Highlights of the research findings in this issue are:

• Long term performance evaluation of 26 clones in the cold prone Sub -Himalayan West Bengal found SCATC 88/13 the most suitable
• Eco-friendly approaches to control Corynespora leaf diseases of rubber through integrated methods using bacterial endophytes
• Calcium and magnesium availability in soils in the traditional rubber growing regions of South India showed wide variability and a gradual increase from the South to North, exempting Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu
• Promotion and maintenance of natural understory vegetation in rubber plantations with minimum weeding around the basin of rubber plants to avoid root zone competition was an economically feasible and ecologically viable strategy to improve biodiversity and soil fertility
• Developed genomic materials with potentially high yield and disease tolerance under disease-resistance breeding programme
• Five new alternate fungicides viz., Tebuconazole; Hexaconazole; Epoxyconazole+Pyraclostrobin; Tebuconazole+Trifloxystrobin and Metiram+Pyraclostrobin are identified for management of brown root disease
• Drought tolerant clones identified from young pipeline clones grown in the hotspot of Dapchari
• In stable free radical assisted mechanical devulcanisation of NR, irrespective of the particle size of the carbon black filler used to reinforce the original sample, the revulcanisate properties of the devulcanised NR were comparable to the original vulcanisate properties of GPF filled NR
• A novel method for radiation vulcanization of natural rubber latex was introduced by coupling sensitizer initiated crosslinking along with peroxide which will give improved mechanical and after-ageing properties to latex films at a low radiation dose rate
• A general article on CRISPR/Cas9 mediated gene editing technology is included which discusses the possible applications of this noevl technique for genetic improvement of Hevea brasiliensis