eChapters

1. Introduction

Antioxidants are defined as molecules which can be safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged (Nidhi and Gaurav, 2012). Naturally occurring antioxidants to replace synthetic antioxidants which are being restricted due to their carcinogenicity (Abdel Hameed, 2009). The antioxidant phytochemicals such as polyphenols, flavanoids and related compounds found in medicinal plants have received increasing attention for their potential role in prevention of human diseases (Upadhyay et al., 2010).
 
The genus Ophiorrhiza belongs to the family Rubiaceae and consists of about 150 species and distributed in tropical and subtropical Asia. Species of Ophiorrhiza are economically important and many of these species contain a high value anticancerous compound, a cytotoxic alkaloid camptothecin and other valuable alkaloids. Ophiorrhiza pectinata Arn. is a herbaceous plant and is distributed over peninsular India and Srilanka. A preliminary study conducted in O. pectinata also contains this important alkaloid (0.0040mg/g dry wt). Leaves and stem contain traces of hydrocyanic acid. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the antioxidant and radical scavenging property of the chloroform methanol and water extract of whole plant of O. pectinata. 

1. Botanical Name : Aporosa lindleyana (Wt) Baill.

2. Family : Euphorbiaceae

3. Common Name : Lindley’s Aporosa

4. Name in Indian languages: Yechi pan (Kodwa), Salle mara, Sali, Sarali, Sulla (Kannada), Kodali, Kotili, Ponvetti, Vetti, Vittil (Malayalam), Kodali, Vettikan, Vettil, Vittil, Vitti (Tamil),Valaka (Sanskrit).

5. Description

It is tree, belongs to Euphorbiaceae family which grow up to 15 m height. Tree bark is smooth to shallowly fissured, brownish; blaze pink. Leaves are simple, alternate, oblong-lanceolate, acute, 7.5-17 cm long. Flowers unisexual, dioecious; male flowers in axillary catkins; female flowers in condensed cymes.

1. Botanical name : Ardisia solanacea Roxb.

2. Family : Myrsinaceae

3. Common Name : Shoebutton Ardisia, duck’s eye

4. Name in Indian languages

Bisi (Hindi), Kadna, Katapenga, Bugadi, Dikna, nilbedsi (Marathi), Manipudbam, Kozhikkottai, Narikandam (Tamil), Kaka-njara(Malayalam), Bodhina gida, Shuli, Bode, Sore(Kannada), Banjam(Bengali), Damaai Phal (Nepali), Tinkoli (Oriya).

Common name    :    English- Betelnut
        Hindi- Supari
        Odia- Gua
Family    :    Arecaceae

Habit & Distribution 
The plant is a tree, (Fig. 11 a) naturalized and commonly cultivated throughout India.

General Character
The plant is perennial, grows up to 20 meters in height and 8-12 inches in diameter. The stem is solitary, slender and erect. The leaf of the plant is 1.5-2 meter long, pinnate with numerous crowded leaflets. Fruit is a coriaceous drupe, ovoid, 3.7-5 cm, smooth orange, with a single seed with truncate base. The plant flowers and bears fruits throughout the year.

Family: Araceae

Flowering: July-August

Fruiting: November

Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing about 90 cm in height. It produces 2 - 3 leaves, 5 - 30cm or more in size with a flowering stem 30 - 50cm long. Leaflets are lanceolate, acuminate and oblique, uniting in an intramarginal nerve. Fruiting head 5 cm long, ovoid, berries are initially green clustered fruits finally ripening to bright red.

Common name    :    English - Wire grass/spread grass
        Odia- Suan
Family    :    Poaceae

Habit & Distribution
It is a herb (Fig. 12 a) widely found in agricultural lands, hill sides, road sides, river bank etc. It is distributed throughout India.

General Characters
The plant ascending to erect, grows up to 3-4 feet in height. The leaves may be flat or rolled. The inflorescence either panicle like or raceme with spiky branches. Flowers are tiny and hairs like awns seen protruding from each flower. The plant flowers during September-November.

Precision agriculture uses spatially and temporally variable information to improve crop management, resource efficiency and agricultural productivity. This chapter examines the integration of artificial intelligence throughout the precision agriculture workflow. It introduces variable-rate technologies, georeferenced data collection and decision-support systems, followed by machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, reinforcement learning, fuzzy logic and expert systems. Applications include crop yield prediction, plant disease monitoring, soil property estimation, irrigation planning and autonomous agricultural operations. Remote sensing, satellite imagery, IoT sensor networks and edge computing are considered for real-time decision-making. The chapter also discusses agricultural robots and autonomous machinery, practical field applications, data limitations, hardware costs, connectivity and model interpretability.

Family : Moraceae

Flowering: December-January

Fruiting: June-July

Botanical Description: The plant is an evergreen tree that grows up to 20-30 meter tall and 80-200 cm in diameter with evergreen, alternate, glossy and leathery leaves reaching up to 9 inch long. Leaves are oval on mature trees. All parts of the plant contain sticky and white latex. Inflorescence is solitary, borne axillary on special lateral short leafy shoots arising from older branches. Fruits are large arising from the tree trunk and weighting about 10-50 kg. the exterior of the fruit is green or yellow when riped and composed of numerous hard, cone like points attached to a thick and rubbery, pale yellow or whitish wall.

Common name    :    English- Jack Fruits
        Hindi- Kathal
        Odia- Panasa

Family    :    Moraceae

Habit & Distribution
It is a tree (Fig. 13 a) found in wild as well as cultivated in farms. It was introduced and has become naturalized in many parts of India.

General Characters
The plant is an evergreen tree that grows up to 20-30 meter tall and 80-200 cm in diameter with evergreen, alternate, glossy, leathery leaves reaching up to 9 inch long. Leaves are oval in mature trees. All parts of the plant contain sticky, white latex. Inflorescence is solitary, borne axillary on special lateral short leafy shoots arising from older branches. Fruits are large arising from the tree trunk and weighting about 10-50 kg. the exterior of the fruit is green or yellow when ripe and composed of numerous hard, cone like points attached to a thick and rubbery, pale yellow or whitish wall. The plant flowers during December-February and bears fruits during June-July.

1. Botanical Name : Artocarpus hirsutus L.

2. Family : Moraceae

3. Common Name: Wild jackfruit

4. Name in Indian languages : Hebbalasu (Kannada), Anjili (Malayalam), Aiyinipila (Tamil).

5. Description

Artocarpus hirsutus is a tropical evergreen tree species. It prefers moist, deciduous to partially evergreen woodlands. It grows in altitudes ranging from sea level to an elevation of 1000 m. The height of tree can reach up to 35 m and about 4.5 m in girth. The main stem is straight and cylindrical. It is used as shade tree in coffee plantations. The seeds (with 17% oil) are eaten or used medicinally. It grows best in areas where annual daytime temperatures are within the range 22 - 32°C. It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 2,500 - 3,500 mm. Older plants succeed in full sun or moderate shade, but younger trees require reasonable levels of shade. It is fast growing species with deep tap root.

1. Botanical Name: Artocarpus lacucha Buch- Ham.

2. Family: Moraceae

3. Common Name: Monkey Jack, Lakoocha

4. Name in Indian languages

Lakuch, Lakooch, Lakoochi, Barhal, Dahu, Dahua (Hindi), Badhar, Kshudraphanas (Marathi), Ilagusam, Irappala, Solaippakku, Tinippalavu (Tamil), Chimpa, Lakucham, Pulinjakka (Malayalam), Esuluhuli, Lakucha, Otehuli, Vatehuli (Kannada), Dephal, Dahu (Bengali), Lakoocha (Oriya), Dridhavalkala, Granthimatphala (Sanskrit), Badhar (Nepali).

Family : Oxalidaceae

Flowering: July-September

Fruiting: October-December

Botanical Description: The plant is a small evergreen tropical tree that grows upto 25 feet in height. The compound leaves are soft, medium green, spirally arranged around the branches in an alternate fashion. The leaflets are sensitive to light and fold inward at night. The flowers are small and bell shaped, with five petals that have whitish edges. The fruit is fleshy, have a thin and waxy skin, five lobbed, ovate to ellipsoid with attractive yellow-orange in colour.

Family: Meliaceae

Flowering: February-May

Fruiting: June-July

Botanical description: The plant is a tree. The leaf of the plant is about 20-38 cm in length, leaflets 5-9 pairs and obliquely lanceolate. Flower is white in colour and fragrant. The plant bark, leaves and flowers are bitter in taste.

Common name    :    English- Neem tree
        Hindi- Neem
        Odia- Nimba
Family    :    Meliaceae

Habit & Distribution
The plant is a tree (Fig. 14 a), very commonly planted and often self shown. Also seen in forests as well as in wild. It is cultivated and naturalized throughout India.

General Charcter
The leaf of the plant is about 20-38 cm in length, leaflets 5-9 pairs and obliguely lanceolate. Flower is white in clolour and fragrant. The plant bark, leaves and flowers are bitter in taste. The plant bears flowers during February to May. The plant fruiting occurs during June to July.

Azolla is a free-floating water fern that floats in water and fixes atmospheric nitrogen in association with nitrogen fixing blue green alga Anabaena azollae. Azolla fronds consist of sporophyte with a floating rhizome and small overlapping bi-lobed leaves and roots. Rice growing areas in South East Asia and other third World countries have recently been evincing increased interest in the use of the symbiotic N2 fixing water fern Azolla either as an alternate nitrogen sources or as a supplement to commercial nitrogen fertilizers. Azolla is used as biofertilizer for wetland rice and it is known to contribute 40-60kg N/ha per rice crop. The agronomic potential of Azolla is quite significant particularly for rice crop and it is widely used as biofertilizer for increasing rice yields. Rice crop response studies with Azolla biofertilizer in the People’s Republic in China and in Vietnam have provided good evidence that Azolla incorporation into the soil as a green manure crop is one of the most effective ways of providing nitrogen source for rice.

The first species of the genus Azotobacter, named Azotobacter chroococcum family Azotobacteriaceae, was isolated from the soil in Holland in 1901. Azotobacter represents the main group of heterotrophic free living nitrogen-fixing bacteria principally inhabiting neutral or alkaline soils. Azotobacter chroococcum and Azotobacter agilis were studied by Beijerinck (1901). In subsequent years several other types of Azotobacter group have been found in the soil and rhizosphere such as Azotobacter vinelandii, Lipman (1903); Azotobacter beijernckii, Lipman (1904); Azotobacter paspali, Döbereiner (1966), Azotobacter nigricans, Krasil’nikov (1949); Azotobacter armenicus, Thompson and Skerman (1981); Azotobacter salinestris, Page and Shivprasad (1991). A. paspali while A. agilis was categorized  under the genus Azomonas (Table 7.1).

1. Botanical name : Baccaurea courtalensis (Wt.) Muell.

2. Family : Euphorbiaceae

3. Common Name : Burmese grape, Mootapalam

4. Name in Indian languages : Mootilpazham, Mootilthoori, Mootippuli (Malayalam), Kolikuki (Kannada).

5. Description

Baccaurea courtalensis is a trees of tropical evergreen forests of the southern Western Ghats. It is an endangered tree. The tree bears tiny crimson flowers on long stalks growing on the trunk of the tree (cauliflory). These stalks are arranged in clusters on the trunk. When in bloom the whole trunk appears red and is a beautiful sight. Fruits hang in clusters from the trunk of the tree. A tall tree produces cauliflory inflorescence. The flowers are unisexual, dioecious, male inflorescence in clustered racemes on short tubercles all over the trunk, red, female inflorescence in clustered racemes, mostly confined to base of the trunk, hence its named Mootapalam.

1. Botanical Name : Baccaurea ramiflora Lour.

2. Family : Phyllanthaceae

3. Common Name : Burmese Grape

4. Name in Indian languages

Sohramdieng (Khasi) and Sohmyndong (Pnar), Khatta phal (Hindi), Moktok (Manipuri), Bhubi, Iphek (Tripura)

In 1850, Bacillus anthracis was first reported by three individuals in two different countries i.e. Delafond and Davaine in France, and Pollender in Germany. They could not establish the relationship of the bacterium with the infection. Absolute proof of the anthrax etiology as B. anthracis was established by Robert Koch during 1876-77. The name Bacillus anthracis was first coined by Cohn (1875) and the disease ‘anthrax’ was first named by Hippocrates (5th century B.C.). In Greek language meaning of ‘anthrax’ is ‘coal’ referring to the black coloured skin or blood in affected animals.

1. Botanical Name : Balanites aegyptiaca (Linn.)

2. Family : Zygophyllaceae

3. Common Name : Desert Date, soap berry tree

4. Name in Indian languages

Hingot (Hindi), Ingala, Ingalarade, Ingalare (Kannada), Namunta, Nanchunta (Malayalam), Hingalbet, Hingam (Marathi), Tapasadruma, Angaravrksa (Sanskrit), Nanchundan, Nancuntan (Tamil), Gara, Gara-Chettu(Telugu).