eChapters

Introduction

India is an agriculture based country with 60% of the manpower employed in agriculture (World Bank, 2010). Few of the main environmental issues are soil erosion, water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides. There is a need to maintain a sustainable environment and a sustainable agricultural system.  Sustainable Agricultural system is a self sustaining system, is dependent up the ability to bring together and manage simultaneously the soil, water, plant and animal resources with the limitation of climatic and environment in such a way that the agricultural production/profitability can be maintained in the future too. So initiatives need to be taken to achieve a sustainable agricultural system. Tools have been developed to aid agriculturist, extension personnel and policy makers. The World Wide Web has made the tools easy accessible.

Introduction
DNA barcoding is a molecular technique that uses a short section of DNA (genetic marker) extracted from a standardized region of tissue to identify it as belonging to a particular species. A desirable locus for DNA barcoding should be standardized and that should present in most of the taxa of interest and sequencable without species-specific PCR primers. A large database of sequences for the desirable locus needs to be developed. The desirable locus should be short enough to be easily sequenced with current technology, and provide a large variation between species yet a relatively small amount of variation within a species. Although several loci have been suggested, but the mitochondrial Cox1 became a gene of choice for animals and many other eukaryotes. However, the DNA regions that are being used are chosen to optimize the resolution for their specific experimental purposes.

Introduction

Spatial planning tools brings together multiple users of the earth to make informed and coordinated decisions about how to use of resources  and helps to organize, analyze and present information from a number of different sources.  Thus, viewing from single interest or multiple use viewpoints is enhanced and can make a very important contribution to environment. Use of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) tools has the capacity to bring together experts from a variety of disciplines to address complex spatial problems.

Introduction 
Plant disease has been highly impacted by the development of new technology. The degree of the impact depends on how much the technology affects the component steps of the system. Many of the steps in plant disease diagnosis and management depend heavily on accurate and timely information and so can greatly benefit from the development of improved methods of accessing and disseminating information. Computers provide a wide range of tools which are extensively used in plant disease diagnosis and management. In fact, they will be a key to improve farm practices in the coming decades as it is scientifically pertinent to organize farm information in spatial databases because agricultural systems are inherently spatial. Biological and physical aspects of agricultural system create spatial heterogeneity, and as a result, patchiness is the rule in the occurrence and distribution of plant pathogens and disease (Campbell and Madden, 1990). In the area of plant diseases computers are useful

Abstract

Accurate forecasting of the rice yields is very important for the organization to make a better planning and decision making. The aim of the study is to investigate the ability of neural network for yield prediction of rice in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Field experiments were conducted at the various regions of Andaman and Nicobar Islands during 1980 to 2002 and data collected was subjected to Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) approach for developing a meaningful yield prediction for four varieties of rice C14-8, Quing Livan No.1, Taichung , Sen Yu, Jaya under island conditions with the objective to estimate the crop production a few days or months before harvesting of crop. The observations of all experiments viz., Varietal spectrum, Weather parameters , Yield components, Soil, Abiotic stressors, Biotic stressors for the period of twenty years from 1980 to 2002 were collected from the basic records of experimental field. All the data were used for training data set. Prediction of crop yield, mainly strategic plant of rice has been an interesting research area to agronomists since long for its importance in national and international economic programming. Application of ANN was found to be significant tool for prediction of yield in rice.

Biotechnology in the food processing sector targets the selection and improvement of microorganisms, including bacteria, yeasts and moulds with the objectives of improving process control, yields and efficiency as well as the quality, safety and consistency of bioprocessed products. They perform a series of processes such as fermentation, hydrolysis, etc. and even spoilage of food, depending upon the species of organisms, nature of raw material (food), environmental factors (temperature, pH, salt concentration, etc.), duration, etc.

Fermentation
Is the process of bioconversion of organic substances by microorganisms and/or enzymes (complex proteins) of microbial, plant or animal origin. It is one of the oldest forms of food preservation which is applied globally.

Computation has become an essential tool in life science research. This is exemplified in genomics, where first microarrays and now massively parallel DNA sequencing have enabled a variety of genome-wide functional assays that require increasingly complex analysis tools. The problem of accessibility of computational tools has long been recognized. Without programming or informatics expertise, scientists needing to use computational approaches are impeded by problems ranging from tool installation; to determining which parameter values to use; to efficiently combining multiple tools together in an analysis chain. The severity of these problems is evidenced by the numerous solutions to address them. Kowledge on software  and web-based interfaces for tools all improve the accessibility of computation. These approaches each have advantages, but do not offer a general solution that enables a computational tool to be easily included in an analysis chain and run by scientists without programming experience.However, making tools accessible does not necessarily address the crucial problem of reproducibility.

Introduction
Science and its development have had a great impact on the biological research. The main problem arises to understand and interpret the data which are the results of the higher dimensional research in the above mentioned field, and it is extremely difficult some times to give answers for complex and tedious biological questions generated through the large datasets. Parallel developments of statistical methods provide relaxation over these issues. The statistical method by bioinformatics presents many new and logical problems for researchers, scientists, and scholars related to these communities. Thus the knowledge of statistical concepts and techniques are prime important in this chain. The effort is made to cover stochastic theory, finite Markov chains in learning models to diffusion processes in population genetics, advanced statistical methods with Hidden Markov model and provide some literature on Bayesian computation like MCMC and their resources. Fortunately the applied aspect of probability theory and theory of stochastic processes seem to have been extensively used in the research and development level of biological field but the lacking of required material is a very problematic aspect in the system with proper and systematic ways.

In recent years, a new branch of biological science, called as bio-informatics receives more attention among its users and calls for application of computational statistical algorithms to a greater extent and needs employment of more sophisticated mathematical/statistical tools. Though biological science and information technology forms a major part in bio-informatics research as applied to agriculture, statistical tools act as their backbone. Its utility is more felt starting from the stage of framing of hypothesis till analyzing/interpreting results of a scientific experiment.  It can also be viewed as a three way multi-disciplinary approach with biotechnology, information technology and statistical technology as its three faces, with the principles of statistics applied to biological science through an interface information technology.

Abstract
This paper presents a lucid and application-oriented delineation of the theory of probability which has proved itself as a basic tool in the theoretical and applied researches in almost all disciplines of science, specially, in the problems encompassing the real-life issues. Bio-informatics has recently emerged as a potential discipline of science and, needless to mention that the application of the probability theory has delved deep to elucidate the laws under its ambit. The inference procedures based on biochemical systems require the formulation of stochastic models (owing to the prevalence of low to moderate levels of stochasticity and noise in their dynamics) which, in turn, are developed using the probability laws in abundance. In Systems Biology, the estimation of parameters poses a prime task in biokinetic models developed on experimental data, and such estimation procedures have been possible only by applying appropriate tools derived using probability. Likelihood-free Bayesian inference that explicitly accounts for discrepancies between the model and the data, termed Approximate Bayesian Computation under model uncertainty is an off-shoot of the celebrated, Bayes' theorem of probability.

A DNA microarray is a multiplex technology used in molecular biology. It consists of an arrayed series of thousands of microscopic spots of DNA oligonucleotides, called features, each containing picomoles (10-12 moles) of a specific DNA sequence, known as probes (or reporters).

Introduction
Recently, there is a great need to analyze and exploit the huge amount of biological data information generated through high throughput modern technologies like phenotyping, allelic variation, gene expression, chromatography, DArT, molecular marker etc. Principal component analysis (PCA) has stronghold on modern data analysis - A black box that is widely used but poorly understood. The goal of this article is to dispel the magic behind this black box and to focus on building a solid intuition for how and why principal component analysis works in huge numbers of high throughput biological data set. It is a versatile and easy-to-use multivariate mathematical statistical method (Jolliffe et al, 2003) developed to extract maximal information from large data matrices containing numerous columns and rows. It also makes possible the elucidation of the relationship between the columns and rows of any data matrix without being one of the dependent variable. So the PCA is a projection method representing the original data in smaller dimensions.

Data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform the data into information. In recent years, data mining has been widely used in area of Bioinformatics for better understanding of gene expression, drug design, and other emerging problems in genomics and proteomics. Data mining is used to understand gene expression analysis, searching and understanding of protein mass spectroscopy data, 3D structural and functional analysis and mining of DNA and protein sequences for structural and functional motifs. For the first several hundred years of research in biology, the main bottleneck to scientific progress was data collection. Our new found data-richness, however, has shifted this bottleneck from collection to analysis. Biomedical literatures have been increased at the exponential rate. To find the useful and needed information from such a huge data set is a daunting task for users. Text mining is a powerful tool to solve this problem and it is used for biological knowledge discovery.

For most of the past 50 years world food production has outpaced rising demand. World population has doubled since World War II, whereas food production has tripled. In the developing world the calories available per person per day increased from an average of 1,925 calories in 1961 to 2,540 in 1992. World food production has expanded due to the Green Revolution—adoption of crop rotation, the mass production and use of petroleum-based fertilizers and chemical pesticides, expanded irrigation, and the introduction of genetically superior, disease-resistant cultivars. The trend may now be changing for the worse, however. Since about 1990 global grain production has risen only slightly and, despite slower rates of population growth, grain supplies per capita have fallen. In the worst case, Africa now produces nearly 30% less food per person than it did in 1967. As per FAO estimates, world food production would have to double to provide food security for the 8 billion people projected for 2025. By 2050, when world population is projected to be over 9 billion, the situation would be even more challenging.

Introduction
At the beginning of the 21^st century, with a population of 6.1 billion in 2000 and expected to be headed for 9.1 billion by 2050 (UN News Centre, 2005), the challenge of yet again increase food production by many folds only in 50 years has become a daunting task in itself. The situation is further worsen because now, we need to increase food production in sustainable way by 2050 on approximately the same area of arable land using less resources, particularly, fossil fuel, water and nitrogen, at a time when we must also mitigate some of the enormous challenges associated with climate change. Furthermore, there is the critical and urgent humanitarian need to alleviate poverty, hunger and malnutrition which is afflicting more than 1 billion people

Bananas and plantains constitute the fourth most important global food commodity (after rice, wheat and maize). They are cultivated in over 120 countries in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world in an area of  approximately 100 million hectares, where they constitute a major staple food crop for millions of people, as well as providing a valued source of income through local and international trade.
 
Banana is one of the oldest fruit crops of India, finding its reference even in epics like Ramayana. India is  believed to be one of centres of  origin, besides southeast Asian countries like Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is a crop having multifarious uses as every part of the plant is utilized and hence aptly  called as ‘Kalpatharu’ the plant of virtues. It is important internationally from the point of view of  trade as well as livelihood security.

2.1    Origin
    
2.2    Production
    
2.3    Distribution

2.4    World Scenario

Edible bananas are classified into several main groups and subgroups. In the first place is the diploid M. acuminata group which originated in Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, Southern India, East Africa, Burma, Thailand, the West Indies, Colombia and Brazil. This group is characterized by dark-brown sheaths of pseudostem,  and the leaves are nearly free from wax. The bunches are small and the fruits small, thin-skinned and sweet. Cultivars of this group are more important in New Guinea than any where else. Lady Finger which was popular in Queensland and New South Wales belonged to this group.

In second place, there was a group represented by the prominent and widely cultivated ‘Gros Michel’ originally from Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia and Ceylon. It was introduced into Martinique early in the 19th Century by a French naval officer and, a few years later, was taken to Jamaica; from there it was carried to Fiji, Nicaragua, Hawaii and Australia, in that sequence. It is a large, tall plant bearing long bunches of large, yellow fruits, and it was formerly the leading commercial cultivar in Central Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, but has been phased out because of its great susceptibility to Panama disease. It has given rise to several named sports or mutants (Mortan, 1987). 

4.1    Importance of Banana in International Trade
    
4.2    Major Exporting Countries
    
4.3    Major Importing Countries
    
4.4    World Market Structure for Fresh Bananas
    
4.5    Domestic Trade
    
4.6    Banana Trade Wars : A Glimpse
    
4.7    Fair Trade Bananas

Most banana producers in Africa, Latin America and Asia are small-scale farmers who grow bananas either for home consumption or local markets. Because bananas and plantains produce fruit year-round, they provide an extremely valuable food source during the hunger season (when the food from one annual/semi-annual harvest has been consumed, and the next is still to come). Bananas and plantains are therefore critical to global food security. However, the export trade of banana depends mainly on commercial plantations in Latin America, East Asia and Africa. These plantations are owned by multinational corporations.

6.1    Phytochemicals
    
6.2    Health Benefits  and Therapeutic Properties of Banana
    
6.3    Validation of Health and Therapeutic Claims

7.1    Pre-Harvest Factors Responsible for Post Harvest Losses
    
7.2    Harvesting Method
    
7.3    Post-Harvest Causes Responsible for Losses

8.1    Climatic Conditions
    
8.2    Water
    
8.3    Spacing
    
8.4    Crop Nutrition
    
8.5    Pests and Diseases
    
8.6    Bunch Covering
    
8.7    Maturity and Maturity Indices
    
8.8    Maturity vs Shelf life and Quality
    
8.9    Pre-Harvest Sprays
    
8.10    Harvesting

9.1    Temperature
    
9.2    Relative Humidity
    
9.3    Physical Damage
    
9.4    Microbial Load
    
9.5    Packaging
    
9.6    Transportation

10.1    Respiration
    
10.2    Effect of Ethylene on Ripening
    
10.3    Transpiration Loss
    
10.4    Postharvest Biochemistry of Banana
    
10.5    Postharvest Pathology of Banana

11.1    Maturity Indices
    
11.2    Harvesting and Field Handling
    
11.3    Packhouse Operations
    
11.4    Packaging
    
11.5    Precooling

12.1    Shelf Life
    
12.2    Pre-Treatments Vs. Shelf Life/Storage (Hot Water, Fungicides, Coatings and other Chemicals)
    
12.3    Surface Coatings
    
12.4    1-MCP Gas Exposure
    
12.5    Use of Botanicals
    
12.6    Other Chemicals/Methods
    
12.7    Evaporative Cool Storage
    
12.8    Modified Atmosphere Storage (MAS)
    
12.9    Controlled Atmosphere Storage (CAS)
    
12.10    Vacuum Packaging
    
12.11    Hypobaric Storage
    
12.12    Irradiation
    
12.13    Chilling Injury (CI)

13.1    Biochemical Changes During Banana Ripening
    
13.2    Commercial Ripening

By definition, minimal processing would encompass any procedure, short of traditional complete preservation procedures (heat sterilization etc.) that adds value to the fruit or vegetables (Floros, 1993). Other terms used to refer minimally processed products are lightly processed, partially processed, fresh processed, fresh cut and prepared. Minimally processed fruits and vegetables are products those have the attributes of ‘fresh-like’ quality. A number of minimally processed products of fruits and vegetables are now being produced like peeled and sliced potatoes, shredded lettuce and cabbage, washed and trimmed spinach, chilled peach, mango, banana, melon and other fruit slices, vegetable snacks such as carrot and celery stick  and cauliflower and broccoli florets, packaged mixed salads, cleaned and diced onion, peeled and cored pineapple, fresh sauces, peeled citrus fruits and microwaveable fresh vegetable trays. Minimal processing of fruits and vegetables has two purposes. First, it is important to keep the product fresh but convenient without losing its nutritional quality. Second, the product should have a shelf life sufficient enough to facilitate distribution within the region of consumption. The microbiological, sensory and nutritional shelf life of minimally processed fruits and vegetables should be at least 4-7 days but preferably even longer (Ahvenainen, 2000).

15.1    Banana Chips/Crisps
    
15.2    Banana Puree/Pulp
    
15.3    Banana Flour
    
15.4    Banana Powder
    
15.5    Banana Flakes
    
15.6    Banana Figs or Dehydrated Banana
    
15.7    Banana Jam
    
15.8    Ready-To-Serve (Rts) Beverage
    
15.9    Banana Beer and Wine
    
15.10    Banana Vinegar
    
15.11    Banana Catsup
    
15.12    Banana Inflorescence Relish
    
15.13    Candied Banana
    
15.14    Other Banana Based Products

16.1    Banana Alcohol
    
16.2    Banana Pseudostem Fibre and Fibre Reinforced Products
    
16.3    Banana Pseudostem Juice
    
16.4    Banana Starch
    
16.5    Banana Waste for Mushroom Production
    
16.6    Paper and Pulp from Banana Waste
    
16.7    Vermicompost and Vermiwash from Banana Waste
    
16.8    Animal Feed from Banana Waste
    
16.9    Banana Leaf

1.1     Forest Resources
    
1.2     Uses of Forest
    
1.3     Deforestation and its Effects
    
1.4     Water Resources
        
    1.4.1 Water Conflicts
    1.4.2 Dams Conflicts
    
1.5    Drought
    1.5.1 Regions of Drought in the World
    1.5.2 Effects of Drought
    
1.6     Flood
    
1.7    Environmental Effects of Mineral Resources
    
1.8    Food Rseources
    1.8.1 Technological Improvements in Food Production
    1.8.2 Environmental Issues Related to Increased Production
    
1.9    Overgrazing and its Effects
    
1.10    Impacts of Intensive Farming on Soil and Water Resources
    
1.11    Effects of Agricultural Chemicals on the Environment
    
1.12    Energy Sources
    
1.13    Waterlogging
    
1.14    Land Resources
    
1.15    Land Degradation
    
1.16    Soil Erosion
    1.16.1 Types of Erosion
    
1.17     Desertification
    1.17.1 Causes of Desertification
    1.17.2 Effects of Desertification
    
1.18    Conservation of Natural Resources
    1.18.1 Conflicts
    1.18.2 Challenges and Methods

2.1    Ecosystem
    2.1.1 Major Components of Ecosystems
    2.1.2 Energy and Matter Flow in Ecosystems
    2.1.3 Various Types of Ecosystems
    
2.2    Biodiversity
    2.2.1 Genetic Diversity
    2.2.2 Species Diversity
    2.2.3 Ecosystem Biodiversity
    2.2.4 Values of Biodiversity
    2.2.5 Threats of Biodiversity
    2.2.6 Endangered and Endemica Species of India
    2.2.7 Biodiversity Conservation

3.1    Air Pollution
    3.1.1 Classification of Air Pollutants
    3.1.2  Properties of Air Pollutants
    3.1.3  Health Effects
    3.1.4 Particulate Pollution Control Equipments
    3.1.5 Gaseous Pollution Control Equipments
    
3.2    Water Pollution
    3.2.1 Causes of Pollution
    3.2.2 Origin of Wastewater
    3.2.3 Waste Water Composition
    3.2.4 Types of Water Pollutants
    3.2.5 Basic Processes of Water Treatment
    
3.3    Land
    
3.4    Marine Pollution
    3.4.1 Sources and Effects of Marine Pollution Toxics
    3.4.2 Control Measures
    
3.5    Noise
    3.5.1 Effects of Noise
    3.5.2 Major Noise Sources
    3.5.3 Noise Control Measures
    
3.6    Thermal Pollution
    3.6.1 Effects of Thermal Pollution
    
3.7     Nuclear Hazards
    3.7.1 Nuclear Weapons
    3.7.2 Types of Nuclear Bursts
    3.7.3 Nuclear Injuries
    3.7.4 Residual Radiation
    
3.8    Nuclear Waste and their Treatment
    
3.9    Solid Waste Management
    3.9.1 Role of Human in Prevention of Pollution
    
3.10    Disaster Management
    3.10.1 Floods
    3.10.2 Earthquake
    3.10.3 Cyclone
    3.10.4 Landslides

4.1    Urban Issues
    
4.2    Environmental Ethics - Issues and Possible Solutions
    
4.3    Water Conservation
    4.3.1 Rainwater Harvesting
    
4.4    Greenhouse Gases and their Sources
    4.4.1 Climate Change
    4.4.2 Global Warming
    4.4.3 The Greenhouse Effect
    4.4.4 Consequences of the Greenhouse Effect
    4.4.5 Acid Rain, 176
    
4.5    Ozone Layer Depletion
    
4.6    Nuclear Accidents
    
4.7    Waste Reclamation
    
4.8    Consumerism and Waste
    
4.9    Forest (Conservation) Act 1980
    
4.10    Wildlife Protection Act
    
4.11    The Air  (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981
    
4.12    Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974
    4.13    The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
    4.14    Environmental  Laws

5.1    Population Growth
    
5.2    Exponential Growth
    
5.3    Population Explosions
    
5.4    Over Population
    
5.5     The Causes of Rapid Population Growth
    
5.6    Ways and Means to Solve Over Population
    
5.7    Environment and Health
    
5.8    Family Welfare Programme
    
5.9    Human Rights
    
5.10    Child Welfare
    
5.11    Women Welfare

1.    The term Horticulture is derived from two Latin words  Hortus meaning = Garden and Cultura meaning = Cultivation.

2.    In ancient days the gardens had protected enclosures with high walls or similar structures surrounding the houses.

3.    The enclosed places were used to grow fruit, vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants. Therefore, in original sense “Horticulture refers to cultivation of garden plant within protected enclosures”.

Definition: Horticulture is the branch of science which deals the cultivation, utilization and management of horticultural crops eg. fruits, vegetables, flowers, spices, plantations, medicinal and aromatic plants.

1.    Total horticulture covers an area of 27.1 m ha and production 305.8 m ton in the country annually (Indian Horticulture Database, 2018).

2.    Fruit crops cover an area of 8.4 m ha and vegetable crops 12.2 m ha. Accordingly, 98.7 m ton of fruits and 182.1 m ton of vegetables are produced in the country annually (Indian Horticulture Database, 2018).

3.    Apart from fruits and vegetables, floriculture industry in India comprising of florist trade, nursery plants, potted plants, seed and bulb products is being observed as sunrise industry.

4.    The developed flower market in the country during 2018 is with area of 0.32 m ha with a production of 2.7 m ton flowers.

5.    The traditional flowers are grown on a large area on a commercial scale. These flowers are mostly grown for loose flower purpose.

6.    Area under cut flowers like rose, chrysanthemum, gladiolus, carnation and orchids is increasing day by day.

7.    Plantation crops are another potential sector with lot of opportunities for employment generation, foreign exchange earnings and overall supporting livelihood sustenance of mankind at large.

The Indian subcontinent is bestowed with a great variety of climate and soil conditions. Broadly the country can be divided into tropical, subtropical and temperate regions, within each broad category there are differences due to rainfall, humidity, altitude etc. Considering these aspects six different horticultural zones have been identified so that appropriate choice of the crops can be made and development is planned. They are;

Temperate: Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, North Uttarakhand, Sikkim and part of Arunachal Pradesh.

N.W. Subtropical: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Central Uttar Pradesh and North Madhya Pradesh.

N.E. Subtropical: Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur.

Central tropical: South Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal.

Southern tropical: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Coastal tropical humid: Konkan, Goa, Kerala, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

Classification of fruits: Classification is the system of grouping or placing of an individual according to nomenclature. It is very useful to the pomologist, it helps to:

•    To identify and naming the crop.

•    To study the close relationship.

•    To know their hybrids and crossing behavior.

•    To know their compatibility & inter grafting ability.

•    To know their adoptability to soil & climate.

Pomology: Pomology is a branch of horticulture which deals the cultivation utilization and management of the fruit crops. eg. Mango, Banana, Citrus, Papaya, Guava etc. The term pomology is a combination of two words “Poma” in Greek means Fruits later subsequently transfer in to “Pome” in Latin word means Fruits and Logos means Study.

Nursery: Nursery is a place where seedling, saplings or any other planting materials are raised, propagated, multiplied and sold out for planting.

Importance of a Nursery

1.    The young seedling requires special attention during the first few weeks after germination. It is easier and economical to look after the young and tender seedling growing in nursery bed in a small area than in the large permanent site.

2.    Majority of fruit crops are propagated by vegetative means. The propagules require special skill and aftercare before transferring them in the main field in a controlled condition in nursery, all these can be provided successfully by skilled labours.

3.    Direct sowing method is not successful when compared with transplanting of seedling raised in nursery.

4.    Nursery hardened plants are preferred for causality replacement in orchards.

5.    Besides these, raising of seedling or sapling in nursery provides more time for replanting preparations.

6.    Seasoning of seeding against natural odds is only possible in nursery.

Plant propagation: Plant propagation means multiplication of plant by sexual or asexual method.

There are two type of plant propagation

1.    Sexual propagation

2.    Asexual propagation 

A. Sexual propagation: Sexual propagation means multiplication of the plant by seed. It is also known as seed propagation.

Advantages of sexual propagation

1.    This is the easier and cheaper method.

2.    Some of the plant does not response well by asexual method (Papaya) this type of plant only propagated by sexual propagation.

3.    Sexually raised plant are long lived have extensive root system and bear heavily as compare to asexually propagated plants.

4.    Hybrid can develop only by seed propagation.

5.    Seed can be store for longer duration.

Orchard: Establishment of orchard is a long term investment. It is require a proper planning, any mistake during the selection of site, planting distance, choice of crop/variety, quality of nursery stock etc. reflect greatly on the orchard performance and efficiency.

Following points are keep in mind at time of orchard planning-

1.    Road- Orchard should be well connected with the road for facilitate transportation of material to the orchard and produce of orchard to the market.

2.    Orchard structure- In structure office, implementshed, go-down come store etc. are required. Area under these structures is not more than 10% of total area.

3.    Fencing and wind break- Before planting of plants, installation of fence is necessary for protecting the undesirable element. Fencing can be done by erecting a wall or by fixing iron angle or concrete cement pillar and titening with running 4 to 5 times at a distance of 30-40 cm barbed wire.

Layout plan- Main objective of layout is maximum number of plant accommodated in per unit area without affecting the efficiency of production. If more than one fruit is included in the orchard plan, each kind should be grouped into individual block. Similarly fruit ripened in particular season should be grouped to facilitate convenience in watch and ward, harvest and post harvest handling. Some kind of fruit trees need pollinators/pollinisers for improving the fruit set.

Soil: Soil is the upper most crust of earth surface which supports plant growth. It is defined as a three phase system in which plants grow. These phases are solid, liquid and gas and are essential. Solid part is frame which provides space for other two. This consists of minerals, clay minerals and organic matter. The soil is also a living system with millions of microbes that breakdown organic matter and builds it again.

Some points are following

•    Microbes are essential and survive only when soil is well aerated and rich in organic matter and avoid of waterlogged conditions.

•    Texture of soil depends on the size of solid particles and classified as gravel, coarse and fine sand, silt and clay.

•    Soils are classified according to relative distribution of these particles and there are 12 textural classes.

•    Likewise, arrangement of these particles is referred as structure, and both texture and structure land soil physical properties like water holding capacity, aeration and bulk density.

Water: Water is one of the most important inputs essential for the production of crops. Plants need it continuously during their life and in huge quantities. It profoundly influences photosynthesis, respiration, absorption, translocation and utilization of mineral nutrients etc. Both its shortage and excess affects the growth and development of a plant directly and consequently its yield and quality.

Soil needs the application of water to:

•    Remove stress condition.

•    Release nutrients in the soil solution for absorption by plants.

•    Leach or wash out injurious salts from the soil.

•    Preparation of land for raising crops.

•    To maintain the temperature and humidity of the soil micro-climate and the activity of soil microbes at optimum level.

Digging and Filling of Pits

1.    Marking of pits and planting should always be done with the help of planting board.

2.    The guide pegs are installed at both the ends.

3.    One meter deep pits of one meter diameter should be dug.

4.    Top 30 cm soil should be kept on one side, which is used for refilling the pits as it is fertile soil.

5.    Bottom 70 cm soil should be kept on other side, which is discarded.

6.    The pits should be left exposed for a few days before actual planting.

7.    These pits should be refilled with mixture of topsoil, 2-3 baskets of silt and 2-3 baskets of well-decomposed farmyard manure.

8.    The refilled pits should be watered a few days before planting the tree. To each pit add carbofuron (25g) for control of white ants.

Horticultral plants are grown for their produce like fruit, vegetable, flower, medicinal, aromatic, spices etc. Therefore, these plants should be managed in such a way that human desires for the purpose of growing them are fully satisfied in terms of quality and quantity of produce. This demands direct manipulation of plant growth itself or plant environment through various inputs. In manipulation of plant development, training and pruning are important for which our knowledge about plant development and its phenology has to be complete. These practices are important in fruit crops.

Training: Physical techniques that control the shape, size and direction of plant growth are known as training or in other words training in effect is orientation of plant in space through techniques like tying, fastening, staking, supporting over a trellis or pergola in a certain fashion or pruning of some parts.

The quantitative increase in plant body such as increase in the length of stem and root, the number of leaves etc., is referred to as plant growth whereas, the qualitative changes such as germination of seed, formation of leaves, flowers and fruits, falling of leaves and fruits is referred as development. Utilization of these substances for proper development of the plant is regulated by certain chemical messengers called plant growth substances or plant growth regulators, which in minute amounts increase or decrease or modifies the physiological process in plants. Plant growth substances are the chemical other than nutrient which required in very small amount but without which plant can not complete their physiology.

The two sets of internal factors, viz., nutrition and hormone control the growth and development of the plant. The raw material required for growth is supplied by nutritional factors which include the minerals, organic substances the protein, carbohydrates, etc.

Growth, Fruiting Habits and Methods for Inducing Fruitfulness in Fruit Crops

•    Every plant has two distinct phases of development namely vegetative and reproductive.

•    In the vegetative phase, the plant only vegetative growth i.e. leaves, shoots etc.,

•    In the reproductive phases the plant produces reproductive growth i.e. flowers and fruits.

•    In case of annuals, these phases occur for a short period, each phase occurring only once and that too within the same season.

•    In perennials, the vegetative phase lasts for several years depending upon the variety and species. This is known as the pre-bearing period.

•    Once the perennial tree completes its pre-bearing period, the cycle of vegetative and reproductive phases might occur in each season or the reproductive phase may occur simultaneously along with vegetative phase without much distinction between the two.