eChapters

The cell is the unit of structure of all plants and animals. With increasing complexity of organization, masses of different cell types tend to become localized and to form recognizable patterns. An aggregation of cells forming a definite pattern is called tissue. A still higher level of organization, tissues aggregate to form organs. The animal cell is a highly organized structure. Plant cell is different from animal cell  by having a cellulose cell wall.  There are a number of well defined structures viz., nucleus, mitochondria, lysosomes, Golgi apparatus etc in the cell. Animal cells also have centrioles whereas plant cells contain plastids such as chloroplasts. The remainder of the cell is the cytoplasm.

Cell culture has become one of the major tools used in the life sciences today. Viruses replicate only within the living cells. With the advent of cell culture technique, it has become easier to grow the viruses under in vitro condition (cell culture). Viruses are usually propagated in cell culture, embryonated hen’s egg, laboratory animals or natural hosts. In 1949, Enders, Weller and Robbins first reported that polio virus could be grown in cultured non-neural cells with the production of recognizable cytopathic changes. Although the cell culture technique has been evolved long back, it is only since the advent of antibiotics that cell culture became a matter of simple routine technique. Aseptic precautions are still essential, but the problems of contamination with bacteria, mycoplasma, fungi and yeasts can be checked by antibiotics and anti-fungal agents. The term in vitro literally means ‘in glass’ although today most cell culture is performed in or on plastic.

Introduction

Bioremediation can be defined as elimination, attenuation or transformation of polluting or contaminating substances by the use of biological processes, to minimize the risk to human health and the environment. Bioremediation of contaminated soil and water uses microbes (e.g. bacteria and fungi) to convert pollutants to harmless or more environmentally acceptable products and minimizes the risk to human health in a natural or managed process.

Introduction

Soil forms the base of the lithosphere on earth and is a fundamental and irreplaceable versatile three dimensional dynamic system that supports majority of terrestrial plant and animal life on earth. This soil system contains mineral (sand, slit and clay forming basic soil structure) and organic matter as well as marginal air and water contents. The soil organic matter content of the soil system constitutes every fraction of matter in various stages of decomposition that once was associated with the body, body parts, exudates, tissues and cells of living organisms including plants, animals and microorganisms. It is the product of continuous cycling of the compounds synthesized by autotrophic plants among the three kingdoms viz microbes, plants and animals. The decomposition of the organic residues in soil is performed primarily by the resident soil microflora termed as microbial decomposers; though initially the larger and complex organic material is broken down, devoured upon, chewed, regurgitated and transformed into smaller bits by larger soil faunal forms (earthworms, beetles, springtails, and collembola, the macro (large) to mesofauna) on which soil microbial forms could act upon.

Introduction

Introduction of improved high yielding varieties of crop plants, use of modern agricultural practices coupled with essential control of pests of food and fiber crops have significantly contributed towards increasing the food production in green revolution era in India. Pesticide application forms the foremost limb in hiked agricultural food production and management practices. The production and post production management of crop yield requires increased use of pesticides.

Introduction

India being a developing nation is trying to reach a balance in ever increasing population with marginal increase in crop production. There occurred a bigbang in crop production during the green revolution era however this also resulted in creation of infertile, barren lands with low chemical nutrient input responsive soils. Soil fertility is the major constraint among resource poor Indian farmers as lesser benefits are harnessed by use of newer agricultural protocols/tools/products viz improved varieties, productive technology from less fertile soils. There is dire need for looking for the alternative technologies of food or crop production to satiate the hunger of burgeoning Indian population. Today there is enormous emphasis on the conservation facets of soil fertility and crop productivity which are the instrumental philosophies in sustainable agriculture. Biofertilizers are the cost effective, ecofriendly and renewable resource of plant nutrients that could well supplement the use of already functional and popular chemical fertilizers for obtaining increase in crop yield without over hazardous impacts on various facets of soil chemistry, fertility and microbial diversity to attain sustainable agricultural system.

Introduction

Vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae are fungi that exhibit symbiosis with roots of higher plants. The term vesicular arbuscular is derived from characteristic structure i.e. ‘branched hyphae or arbuscles’ that are formed with in the root cortical cells and vesicles or ‘swollen lipid storing organs’ that occur with in or between them.

Introduction

Lithosphere, including the earth’s crust, is helpful in providing the base or medium for sustenance of most life processes and forms, interwoven in fine network interdependencies within themselves and the environment surrounding them i.e. ecosystems. Terrestrial ecosystem contains an important dynamic living matrix termed soil, which is critical for agricultural production and food security. Soil forms the medium for growth and maintenance of a variety of plant species while the plant roots in the soil represent a four dimensional region in space and time of profuse activity relative to the bulk soil, revolving around pH, nutrient, redox potential, and exudate gradients changing as distance from the root increases (Marschner, 1995). The soil region adhering the plant roots is being strongly influenced by the presence of these roots and is characterized by high rates of microbial population and activity and referred as rhizosphere (the soil adhering to plant roots).

Introduction

Increased population pressure, reduced length of fallow, deforestation and improper agricultural practices have led to widespread soil degradation in many parts of the developing world which has culminated in appearance of determinative manifestations of environmental damage in form of inadequate replenishment of soil nutrients and organic matter. Phosphorus is second major plant growth limiting nutrient and despite being in abundance in soil (organic and inorganic form), P deficiency is becoming critical in many soils throughout world as these soils have free available P concentration (generally) not higher than 10mM even at most soluble slight acidic pH (Arnou, 1953). Moreover, consistent P deficiency threatens to disturb the use efficiency of applying other nutrients. Hence to preserve the sustainability of agriculture it is foremost to rebuild soil fertility and maintain/improve the soil biodiversity to reap hiked current levels of productivity and farm income.

Introduction

Diazotrophs are phylogenetically diverse microbes spanning over various classes varying vastly on basis of physiological properties (Young, 1992), include various phototrophic microorganisms aerobic phototrophic Cyanobacteria (Vaishampayan et al, 2001), anaerobic purple-sulfur phototrophs like Chromatium, and green-sulfur phototrophs, e.g. Chlorobium, Rhodopseudomonas; chemolithotrophs Alcaligenes, Thiobacillus, Methanosarcina, Methanobacterium, Desulfovibrio or Azospirillum lipoferum and heterotrophic bacterial anaerobes (Clostridium), microaerophiles (Herbaspirillum), and aerobes (Azotobacter). Free-living aerobic nitrogen fixing bacterial genera found in soil include obligate aerobes as Azotobacter, Beijerinckia, Derxia, Achromobacter, Mycobacterium, Arthrobacter and Bacillus but the majority are microaerophilic (e.g. Azospirillum, Herbaspirillum) or facultative and obligate anaerobes (e.g. Klebsiella, Aerobacter, Desulfovibrios, Rhodospirillum, Clostridium, Erwinia).

Introduction

Nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are the group of most primitive prokaryotes that have been observed in proterozoic era. Many Proterozoic oil deposits are attributed to the activity of Cyanobacteria, such as Gloeocapsomorpha. Small concentrically layered structures called pisolites are also the result of fossilized bacteria.

Introduction

Rhizobia and Frankia are soil bacteria that exhibit symbiosis with their particular hosts owing to their ability to understand the intricate signals excreted by the host roots. Rhizobia exhibit symbiosis with legumes and one species member of Ulmaceae family Parasponia andersonii while actinomycetes Frankia forms the group of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in symbiosis with a large spectrum of dicot plants distributed among eight families consisting of over 24 genera and around 200 species of angiosperms (Benson and Silvester, 1993) and are collectively responsible for 15% of the biologically fixed nitrogen in the world. This Frankia-woody tree or dicotyledonous plant interaction results in evolution of the actinorhizal plants and the symbiotic interaction is described between Frankia (actino) and plant roots (rhiza).

Introduction and History

Leguminosae/Fabaceae is a superfamily of dicotyledonous plants, which in species diversity is the third largest family of plants accounting for 5% of Earth’s plant biodiversity and make up for more than at least 1% of the total Earth plant biomass. Among these, legume grains and pulses having more than 20 to 30% lysine protein content are cultivated in 145 million ha of land in developing countries. This family is also characterized by presence of specialized tumor like structure formation (nodules) on roots (occasionally on stem as in Sesbania rostrata, Aeschynomene) that is inhabited by microsymbiont gram-negative bacteria (Rhizobium), engaged in fixing atmospheric nitrogen or symbiotic biological nitrogen fixation.

Mizoram in North East India, is located between 21º58’ to 23º35’ N latitude and 92º15’ to 93º29’ E longitude, surrounded by Tripura, Assam and Manipur in North frontier regions; Bangladesh in west; and Mayanmar in east and south. The undulated topography of Mizoram, known as Lushai hills during British period, has varied altitudes ranging from 21 to 2157 m above mean sea level, annual rainfall of 2000-3200 mm, and mean monthly temperature of summer (monsoon) ranges from 14.6ºC to 29.6ºC. Besides having good rainfall; the vegetable production, including leaf vegetables, during winter period is limited by acute soil moisture stress caused by high rate of evapo-transpiration, almost no rain from November-March, non-availability of irrigation water and low water holding capacity of the sloppy land (Singh et al., 2011; Singh et al., 2013b).

The edible speciality mushrooms are mushrooms that are generally not grown and available commonly in the market. Any mushroom other than popularly grown white button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) falls under the specialty category, and these mushrooms are generally not available over the counter or in departmental stores in India or other countries in the world. The mushrooms under this group include the different types of commonly grown Oyster mushrooms like grey, black, white, pink, yellow oyster mushrooms, King Oyster mushroom, Shiitake mushroom, Black Ear mushroom, Shimeji mushroom, Enokutake mushroom, Milky mushroom, the Portabella brown, Cremini mushroom , Straw mushrooms and others. This paper will describe in detail biology and cultivation of these mushrooms as grown under controlled environment conditions or under seasonal growing conditions, where ever possible.

Gingers  belong to Zingiberaceae family and are made up of about 1000 species in 47 genera. They have numerous members with aromatic oils that have made them popular for perfumes and ornamentals. Ornamental gingers, while related to edibles, are usually grown for their looks instead of their flavor. A very large and diverse group of gingers are valued both for their tropical foliage and for their large, colorful flower heads. From the startling red ginger to the subtle shell ginger, these attractive plants are easy to grow in home landscapes in tropical and semi-tropical areas. They are great for tub gardens They can be very rewarding to grow, and with some simple care will continue to produce beautiful leaves and flowers for many years which also have cut flower value.

Kale (Brassica oleracea L. convar. acephala (DC.) Alef.) is a representative of cole group of vegetables and cool-season cooking green somewhat similar to collard and non heading cabbage that has gained recent widespread attention due to its health-promoting, sulfur-containing phytonutrients. Kale is grown for its large foliage which is mainly used as leafy vegetable. This leafy vegetable is helpful in reducing the chances of cancer if taken regularly. Among the vegetable crops, kale is the richest source of carotenoids which is the precursor of vitamin-A. Besides, it also contains good amount of different minerals essential for human diet. There are several varieties of kale, all of which differ in taste, texture and appearance.

Dyes are one of the most important by products of the plants, as they are related with cultural practices, rituals, arts and crafts, fabrics and to satisfy personal embodiment. However, dye yielding plants have not received significant attention (Grover and Patni, 2011). Dye is a substance that has affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied such as textile fibers, foodstuffs and powder. They are organic coloured substances which absorb light in the visible part of the spectrum and have the property of colouring the substrate they are applied to.
 
Colourants which are obtained from plants and natural sources are known as natural dyes. Natural dyes have been traditionally used in most of the countries. These dyes were obtained from roots, leaves and bark (Akhtar et al., 2012). Natural dyes find use in the colouring of textiles, drugs, cosmetics, etc. Owing to their non-toxic effects, they are also used for colouring various food products. In India, there are more than 450 plants that can yield dyes (Siva, 2007).

Black caraway (Bunium persicum Boiss. Fedtsch ) commonly known as kala zeera is a low volume,  high value, under-exploited and  non-perishable crop that finds place  in cold arid  North -Western Himalayan regions of Indian sub-continent. Its fruits are expensive spice and are used in indigenous system of medicine for curing various ailments and disorders. The proper information on botanical identity of the species, its description and distribution, active ingredients, standardized agro-techniques, processing and value addition and marketing potentials, etc. are very scanty. An attempt has been made to gather information on various aspects of kala zeera to promote its cultivation in the cold arid regions of the Himalayan states and its role in improving the socio-economic conditions of the people by cultivating the cash crop.

Broad dhaniya (Eryngium foetidum L.: Umbelliferae - Apiaceae) is an underutilized leafy vegetable and aromatic plant used for seasoning food items and source of medicine. It is a shade loving plant of tropical regions.  It has got status of a promising cash crop with huge export potential particularly in United Kingdom, USA and Middle East markets. Its medicinal and seasoning properties are well known in various countries like Vietnam, India and in the Amazon region (De Gumao et al., 2002). Broad dhaniya is relatively unknown in many other parts of the world and is often mistaken and misnamed for its close relative Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.).