Title of project: Study on biochemical basis of resistance against major pests of maize
Project funding: Institute
Duration: 1/4/2010 to 31/3/2016
Total approved cost of the project: NA

Objectives:

1. Identification of highly resistant and highly susceptible maize germplasm against major maize pests
2. Bio-chemical profiling of identified maize germplasm and identification of biologically active compounds against maize pests
3. Development/standardization of bio-chemical techniques for screening germplasm to find out insect resistant maize lines
4. Screening of germplasm by variations in the identified bio-chemicals and its validation by field screening
5. Extraction of possible compound(s) which are imparting resistance to maize and its evaluation on pests by bio-assay studies
6. Identification of key biochemical pathways involved in insect resistance through transcriptomics

Project team:
PI: Suby SB
Co-PIs: Pradyumn Kumar, JC Sekhar, Dharam Paul Choudhary, Aditi Kundu

Major achievements: –

1. Patent appl. No. 1235/DEL/2015 A dynamic system and method for sampling volatiles from multiple specimens.
   Inventors: Suby SB, Pradyumn Kumar, JC Sekhar, Soujanya PL
2. Developed a susceptibility index for screening shootfly resistance
3. Cell wall bound phenolic acids confer resistance to C. partellus
4. C. partellus resistance is governed by Jasmonic acid pathway