local people protecting them from being endangered. Under the above mentioned criteria several plants were tested, namely, Withania somnifera, Costus speciosus, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Centella asisatica, Maytenus, Commiphora, Cassia fistula, Emblica officinalis, Mucuna pruriens, Amomum, Elettaria, Hedychium, Curcuma longa, Ricinus communis, Jatropha curcas, Vetiveria 8 Section XIV : Plant Sciences (Chrysopogon) zizanioides, Rauwolfia serpentina and R. tetraphylla, Kalanchoe, Barleria prionitis and B. lupulina, Physalis peruviana, Tinospora, etc. and some interesting results of only Withania somnifera and Vetiveria (Chrysopogon) zizanioides are being presented. For the study following stepwise explorations were carried out: • Selection of ‘culturable degraded land’ sites • Survey of plants growing on the sites and selection of plants likely to survive on sites and be useful for land reclamation and medicinal use • Study of soil and plants at different intervals to estimate gain or loss to the soil and to the selected plants on sites compared to controls (nursery