eChapters

Plants have played an important role in many mythologies and religions of the world and have been known for deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. It is the symbolic representation of the old cultural traditions in the form of a tree across the world. Christmas tree in the Christianity and Bodhi tree in Buddhism are the example of tree featured in mythology. In most of the folklore, folktales and folk religion trees are often said to be homes of tree sprits. If history is traced, we will found that Druidism and Germanic paganism appear to have involved in religious conservational practices of sacred groves. Druidism is a nature based religion that was taught by Druids about 2000 years ago. The term druid itself possibly derives from the religeous word for oak. Therefore, the Druidism reconnects us with nature, our ancesters and ourselves by working with plants or trees.

Trees are honored in Indian culture for their different beneficial characters like medicinal properties, food, fodder, maintaining hydrological cycle, moderate the climate etc. There are some trees that have attained more than a special benevolence in Hindu mythology. In Indian mythology number of plants have been given sacred value and worshipped by different cultures. Some important plants of sacred value have been discussed here.

Livestock entrepreneur is a person who undertakes livestock based activities such as livestock rearing, production of livestock/ livestock products, processing and other inputs of livestock business. He finds ways and means to create and develop a profitable livestock business. Livestock entrepreneurs see their farming as a business and as a means of earning profits. So they are willing to take calculated risks to make profits and to grow their businesses. They are also motivated to improve livestock production through mechanization and application of technologies in the field of dairy, small ruminant, poultry and allied enterprises. Livestock entrepreneur is determined and creative person, always looking for opportunities to improve and expand his business. He likes to take calculated risks, and assumes responsibility for both profits and losses. An entrepreneur is passionate about growing his business and is constantly looking for new opportunities.Enterprising farmers are also innovators. They always look for better and more efficient and profitable ways to do things. Being innovative is an important quality for a farmer-entrepreneur, especially when the business faces strong competition or operates in a rapidly changing environment. They look for better ways to organize their farms. They try, better animals, and alternative technologies to increase productivity, diversify production, reduce risk and to increase profits.

Abstract

Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) harbors mixed microbial community, these are highly diversified, as revealed by molecular and phylogenetic studies. It is also estimated that microbiota of the GIT is composed of over 35,000 species and play a crucial role in human health and diseases. Thus are now of great interest to both the industrial and scientific communities. The microbes exhibit health benefits are known as probiotics. Anaerobic bacteria dominate in the GIT environment and genera like Bifidobacterium, Clostridium, are strict anaerobes while Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, is facultative anaerobes implicated in the probiotic effects.

For developing anaerobic bacterial based bio-products, it is necessary to cultivate large-scale biomass production that could be done using a modern manufacturing practice. Information on detailed understanding of the perfect growth medium and other bioprocessing parameters for the growth and viability is must. Also high cell viability is a prerequisite during downstream processing and storage of probiotic formulation. In this work we review the latest information about the history, mechanism of action, benefits of probiotic, selection criteria, sources of anaerobic probiotic bacteria, industrial cultivation medium along with biomass production, downstream processing.

6.1 Introduction

The process by which living beings give rise to the progeny of similar kind is called reproduction. Reproduction allows both multiplication and maintenance of a genotype/line/cultivar/species. So, the process of reproduction is also called propagation, and the plant part used for this purpose is called propagule. The way progeny originate is known as mode of reproduction (also called breeding system or reproductive system). The mode of reproduction of a crop determines its genetic composition which, in turn, is the deciding factor to develop suitable breeding methods. Knowledge of mode of reproduction is also essential for its artificial manipulation to breed improved types. The methods to be adopted for multiplication and maintenance of improved cultivars are also governed by the mode of reproduction. Especially in undertaking breeding investigations with new plants the nature of reproduction must be known before efficient breeding plans can be developed. The mode of reproduction has been well established for most of our important crop species.

6.2 Mode of Reproduction

Mode reproduction in crop plants may be sexual or asexual. In sexual reproduction (also called amphimixis), specialized reproductive cells called gametes are formed by the process of gametogenesis. Fusion of the male and female gametes leads to the development of an embryo and eventually the seed. In asexual reproduction, fusion of the male and female gametes does not occur, and new plants arise from unfertilized gametes (but not from zygote), or from specialized vegetative organs such as rhizome, tuber, bulb, corm, runner, sucker, stolon, bulbil etc., or by various artificial means of propagation such as rooting of stem and root cuttings, layering, grafting, gootee, etc., or tissue culturing.

GROUNDNUT (Arachis hypogea)
Fungal diseases
1) Collar rot
Symptoms: The hypocotyls of germinating seeds are infected. The germinating seeds become covered with sooty black masses of spores. The infected tissues become dark brown and shredded. Necrosis and shredding of tissues may extend into branches.
The organism is both soil borne and seed borne.
Causal organism: Aspergillus niger
Management
i) Seed treatment with Carbendazim 50% WP @ 2-2. 5g/kg or Carboxin 37.5% WP +Thiram 37.5% WP @ 3gm/kg of seed.
ii) Growing of resistant varieties like Smruti

Introduction
Following our comprehensive exploration of scientific crop modeling and the rigorous processes of model assessment, we now pivot to an equally vital, yet distinct, realm of understanding weather in agriculture: Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK). This chapter, Indigenous Technical Knowledge for Weather Forecasts and Its Validity,” delves into the profound and often overlooked wisdom embedded within local communities worldwide, knowledge systems accumulated over generations that offer unique insights into anticipating future weather patterns.
In the upcoming sections, we will embark on an in-depth examination of the diverse forms that ITK related to weather forecasting takes. This includes detailed discussions on:
• Observational Indicators: How traditional communities keenly observe subtle changes in the natural world, such as specific patterns in animal behavior (e.g., bird migration patterns, insect activity, animal calls), plant phenology (e.g., early or late flowering, unusual fruiting patterns of wild plants), and the behavior of flora and fauna as harbingers of upcoming weather shifts.
• Atmospheric and Astronomical Signs: The interpretation of sky conditions (e.g., cloud formations, specific colors of sunrise/sunset, halos around the sun or moon), wind patterns, atmospheric pressure changes (often perceived through bodily sensations or changes in local sound travel), and celestial phenomena (e.g., star brightness, moon phases) as indicators for short-term or seasonal forecasts.
• Traditional Ecological Calendars and Proverbs: The role of traditional calendars that map out expected seasonal weather based on historical observations, and folk proverbs or sayings that encapsulate generations of empirical weather wisdom in concise, memorable forms, guiding agricultural practices.

In developing countries, the most important challenges is to increase food productivity for the continuously growing population from limited land area. To great extent, this challenges has been met with good amount of success in cereals but not in case of pulses. Pulses from an indispensable component of Indian agricultural too. Further, it is an excellent source of protein to the growing population who are mostly vegetarians. The high level of lysine in the protein makes them ideal supplement to cereals. Moreover, they are endowed with nitrogen fixation, and thus improve the soil fertility.

India is one of the major pulse growing countries in the world with a total area of 23.31 million hectares, with a total production of 14.50 million tones (Source: FAO, 2011). The area, under pulses has decreased particularly during the last decades as a consequence of intensive diffusion of techniques in green revolution on the high yielding varieties of cereals. This is mainly due to the low yield potential of legumes even under high input conditions.

Among the various pulses, blackgram/urd bean known scientifically as Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper, former known as Phaseolus mungo (L.) belonging to the tribe Paseolea of family Papilionaceae is of immense importance. It is the most widely grown and highly esteemed grain legume. In India it occupies 2.9 million hectares with an annual production of 1.24 million tones (Source: FAO, 2011).

In Asia this crop is widely cultivated in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh both in kharif and rabi seasons. In India, it is mainly grown in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Bihar. Tamilnadu is placed eleventh and tenth in area and production respectively (FAO, 2011).

Introduction 
Building upon our foundational understanding of how weather intrinsically shapes crop development, from the micro-scale physiological responses to the broader patterns revealed by Indigenous Technical Knowledge, we now transition to a chapter dedicated to a highly practical and actionable synthesis of this critical interrelationship: Crop Weather Calendars. These calendars are far more than mere chronological charts; they represent systematically organized and dynamic compilations of meteorological information meticulously integrated with precise crop-specific data, designed to serve as an indispensable guide for optimizing agricultural practices. In this chapter, we will embark on a comprehensive exploration of Crop Weather Calendars, moving beyond the often informal or culturally embedded ecological calendars previously discussed. We will delve into how these powerful tools systematically integrate historical weather patterns, which involves analyzing longterm meteorological data to establish reliable averages and identify probabilities of specific weather events, such as the typical onset of monsoons, average frost dates, or periods of peak solar radiation. They also incorporate real-time meteorological data, bringing in current weather observations to track actual conditions against historical norms and initial forecasts. Furthermore, Crop Weather Calendars utilize future weather forecasts, drawing on short-, medium-, and long-range meteorological predictions to anticipate upcoming conditions (Fig.12.1). This integrated weather information is then critically aligned with the precise phenological stages of a given crop cultivar, recognizing that a crop’s sensitivity and requirements vary significantly throughout its life cycle. Our exploration will detail the essential components that constitute a robust crop weather calendar, including the identification of crucial growth periods, pinpointing the most sensitive and influential developmental stages of the crop like germination, tillering, flowering, and grain filling, where weather impacts are most pronounced. It also involves the establishment of weather thresholds, which means defining the optimal, critical, and damaging ranges of key weather

1.1. Prologue

In present era, agriculture is a cause of global concern in the context of price volatility with a rising trend growing concerns for food security and resultant trade restrictions, global economic conditions in the recent past, the forecasted rate of reduction of growth of agricultural land over the next two decades, increasing mismatches between supply of agricultural products in relation to growing demand and the climatic changes which are wielding pressures on agricultural production. Thus, enhancing agriculture production and productivity have emerged as a global challenge. India, with 2.4 per cent of the world’s geographical area, is the largest producer of pulses, tea, and milk and second largest producer of fruits, vegetables, wheat, rice, groundnut and sugarcane in the world but supports about 16.2 per cent of the world’s population. Coupled with small scale land holdings and deep rooted poverty in rural areas, the magnitude and dimensions of challenges for agriculture policy-makers have increased manifold. So far as the agriculture sector in Odisha is concerned, it contributes only 15.6 percent in 2013-14 towards State Gross Domestic Product (SGDP), but provides employment and sustenance to more than 60 percent of the total workforce of the State. In this sense, the agriculture sector is still the mainstay of the economy of Odisha. According to the Economic Survey 2013-14 of Odisha, despite wide annual variations in its growth, the agriculture sector had grown at a rate of 12.72 per cent in 2012-13. However, a negative growth of 3.53 percent is anticipated during 2013-14 due to cyclonic storm Phailin and flash floods in the State in October 2013. The real per capita income of Odisha was Rs. 25,891 in 2013-14 which was around 65 per cent of All-India real per capita income of Rs.39, 961. According to the 68th round of National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), the monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) for rural and urban Odisha is below the respective national averages. In the food and non-food consumption behaviour, an average Indian spends more than an average person in Odisha. In short, the above parameters pinpoint that the State of Odisha has been lagging behind the national economy & highlights the necessity of achieving higher growth on a sustainable manner across the sectors particularly the agriculture sector in order to uplift the society from underdevelopment & poverty. Though the contribution of agriculture to Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) has declined, the percentage of workforce engaged in agriculture has remained somewhat unchanged. This implies that there has been an overcrowding in agriculture without any noticeable increase in production.

1.    Breeding Systems Utilized in Production of Vegetable Hybrids
    
2.    Male Sterility-Theory
    
3.    Hybrid Seed Production in Chilli Using GMS
    
4.    Hybrid Seed Production in Muskmelon Using GMS
    
5.    Cytoplasmic Genetic Male Sterility
    
6.    Hybrid Seed Production in Onion Using CMS
    
7.    Hybrid Seed Production in Hot Pepper Using CMS
    
8.    Self-Incompatibility Systems
    
9.    Types of Incompatibility
    
10.    Hybrid Cultivars in Cauliflower and Cabbage
    
11.    Male Sterility in Tomato and its Uses in Hybrid Seed Production
        
References

Plant diseases need to be controlled to maintain the quality and abundance of food, feed, and fiber produced by growers around the world. Different approaches may be used to prevent, mitigate or control plant diseases. Beyond good agronomic and horticultural practices, growers often rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Such inputs to agriculture have contributed significantly to the spectacular improvements in crop productivity and quality over the past 100 years. However, the environmental pollution caused by excessive use and misuse of agrochemicals, as well as fear-mongering by some opponents of pesticides, has led to considerable changes in people’s attitudes towards the use of pesticides in agriculture. Today, there are strict regulations on chemical pesticide use, and there is political pressure to remove the most hazardous chemicals from the market. Additionally, the spread of plant diseases in natural ecosystems may preclude successful application of chemicals, because of the scale to which such applications might have to be applied. Consequently, some pest management researchers have focused their efforts on developing alternative inputs to synthetic chemicals for controlling pests and diseases. Among these alternatives are those referred to as biological controls.

Introduction

Salinity is an encompassing term used to describe saline and sodic soils, and the marginal quality groundwater unsuitable for crop irrigation. A soil is considered to be ‘salt-affected’ when either excess soluble salts or excess exchangeable sodium or both adversely affect the soil properties and plant growth. Depending on the values of soil saturation paste extract electrical conductivity (EC_e), pH (pH_s) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), salt-affected soils (SAS) are grouped into saline (EC_e > 4 dS m^-1, pH_s < 8.2 and high ESP< 15) and sodic (EC_e< 4 dS m^-1, pH_s>8.2 and ESP >15) categories. Under certain conditions, both excess soluble salts and exchangeable sodium may be present resulting in saline-sodic conditions (EC_e > 4 dS m^-1, pH_s>8.2 and ESP >15)(Sharma and Singh, 2015). Based on FAO/UNESCO soil map of the world (1970-1980), the global extent of SAS was earlier computed to be 831 Million ha (M ha) consisting of 397 M ha saline and the remainder 434 M ha sodic soils. Although this estimate is still widely used, recent studies suggest comparatively higher global extent of salinity and the associated problems; especially in irrigated arid and semi-arid regions across the world. Not withstanding the discrepancies in such estimates, it is certain that salinity continues to impose substantial costs on global food production and environmental sustainability.

Rearing animals has been amongst the most ancient professions of humanity and since the advent of domestication, the livestock keepers have been involved with them to a certain extent on financial, social and emotional fronts and thus have been curious about certain key aspects of the livestock under their care. The curiosity can be defined with the ‘five W and one H’ of questions as What needs to be done (requirements)? When to do that (timing)? Where are they (location)? Why is there a need (rationale)? How will that meet my purpose (state)? The farming community has traditionally been using these attributes for making farm decisions by observing the animals constantly, or periodically at key occasions such as milking. Such monitoring, aided by the wisdom of experience of the generations of farmers, led to the identification of the key events or problems in the health and productivity of individual animals. However, such kind of monitoring requires a deeper engagement in livestock keeping than that is desirable in commercial farming and the decisions/ detections are severely limited by the capability of the observer.

Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) is a term that encompasses the deployment of sensors for the capture of key biological information, the use of algorithms for processing the biological information (data science), systems for making inferences and making decisions based on the processed data (artificial intelligence), interfaces that allow for making use of these data (reporting) and implements for automation (robotics). PLF is intended to optimize the process of animal production, health care and welfare by generating vast real time information to be used in various ways. There have been many systems being tried and found fit for practical applicability; whereas, few systems like geolocation and motion detection are extensively applied.

Non-thermal preservation technologies inhibit microorganisms and enzymes without relying primarily on high temperatures. They are designed to preserve freshness, colour, flavour, texture and heat-sensitive nutrients more effectively than conventional thermal treatments. These methods employ hydrostatic pressure, electrical energy, electromagnetic radiation, reactive species or mechanical forces to damage microbial cells and disrupt essential biological functions. The chapter examines high-pressure processing, pulsed electric fields, cold plasma, ultrasound, irradiation, pulsed light and edible coatings. It explains their operating principles, mechanisms, applications and nutritional implications. These technologies offer promising alternatives for producing safe, minimally processed foods, although equipment costs, process optimisation and industrial scalability remain important considerations.

Introduction

The concept and impetus for IPM grew out of the discontent with using a purely insecticidal approach to insect control in many areas in the mid of twentieth century. Excessive use of pesticide and growing needs of people has triggered several consequences such as resistance and resurgence of pests, destruction and elimination of natural enemies, effect on non target organisms, environmental pollution, disruption in food cycle and food web and residues in food commodities and pesticide poisoning. Less knowledge about biocontrolagents/natural enemies and their non-availability at right time is the key hurdles for farming communities to adopt the IPM practices on their farm. However, pesticides are still a significant component of many control programs and their negative environmental and health impacts have stimulated the research to develop alternate pest management strategies, such as biological control (BC) and other compatible, safe and sound control practices. Some remarkable early successes for both the control of insect pests and weeds (e.g. the cottony cushion scale Icerya purchase (Maskell) by the vedalia beetle Rodolia cardinalis (Mulsant) in California; the prickly pear cactus Opuntia stricta (Haw.) by the moth Catoblastis cactorum (Berg) in Australia certainly were an impetus for further research in BC field. Although the levels of success have been variable, biological control is still considered as an important means of pest control, either alone or as component of integrated management programs (Jervis, 2005; Wajnberg et al., 2007).

F- distribution: A probability density function that is used in analysis of variance and is a function of the ratio of two independent random variables each of which has a chi square distribution and is divided by its number of degrees of freedom.

F0 value: It is used to express F-value when z =10oC / 18oF and the temperature is 121.1oC. It is the number of minutes at a specific temperature (250oC) required to destroy or kill a stated number of microorganisms and has specific z-value. It is also called reference value.

Facing or lining board: The layer of the paper on which the flute is embedded is called facing or lining board (Plate 151).

Factor VIII: It is a glycoprotein based clotting factor of blood plasma that is essential for blood clotting and is absent or inactive in hemophilic patients. It is also called alsoantihemophilic factor

Facultative: Possessing the capacity to survive in more than one type of environment.

Faculative anaerobeic: Organisms that grow either with or without oxygen.

Facultative parasites: Facultative parasites can adapt to live on dead organic matter and often have a wide host range and can easily be cultured on artificial media. These organisms may be aerobic or anaerobic but under changed conditions, they changes to anaerobic or aerobic.

Introduction

Pheromones are chemicals emitted by living organisms to send messages to individuals of the same species. The class most widely explored are the sex pheromones produced by female moths which are used to attract conspecific males for mating. Bombykol, the sex pheromone of the silk moth, was first synthesized in 1959.

During the past 40 years, pheromones of hundreds of insect species have been chemically elucidated, including the sex pheromone of the codling moth. Its main component is (E, E) 8, 10-dodecadien-1-o1, a primary alcohol containing a straight chain of 12 carbons and two conjugated double bonds. Other moth pheromones are hydrocarbons, epoxides, acetates or aldehydes. These molecules all vaguely resemble fatty acids, from which they are indeed biogenetically derived.

Most pheromones consist of blends of two or more chemicals which need to be emitted at exactly the right proportions to be biologically active. The female effluvia or sex gland can contain additional compounds which are related to the pheromone components and whose biological function is often unclear. On the other hand, many attractants of male moths have been discovered simply by field screening. In several cases it could later be shown that the attractant found with this technique was identical to the natural pheromone produced by the female. In most others, the composition of the true pheromone is still unknown.