eChapters

Millets which are also known as “Shree Anna” are a type of grass with small seeds that belongs to the Poaceae family and are widely grown throughout the world. Millets have high levels of proteins, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants that why they are known to be climate-change-resilient crops. Proteins are essential amino acids that the body cannot synthesize and are used as a nitrogen source during embryo development following germination. Millets are high in dietary fibre and are important staple crop in many parts of the world. They are versatile grains that can be used to make a variety of food products, including millet flour. Millets are good for cardiac health, weight management, antioxidant activity, and may have anti-cancerous properties. They are nutrient- dense, provide sustained energy, and contain antioxidants such as polyphenols and flavonoids. Millets are considered safe and have a variety of health benefits. Surprisingly, millets perform major non-millet cereals in terms of nutrition. They are particularly high in dietary fibres, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and polyphenols, all of which have broad-spectrum positive effects on human health.

Fertility of a soil can be assessed by analyzing various available nutrients present in the soil. Fertilizer recommendations for various crops and cropping sequences can be made on the basis of fertility status of a soil. Besides this, problematic soil can be ameliorated on the basis of soil test values. Among the various steps of soil testing programmes, soil sampling is the most vital step.

Abstract

Study was undertaken to investigate the toxicity of heavy metals on the structure and function of ectomycorrhizal fungi and their ability to colonize the pine seedlings. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were isolated, cultured and multiplied on MMN medium. Six heavy metals (Cd, Ni, Zn, Pb, Cu and Al) were selected and different concentrations viz; 0 ppm (control), 10 ppm, 50 ppm, 100 ppm, 200 ppm and 500 ppm were used for treating the seedlings. The study was continued for one year. Different growth parameters were measured. Factors such as soil moisture, pH and soil organic carbon on ectomycorrhizal colonization were also analyzed. The mycorrhizal colonization was more in those seedlings having lower concentration of heavy metal treatment. Statistical data analysis has shown that the heavy metals had negative correlation with mycorrhizal colonization. High concentration of metals were toxic to external mycelium, which ultimately resulted in reduction of ectomycorrhizal development. The accumulation of metals in the fungal mycelium and protecting root against metal toxicity was an important factor.

Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) is the only species in the genus Lathyrus and family Fabaceae which is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant. Lathyrus comes from the Greek word “Lathyros” in which the prefix “la” means “very” and suffix “thyros” means “passionate”. The “Odoratus” is derived from Latin word which means “fragrant” (Fernald, 1950). It is mainly grown for its beautiful flower colour forms. It is an annual climbing plant growing to a height of 1-2 m with the support of a terminal tendril which twines around the plants and helps to climb. The illness caused by the ingestion of sweet pea is known as odoratism or sweet pea lathyrism. Sweet pea was used to verify Mendel’s work with the garden pea (Pisum sativum L.) in the early 1900s (Bateson, 1902). The genetical phenomenon of linkage was first demonstrated in the sweet pea. It is used prominently as a model organism to study flower development due to its large, colourful and fragrant flowers. The essential oils extracted from the sweet pea can be used in perfume blends.

5.1 Foliar nutrition of fruit crops

Foliar application of nutrients is gaining importance in horticultural crops in general and fruit crops in particular. The important criterion of the effectiveness of nutrient spray is the rate at which the foliar applied nutrients are absorbed by the leaves and translocated within the plant. For getting optimum yield, foliar fertilization should be carried out when the plant’s requirements are particularly high and the nutrient uptake through the plant roots is restricted. The restriction may be due to either plant or soil limitations.

Zingiberales is an important order in Kingdom Plantae with eight families in which most of them are important as far as commercial horticulture is concerned. The order includes fruits (bananas and plantains), spices (ginger, turmeric, cardamom), medicinal (arrowroot, galangal) and ornamental (Heliconias, Bird of Paradise, Marantas, Canna, Costus, etc) plants. Among the ornamental zingiberales, plants of Strelitziaceae and Heliconiaceae are gaining popularity for its aesthetic preferences and marketable cut flowers. The unique colour and enhanced vase life of inflorescences makes them as flowers of choice. The plants of other families such as Marantaceae, Cannaceae, Costaceae, Zingiberaceae, Lowiaceae and Musaceae are also gaining momentum in floriculture business for their cut foliages and inflorescences. Some plants such as calathias are admired as potted plants and for indoor gardening.

Introduction: Indoor Air Pollution

People think that while they are indoors, they are breathing clean air. After all, pollution is found outside, and indoor air is filtered through the HVAC system.

Indoor air can have significantly higher concentrations of pollution than air found outside. Plenty of evidences exists. Global Burden of Disease Risk lists indoor air pollution as the ninth biggest health risk.

Introduction

More than a third is covered by drylands in the terrestrial land surface, which have a harsh and vulnerable natural condition (Maier et al., 2014). Due to insufficient water availability, dry areas have a scant population of vascular plants, as well as poor availability of the nutrient turnover with poor availability of the resources as a result of severe temperatures (Adeel, 2008). Biological soil crusts or Biocrusts commonly protects the soil surface in dry environments and it is considered “ecosystem engineers” of arid and semiarid areas, as well as signs of ecosystem health (Briggs and Morgan, 2011; Bowker et al., 2008). They are connected in dryland ecosystem restoration level or degradation (Assouline et al., 2015). When compared to chemical or physical crusts, biocrust is the largest word that explicitly implies that these are the crusts which are dependent on the living organisms’ activity.

Introduction
Fish nutrition is a critical determinant of growth, reproduction, and overall health in aquaculture systems. A thorough understanding of the nutritional physiology of fish lays the groundwork for designing innovative feeding strategies that improve fish production, health, and sustainability. Unlike terrestrial animals, fish have unique physiological traits that influence their dietary needs and how they process nutrients, requiring specialized nutritional approaches. This chapter provides a detailed exploration of these physiological features and their implications for the development of cutting-edge nutritional innovations in aquaculture.
1. Basics of Fish Anatomy and Physiology Related to Nutrition
Fish anatomy and physiology particularly in the context of nutrition present unique characteristics that differentiate them from terrestrial animals. One of the most significant features of fish is their poikilothermic nature, meaning their body temperature fluctuates with the surrounding water. This directly impacts their metabolism, as colder waters slow down metabolic processes, reducing the need for energy, while warmer waters increase metabolic rates, driving higher energy demand. This temperature dependency is critical in understanding the feeding behavior and nutritional needs of different fish species. Unlike mammals or birds, which expend energy to maintain a constant internal body temperature, fish can allocate a greater proportion of their consumed nutrients toward growth, reproduction, and immune function.

1. Introduction
Nanotechnology, which involves manipulating and controlling matter at the nanoscale, offers innovative solutions for enhancing soil quality, nutrient management, and remediation of contaminated soils (Lal et al., 2019). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2015), approximately 33% of global soils are degraded due to erosion, nutrient depletion, and chemical contamination. This degradation poses a severe threat to food security and environmental sustainability. Moreover, the world population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, placing further pressure on agricultural systems to produce more food without degrading soil resources (Tripathi et al., 2019). In this context, nanotechnology presents a promising avenue for sustainable soil management. The unique properties exhibited by nanomaterials enable precise monitoring, targeted delivery of nutrients, and effective remediation of soil contaminants. Nanosensors equipped with nanomaterials and nanoparticles allow real-time monitoring of soil parameters, enabling farmers to make informed decisions regarding irrigation, fertilization, and pest management (Gogos et al., 2017). For instance, a case study conducted by Smith et al. (2021) demonstrated the effectiveness of nanosensors in monitoring soil moisture levels and optimizing irrigation practices, resulting in a 20% reduction in water usage while maintaining crop yield.
Furthermore, nanotechnology offers innovative solutions for nutrient management in agricultural soils. Nanoencapsulation techniques allow controlled release of fertilizers, minimizing nutrient leaching and improving nutrient uptake by plants (Lal et al., 2019). In a case study by Johnson et al. (2020), the application of nanoencapsulated fertilizers resulted in a 15% increase in nutrient use efficiency and a reduction in fertilizer runoff by 30%, thus improving soil health and reducing environmental pollution.
Moreover, nanomaterials exhibit high sorption and catalytic properties, enabling efficient removal of heavy metal contaminants and organic pollutants from soils, thus mitigating soil contamination risks (Wang et al., 2022). A case study conducted by Chen et al. (2019) demonstrated the successful remediation of a heavily contaminated soil site using iron oxide nanoparticles, resulting in a significant reduction in heavy metal concentrations and improvement in soil health indicators.

Abstract

Landslides have become a recurring phenomenon in most of the mountainous regions of the world. In Indian peninsular, the landslides which were mostly confined to the tectonically active Himalayan Mountains once, have started spreading over to the other mountain belts of the Peninsula. The Tirumala – Tirupati hills, which is drawing millions of pilgrims from all over the world is facing landslides especially along the newly built southern uphill Ghat Road. The geology of the area, studied using geomatics tools like Remote Sensing, SRTM based Digital Elevation Models, GPS Survey, etc., showed that Tirumala hills is under the grip of upward tectonic movement as evidenced from the N-S and E–W oriented Pleistocene faults, intensely dissected Plateau top Cuddapah Quartzites, retreating escarpments, exhaustive debris slopes, extensive valley fills along the slopes, colluvial fills in lower slopes, palaeo debris flows along the southern and western obsequent slopes of the Tirumala hills etc. All these indicate the inherent landslide vulnerability of the slopes. The E-W trending dykes which are piercing the slopes and standing as ridges add further landslide vulnerability to such fragile slopes. So, the new ghat road laid along such southern slope is obviously facing landslides. However, the detailed geomatics based studies show that the dykes, valley fills and steep slopes are particularly more vulnerable to landslides. Though remedial measures have been broadly evolved, abandoning the southern uphill new ghat road and widening the older northern downhill ghat road seems to be the better and long term feasible alternative to prevent Landslides.

APPENDIX – 1: Basic Information

Table 1: Spacing and plant population

Commercial Building

Commercial buildings consist of government buildings, banks, hospitals, schools, malls, retail, restaurants, and office spaces. Among these, office and retail occupy the major percentage of energy consumption. 

More than 40% of the total final energy consumption and about 30% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are in connection with the civil and residential sector.

Maximum energy consumption in commercial buildings by HVAC system (51% followed by appliances and food service equipment (20%), lighting(12%), electronics and information technology(9%) and water (8%).

Hybrid Rice

People’s Republic of China announced the successful development and use of F1 rice hybrids in the late 1970s. The first hybrid rice combinations were put into commercial production in China in 1976. Since then commercial exploitation of hybrid rice attracted the attention of researchers around the world. It is accepted that about 20% yield advantage of hybrid rice would be usually required to meet the extra cost of seed production and the future rice demands of a growing world population. Realizing the prospects of hybrid rice, IRRI intensified research on this and organized an ‘International Symposium on Hybrid Rice’ on 6-10 October 1986 at the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Centre, Changsha, China where Prof. Yuan Longping and his co-workers had made their names in development of hybrid rice. The proceedings were brought out in form of a book entitled ‘Hybrid Rice’ in 1988 by International Rice Research Institute, Philippines. This book documents the information exchanged, and presents for the first time, in English, much of the Chinese literature on hybrid rice.

ABSTRACT

Leaf N and chlorophyll (Chl) concentration of crop are important indicators of plant nitrogen status. Laboratory determination of plant tissue N is time consuming and costly. Also remote sensing is quickly becoming recognized as a valuable tool that has the potential to asses a wide variety of physiological properties over a large area in a short amount of time. This study examined the relationship of sorghum and bajra canopy reflectance spectral response to its nitrogen and chlorophyll content. The study consisted of two nitrogen level (N₀ : no nitrogen and N₁: recommended dose of nitrogen for each crop) for two crops (sorghum and bajra) . Chlorophyll and N content were measured throughout the growing season for both crops. Reflectance at increased significantly as N fertilizer rate decreased. Chl and N were strongly related to canopy reflectance for either individual wavelength or for spectral vegetative indices or ratios. Sorghum nitrogen fertilizer rate mainly affected leaf reflectance at 575 and 623 nm, while bajra at 565 and 657nm. The reflectance values at 581 and 603 nm had the highest correlation with sorghum leaf N concentration. Similarly, bajra leaf N concentration was highly correlated with 619 and 696 nm. Sorghum and bajra leaf N concentrations were highly correlated with reflectance ratio of R₅₈₁/ R₃₈₁ (r²= 0.44*) and R₆₁₉/R₄₆₂ (r²= 0.78***) respectively with greatest r² value. Similarly, Sorghum and bajra leaf Chl concentrations were highly correlated with R677/R527 (r²= 0.63**) andR688/R409 (r²= 0.71***) or R615/R411 (r2=0.71***),

respectively. Thus our results suggest that spectral reflectance measurements hold promise for the assessment of some physiological parameter at the leaf level real time monitoring of sorghum and bajra N status and N fertilizer management.

Introduction

Food quality control systems in all sectors of food chain around the globe are driven by guidelines to help the authorities to enforce rules and regulations to protect the public from fraud and deception in various levels of food production and facilitate fair trade. This also helps authorities to select suitable options of infrastructure and enforcement mechanics. Such documentation provide possible infrastructure and approaches to national food control systems to use them or further improve them wherever needed (Temesgen, 2015). To make a food control system most effective; it is strengthened by improving the existing fragmented legislation, multiple jurisdictions, and weaknesses in surveillance, monitoring and enforcement in many countries. Organisations like FAO and WHO help enforce food laws and regulations to meet a country’s sanitary as well as phytosanitary requirements.

Generally, food law may be divided in two parts: (i) a basic food act, and (ii) regulations. The Act itself give broad principles, while regulations contain detailed provisions governing the different categories of products coming under the jurisdiction of each set of regulations. Detailed provisions are needed for effective administration of and enlightened compliance with the basic food laws. In governments where there is a division between the responsibilities of the legislative and executive branches, the legislative branch enacts the basic law, while detailed regulations are elaborated and promulgated by the executive agency or agencies responsible for administering the law. Regular revisions of regulation is necessary because of novel scientific knowledge, change of processing technology, or quick action to protect public health. Such revisions can be made much more expeditiously by executive agencies than by legislative bodies. In some of the countries food standards are a part of the regulations; in the other countries they are separate enactments.

Introduction

India has vast livestock resources. Livestock sector includes animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries sector. Livestock provides livelihood to two-third of rural community and employment to about 8.8 % of the population in India. Livestock sector contributes 4.11% GDP and 25.6% of total Agriculture GDP. It provides milk and milk products, meat and meat products, and also constitutes a major supplier of food and food articles, raw materials, and finished products.

The purpose of technological advancement these days is to make our lives comfortable. But many of the new inventions have added more stress to our lives and have made our lives increasingly more complex and complicated. Even more needs and demands seem to be built into our daily lives. These demands have affected the mental health, wellness, and psychological well-being of people living in our society.

These days, many advances have been made in eradicating disease, poverty, and other problems that have plagued our society, with the strains of modern living. Insecurity, worry, unhappiness, etc., have increased and have made mental illness our number one health problem. Anxiety and tension have increased so much that one out of every ten persons in our society has started taking tranquilizing drugs in one form or another.

The cases of mental illnesses have also increased these days, as shown by the admission records of the mental hospitals. These conditions have given birth to many psychological problems that are related to mental health. In this chapter, we are going to study those problems.

Abstract

Excessive use and treatment of soil with pesticides under the adage, “if little is good, a lot more will be better” has played havoc with human and other life forms and can also cause populations of beneficial soil microorganisms to decline, which indirectly affect soil fertility. Soil constitutes a major environmental sink for many pesticides. These pesticides are either taken up from soil by plants and then pass into the bodies of invertebrates, water or air, directly or indirectly and affect public health and beneficial biota of the ecosystem. Bioremediation provides very attractive, eco-friendly and economic solution to many of our hazardous pollution problems. For both economic and ecological reasons, biological degradation has become an increasingly popular alternative for treatment of hazardous wastes.

Introduction

Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) occupies an important position among commercial ornamental bulbous crops, because of its highly fragrant flowers which can be used in various ways and is essentially a florists flower. The white tubular flowers emit the most popular odour and hence are cultivated on a large scale in some parts of the world for the extraction of its highly valued natural flower oil. The lingering delightful fragrance and excellent keeping quality are the predominant characteristics of this crop. It is popularly known as Rajanigandha, derives its generic name from the greek word Polios, which means white or shinning and anthos meaning a semi perennial bulbous plant. It is commercially cultivated for cut flowers and loose flowers trade and also for extraction of its highly valued natural flower oil. The serene beauty of the flower spikes, bright white flowers, sweetness of blooms and delicacy of fragrance of this ornamental crop, transform the entire area into a nectarine and joyous one. Fresh flowers and value added products of tuberose are exported from India to USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, The Netherland, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.