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FUNDAMENTALS OF AGRONOMY

Sharanappa
  • Country of Origin:

  • Imprint:

    NIPA

  • eISBN:

    9789390591510

  • Binding:

    EBook

  • Number Of Pages:

    164

  • Language:

    English

Individual Price: 995.00 INR 895.50 INR + Tax

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Agronomy is the core subject of agricultural sciences. A strong foundation for agricultural education emerges by understanding the principles of Agronomy. Majority of the Students who join for the degree programmes in agriculture universities are never exposed to the crops and crop production aspects.The beginner’s to agriculture needs to be introduced the meaning, scope and principles of agronomy. With this back ground and keeping in mind the common syllabus prescribed by the Dean’s committee for agriculture education in the country efforts are made to compile and present the information on introduction to agronomy, agriculture, meaning, scope and importance, history of development of agriculture, agricultural education and research in the country and elsewhere, factors affecting plant growth, manures and fertilizers, principles of agronomy viz. soil management, crop management, weed management, management of problematic soils, cropping systems, selection of planting materials, their treatment  in simple language. At the end of each chapter subjective and objective questions are provided for practice.
The author hopes that this book will be useful for the students for learning and for the faculty for teaching the course “Fundamentals of Agronomy” for the undergraduate degree programme in the Agricultural Universities.

0 Start Pages

Preface Agronomy is the core subject of agricultural sciences. A strong foundation for agricultural education emerges by understanding the principles of agronomy. Majority of the students who join for the degree programmes in agriculture universities are never exposed to the crops and crop production aspects. The beginners to agriculture needs to be introduced the meaning, scope and principles of agronomy. With this background and keeping in mind the common syllabus prescribed by the Dean’s committee for agriculture education in the country, efforts are made to compile and present the information on introduction to agronomy, agriculture, meaning, scope and importance, history of development of agriculture, agricultural education and research in the country and elsewhere, factors affecting plant growth, manures and fertilizers, principles of agronomy viz. soil management, crop management, weed management, management of problematic soils, cropping systems, selection of planting materials, their treatment in simple language. At the end of each chapter subjective and objective questions are provided for practice.

 
1 Agriculture and Agronomy: History and Development

The term agriculture is derived from the Latin words ager or agri meaning soils and cultura means cultivation. Agriculture is the art, science and business of crop production. It encompasses all aspects of crop production, livestock farming, fishery and forestry. Agriculture is the conversion of solar energy into the chemical energy. Crop production is the conversion of environmental inputs like solar energy, carbon dioxide, water and nutrients in soil to economic products in the form of human or animal food or industrial raw materials. Agriculture is a science, an art and business of crop production Agriculture is a science of farming. Scientific principles are employed to find ways of making it as efficient as possible. Through scientific principles plants and animals are transformed genetically and most favorable environment is provided to harvest higher yields of good quality with least expense of energy. The scientific principles of various branches viz. soil science, genetics and plant breeding, entomology, plant pathology, microbiology, agricultural engineering etc. were employed in agriculture. Agriculture like any other science is a body of truths synthesized and systematized and arranged in such a way as to show the operation of general laws and principles. Agriculture is an art which embraces knowledge of the way to perform the operation of a farm in a skillful manner. The physical and mental skills are involved in agriculture. The skills may be acquired through years of experience viz. ploughing, stacking hay bundles, handling animals, sowing seeds, transplanting, driving a tractor etc. Mental skills are those involved in decision making for example when to plough the land, selection of appropriate crops, seed selection etc. Agriculture is a business which is no longer a way of living or subsistence agriculture, where production is intended to meet the home requirements. Agriculture is intended to earn more income. Land, labour, capital are judiciously used. Like in any industry the farming industry should forecast the demand, tailor the production with demand to earn more profits. It involves processing, value addition, transportation, packing and storage in scientific way. Knowledge of employee and employer relationship or human resource management, export and imports, taxation, customs, tariffs and trade are required. All these aspects demand business knowledge in addition to the production and managerial skills. Traditional agriculture is no longer relevant for success in agriculture. Commercial agriculture or corporate farming, agribusiness development corporations demand entrepreneurs in agriculture rather than technologists alone.

1 - 13 (13 Pages)
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2 Factors Affecting Crop Production

Crop growth is influenced by internal factors and external factors. Internal factors are controlled by the genes and hereditary. External factors are climate, edaphic, biotic, physiographic and anthropic. Genetic Factors Genetic factors are controlled by the genes. Plant height, yield, size and color of the grains or fruit etc. The productivity and quality of the crop can be improved by breeding through conventional methods or by biotechnological approaches. Environmental factors Climate Precipitation occurs in the form of rainfall, snow, hail and fog. Fog: Consists of water droplets so small that their fall velocity is negligible. Fog particles contact vegetation and may adhere, coalesce with other droplets and eventually form a drop which is large enough to fall to ground.

14 - 26 (13 Pages)
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3 Classification of Field Crops

Field Crops: Refers to the crops grown on a vast scale. They are classified in the following ways 1. According to the place of origin 2. Botanical classification 3. Commercial classification 4. Economic classification 5. Seasonal classification 6. Classification according to ontogeny 7. Agronomic classification 8. Classification based on leaf morphology 9. Classification based on serving special purpose

27 - 35 (9 Pages)
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4 Soil: Composition and Properties

The word soil is derived from the Latin word ‘Solum’ means soil. In general the top 15-20 cm cultivated layer is referred as soil. It is a loose and unconsolidated outer layer of the earth crust that is crumbly and powdery in nature. Soil below the plough layer is called subsoil. Soil is formed by weathering of rocks. Weathering may be physical or chemical or both. Factors of soil formation are parent material, climate, living things-plants, animals and microorganisms, topography and time. Soil formation is a function of parent material (P), climate (C), topography (To), life (L) and time (T) which is represented by f(P C To L T).

36 - 41 (6 Pages)
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5 Soil Fertility and Productivity

Soil fertility is the ability of the soil to supply all the essential nutrients in optimum amount in balanced proportion in a form readily available to plants under conditions favourable for plant growth and should be free from toxic substances. Soil productivity: Soil productivity is defined as the capability of soil for producing a specified crop or sequence of crops under defined set of management practices. It is measured in terms of outputs or harvests in relation to the inputs of production factors for specific kinds of soils under a physically defined system of management according to USDA (1957).

42 - 47 (6 Pages)
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6 Tillage and Tilth

Tillage is the physical manipulation of the soil with tools and implements which, results in good tilth for better germination and subsequent growth of crops. Tilth is the physical condition of the soil resulting from tillage. Soil is said to be in good tilth when it is mellow, friable and adequately aerated. Tilth is dynamic. Mechanical forces may change the roughness of the soil surface, the total porosity and bulk density of the tilled layer and the aggregate or clod size. Heavy rainfall and high velocity wind or water destroys the tilth. The action of wetting and drying, freezing and thawing regenerates desirable tilth. The roughness of the soil surface is an index of the amount of water that can be stored in soil depressions and may also be related to the resistance of the soil surface to sealing. Roughness may be related to rate of evaporation, transfer of heat and air between the soil and atmosphere.

48 - 59 (12 Pages)
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7 Seeds and Sowing

A seed consists of a plant embryo, stored food material surrounded by a seed coat. Seeds of cereals and grasses consist of embryo or germ, endosperm and the pericarp. Seeds of legumes contain no endosperm, the bulk of the seed being made up of the two cotyledons. The cotyledons constitute the food storage portion. The embryo of the grass seed is made of epicotyl, hypocotyl and scutellum- the single cotyledon of monocots, the epicotyl gives rise to the shoot and the hypocotyl produces the roots.

60 - 69 (10 Pages)
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8 Crop Nutrition

Criterion for essentiality of plant nutrients Arnon’s (1954) criteria for essentiality of elements for plant growth: 1. The plant must be unable to grow normally or complete its life cycle in the absence of the element, 2. The element is specific and cannot be replaced by another and, 3. The element plays a direct role in metabolism.

70 - 78 (9 Pages)
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9 Manures and Fertilizers

Manures are the plant and animal wastes that are used as source of plant nutrients. They release nutrients upon their decomposition. Bulky organic manures contain small percentage of nutrients and they are applied in large quantities. e.g,. farmyard manure, compost, green manures.

79 - 88 (10 Pages)
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10 Fertilizer Management in Crop Production

Knowledge of fertilizer dose, selection of fertilizer sources, time and method of application is essential for achieving efficient use of fertilizers and profitable yield. A. Fertilizer Dose Fertilizer dose for crops is determined based on the field experimentation. It varies with the crops and varieties, initial fertility of the soil, soil properties, cropping system, climate, season, rainfed or irrigated crop, expected yield etc. Fertilizer dose for rainfedcrops (Kg/ha)

89 - 96 (8 Pages)
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11 Growth and Development of Crops

Plant growth is defined as the progressive development which is irreversible. It is expressed in terms of dry weight plants, height of plants, girth or diameter of the stem or tree trunks, spread of the tree canopy, number of branches or tillers. Plant growth is a function or various factors which may be expressed as G = f (x, x2, x3 xn ).Some factors may be controlled while some cannot be controlled. The following are the factors which influence the plant growth.

97 - 102 (6 Pages)
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12 Ideotypes of Crop Plants

An ideotype is a crop plant having desirable morphological and physiological characteristics or both for cultivation in a specific agroclimate situation. An ideotype is constructed by the breeder on the basis of indepth study of morphological and physiological characters including their interrelationships, and intuition of the breeder based on his experience.

103 - 106 (4 Pages)
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13 Crop Adaptation and Distribution

Adaptation is any feature of an organism which has survival value under the existing condition of its habitat. The basic of successful crop production is the selection of an adapted plant species and varieties. Plants may have morphological adaptation or physiological adaptation or both for the existing environment. Adaptation to soil moisture Hydrophytes: More number of stomata on the upper surface of the leaf, aerenchyma tissue in the roots of rice plants, stem is hollow/straw, internodes are longer in floating and submerged rice, Mesophytes: Stomata are normal. Present both on upper and lower leaf surface, medium root growth.

107 - 113 (7 Pages)
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14 Principles of Cropping Systems

Cropping system is the cropping patterns used on a farm and their interaction with farm resources, other farm enterprises, available technology and environment (Physical, biological and socioeconomic) which determine their makeup (Krantz et al., 1975). Cropping system is subsystem of the farming system. The cropping system aims at increasing the benefits derived by crop production from available physical resources (land, climate, water resources etc.) that are not readily changed through optimization of input levels for a given crop or cropping pattern. The objective of any cropping system is to increase the efficiency of utilization of resources. The efficiency in measured by the quantity of product obtained per unit resource in a unit time in cropping system.

114 - 119 (6 Pages)
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15 Crop Management Technologies in Problematic Areas

The problematic areas for crop production may be soils affected with acidity, high concentration of salts, water logged soils or soils in steep sloppy areas. These soils have limitations or ill effects for crop growth and productivity.

120 - 125 (6 Pages)
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16 Harvesting and Threshing of Crops

Removal of entire plants or the economic parts after maturity from the field is called harvesting. Portion that is left behind on the field is known as stubble. The economic product may be grain, seed, leaf, root or entire plant. Time of Harvesting If the crop is harvested early, the produce contains high moisture and more immature grains. The yields will be low due to unfilled grains. It is very difficult to store the produce as shriveled grains with high moisture are highly prone to infestation by pest. The quality of the grain as well as germination percentage is also reduced. Late harvest results in shattering of grains, germination even before harvesting in rainy season and breakage during processing. Hence harvesting during correct time is very important. Plants may be harvested at physiological maturity or harvest maturity. Plants are said to be in physiological maturity when the translocation of the photosynthates ceases to the economic part.

126 - 128 (3 Pages)
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17 Weeds, Weed Management Herbicides and Allelopathy

Weeds are the plants growing where and when they are not desired. They compete with crops for soil moisture, nutrients, solar radiation and space, and thus reduce crop yields. Weeds also act as alternate hosts that harbour insect pests and diseases and other microorganisms. Some weeds release poisonous substances into the soil which may be harmful to crop plants, human and livestock. Weeds reduce the quality of marketable produce and render harvesting difficult, leading to increased expenditure on labours, equipment and chemicals for their removal. Classification of weeds A. Based on life cycle Annuals-Complete their life cycle in a year or in a single growing season. Based on the season they may be summer annuals and winter annuals. Summer annual e.g, Echinochloa crusgalli

129 - 138 (10 Pages)
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18 End Pages

References Balasubramaniyan, P. and Sp. Palaniappan, 2001, Principles and Practices of Agronomy. Agrobios (India), Jodhpur 342002 Cheema, S.S., Dhaliwal, B.K. and Sahota, T.S. 1991 Agronomy-Theory and Digest. Gopal Chandra De, 1995, Fundamentals of Agronomy, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi 110092 Gupta, O. P. 2010, Modern weed management, Agrobios, Jodhpur ICAR, 2013, Hand book of Agriculture Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Krishi Anusandhan Bhavan I, Pusa NewDelhi-110012 ICAR, Agriculture in Ancient India Reddy, S.R., 1999, Principles of Agronomy. Kalyani Publishers, New Delhi. Sankaran, S. and Subbiahmuduliar, V. T. 1991, Principles of Agronomy, The Bangalore printing and publishing Co. Ltd. Mysore Road, Bengaluru 560018 Singh, S.S., Principles and Practices of Agronomy, 1998, Kalyani Publishers, 1/1 Rajinder Nagar Ludhiana -141008 Tisdale, S.L., Nelson, W.L., Beaton, J.D. and Havlin, J.L., 2002 Soil fertility and Fertilizers. Prentice Hall of India Pvt. Ltd.New Delhi 11001 Wilsie, C.P. 1974, Crop Adaptation and Distribution. Yellamanda Reddy T. and Sankara Reddy, G.H., 2012, Principles of Agronomy, Kalyani Publishers, 1/1 Rajinder Nagar Ludhiana -141008

 
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