eChapters

Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of the plant to the female part of the plant of the same species. The anthers, the male part of the flower, produce pollen. The pollen must be transferred to the upper female part of the flower, the stigma. Here the pollen germinates and grows down the style (the elongated portion of a pistil that connects the ovary with the stigma of a plant) to where fertilization occurs and the seeds develop in the ovaries. A fruit is a ripened ovary.

Introduction
 
The relationship between insects and animals is complex. Insects are injurious to animals in myriad ways, whereas a few are beneficial. Some carry deadly disease germs and transfer them mechanically; others serve as necessary hosts of disease germs. Insects injure livestock by several ways like biting, crawling and scratching. Some burrow in the tissues, which become inflamed or are actually destroyed. Many insects are more or less specific to a host while others attack all kinds. Cattle tick, for example, attacks cattle, horses, mules, and sometimes sheep, but it is only to bovines that it transmits cattle tick fever. It is almost impossible to group insects in a list having the same characteristics, habits and methods of injuring livestock. The losses are found due to infection or infestation of ectoparasites on animals. The ectoparasites sucks blood which causes development of anaemia.They irritate the skin of the animals creating itching resultantly loss of hairs/ wools occur. Irritation may also leads to restless that adversely affect the appetite and water intake. Some ticks are responsible to transmit dreadful disease like Red water, Theileriosis, Anaplasmosis etc. Fleas act as intermediate host for some worms eg. Diphylidium caninum.They causes skin diseases like mange, Flea bite dermatitis, and cutaneous myiasis. Loss of body weight in all animals, drop in milk production in milch animals, decrease in meat production, retarded growth of young animals can transmit bacterial, viral, protozoal and rickettsial diseases. They decrease immune response to diseases. They causes annoyance and wry to the animals. The insect bites and blood sucking flies causes direct injury to the animals.

Introduction

With the change in global scenario there is increase in pressure of meeting the food requirements of rapid growing population but due to scarcity of resources it is becoming very difficult to meet the needs of present population but even if there is so much problem still nature has provided solution to sort out from it through hybrid seed production through male sterility. As male sterility is a condition in which pollen grain is either absent or non-functional in the pollen grain. Its first case was reported by Koelreuter in 1763. Later many scientist have reported about its role in hybrid seed production. Mainly the male sterility is characterized by malformation of androecium, lack of normal anther sac, inability of pollen to mature or to release from the anther sac and inability to develop normal microspore or pollen. Due to such malformation male sterility is characterized into phenotypic male sterility, genotypic male sterility and chemically induced male sterility. Later in 1998, Kaul further generalised the phenotypic male sterility into structural, sporogenous and functional male sterility. In case of structural male sterility stamens are completely absent or if present then it is either malformed or modified into other floral part. While in case of sporogenous male sterility a case of abnormal microsporogenesis has been reported. In functional male sterility pollen development is normal but its function is impaired.Genotypic male sterility which is further classified into genetic, cytoplasmic and cytoplasmic genetic male sterility.

Abstract: Agro-ecosystem analysis of the island farming system revealed four distinct micro farming situations (MFS) viz., Hilly (MFS I), Slopping hilly upland (MFS II), Medium upland valley (MFS III) and Low lying valley (MFS IV). The enterprise combination study indicated the suitability of plantation based cropping sequences + backyard poultry and livestock in hilly areas, Short and medium duration paddy, vegetables, floriculture, plantations, fodder + backyard poultry + goat,  fish cum poultry cum duck and cattle in slopping hilly uplands, vegetables, plantations + backyard poultry, fish cum poultry cum duck in medium upland valley and long and short duration paddy, vegetables + backyard poultry, fish cum poultry and cattle in low lying valley micro farming situations. Productivity and profitability analysis of different farming systems under various micro farming situations revealed that net return obtained from cropping was Rs 3,26,408,  livestock and poultry was Rs 64,300 in MFS I where as under MFS II, it is Rs. 1,53,989 from cropping, Rs 77,176 from livestock and backyard poultry and Rs 12,465 from poultry + duck + fish. In MFS III, net return obtained from cropping was Rs 9,297 livestock was Rs 72,306 and poultry was Rs. 2,630 and poultry + duck + fish was Rs 24,957. Similarly, in MFS IV, net return obtained from cropping was Rs 57,760 where as Rs 90,893 was obtained from livestock, Rs 11,000 from backyard poultry and Rs 14,872 from poultry

Introduction

Pests and diseases are very serious issues in vegetable crops and account for nearly 25-30% damage to the expected yields across different crops inspite of high amount of chemical use. Excessive reliance on chemicals has created problems of pest resistance to pesticides, decimated useful fauna and flora as well as imperilled the delicate ecological balance. In addition, pesticide treadmill lures the farmers for ever increasing use of pesticide dosages, thereby encouraging a vicious cycle of environmental pollution. Vegetable crops are one of the major groups of crops that contribute heavily in this regard, being the third major consumers of pesticides after cotton and rice in our country. Insect pests and diseases inflict the horticultural crops especially vegetable crops more than others because of their supple nature, intensive cultivation under high moisture and input regimes, short duration and denser canopy of the crops.

Abstract

Water is an indispensable natural resource for sustaining the environment, supporting life and responsible for sustainable agricultural growth and development wherein agricultural sector is the major user of the water resource. The integrated management of water resources could only be possible through adoption of efficient and optimum use of irrigation water, which could only be ensured by judicious and economic use of irrigation potential whatsoever created to increase crop production. The integrated water resources management also includes the concept of rainwater management that has got an immense important on the way to develop the rainfed farming system. Previously, rainfed agriculture was associated primarily with conservational land treatments to check soil erosion and land degradation. But in the areas of medium to heavy rainfall, there is ample scope of tapping excess rain water through suitable water harvesting structures constructed for this purpose for its subsequent uses as irrigation or to apply lifesaving irrigation to the crops which should also come under the purview of water management for crop production.

18.1. INTRODUCTION

Plant genetic resources (PGRs) are the foundation for the development of a food and nutritionally secured society. Food is the foremost important to sustain life and livelihood followed by shelter and cloth. Thus, the slogan of 3Fs may be modified as, “Food, Frame (shelter) and Fibre (cloth)”. All these 3Fs we can get from PGRs. There must be balance between demands and resources. Gradually the demand for basic needs increasing. So, we have to improve the PGRs to cope with the increasing demands. PGRs are the foundation for the development of these 3Fs. India is a country rich in crop biodiversity and genetic resources. The status of Germplasm accessions in the National Gene Bank is being presented in Table 18.1.

Introduction

The Indian lac insect, Kerria lacca (Kerr) (family Tachardiidae (Kerriidae), super family Coccoidea of the order Hemiptera) is widely cultivated in India for their products viz., resin, dye and wax.Lac products have diverse uses in food, pharmaceuticals, surface coating, electrical, cosmetic industries, etc. Lac cultivation is one of the major sources of income for the tribal community of the country. India is the global leader in lac production. Out of 2 strains (kusmi and rangeeni) available in lac insects, Kusmi lac insects are specific to India and contribute good quality and quantity lac. Although lac insects can survive on more than 400 host plants, important host plants of lac insects are Butea monosperma (Palas), Schleichera oleosa (Kusum), Ziziphus mauritania (Ber) and Flemingia semialata in India.

• What is Agroinformatics?
• Agroinformatics
• Definitions 
• Objectives of Agroinformatics
• Information Systems Terminology
• Agroinformatics Tools

• Definition of Bioinformatics
• History of Bioinformatics 
• Structural Bioinformatics
• New Branch of Bioinformatics 
• Bioinformatics - Application in Agriculture
• Analyzing Protein Sequence
• Pairwise Alignment
• Multiple Alignment
• Blast - A Sequence Alignment Tool
• EMBL
• SWISS–PROT
• Rice Genome Project
• Software for Bio-informatics
• Major Categories of Bioinformatics Software
• Internet Sites For Bioinformatics

Biotechnology Products and Technologies
    
Bottlenecks in Fast Progress of Animal Biotechnology
    
Why Biotechnology should be Used in Animal Husbandry and Dairy Production
    
Contribution of Livestock Sector to Food Basket
    
Biotechnology and Environment
    
Biotechnology of Nutrient Partitioning
    
Genetic Programming for Better Animals
    
Biotechnology of Reproduction
    
Biotechnology of Animal Health

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

1.1    General Introduction, History, Ownership of Tangible and Intellectual Property
    
1.2    Patentable Subject Matter
    
1.3    Basic Requirements of Patentability
    
1.4    Novelty, Public Domain, Obviousness and Non Obviousness
    
1.5    Inventive Step (Non-Obviousness) and Industrial Application

Climate Change has emerged as one of the most serious environmental concerns of recent times. The most imminent climatic change is increase in atmospheric temperature due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and hydrochlorofluoro carbons (HCFCs). Because of increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in atmosphere, there is much concern about future changes in the climate system viz., Atmosphere, Lithosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere and Cryosphere. Direct or indirect effects on the society linked sectors like water, forestry, agriculture, animal agriculture, fisheries, land and marine biodiversity and health due to climate change/variability are many-fold and economic impact of climate change is enormous. The recurrent drought and desertification threaten seriously the livelihood of over 1.2 billion people who depend on land for most of their needs.

Basic thought of Sampling

The data is very important in every field for decision making whether it is medical sciences, engineering sciences, agricultural sciences and management sciences etc. for this we need to plan the correct data. If we don’t have correct data then based on that we cannot plan good decisions and it will provide misleading results. So, to achieve or plan the right data it is necessary to have the right technique which is to be used while collecting data and an appropriate method of data collection is preferred. From this, the two important questions arise (i) what are those methods required to obtain paramount data or sample and (ii) how best to use the data or sample to estimate the characteristic of the whole population i.e., what are those methods by which we can study our population parameters to draw a proper statistical inference.

The forest cover in most tropical countries has been under severe pressure and is diminishing at an alarming speed; consequently, they are experiencing severe biodiversity losses, reverting to a mature state at a slower rate with low resiliency. These tropical countries are aware of the danger causing due to the loss of forests, and large afforestation programmes have been launched by forest departments, private companies, and donor-supported projects. Nevertheless, plantation activities have rarely been able to keep pace with the deforestation rate, not to mention replacing what has been lost during the past. Plantation programme through afforestation activity is not only the matter of the forest department alone but also the combined responsibility of all the foresters. The appeal of forest planting has changed over the years following the broader demand spectrum.

To some extent, the forest plantations fail to create the diversity of plants and wildlife that has been lost. Hitherto, large-scale plantations are still necessary both directly to cater to the needs of industrial wood and help to minimize the pressure on the remaining natural forests. During the past decades, many government programmes have emphasized using 

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.

The term soil organic matter (SOM) includes any material that is produced originally by soil organisms (plant or animal) that is returned to the soil and undergoes decomposition process. At any point in time, it consists of an array of materials, ranging from the intact original tissues of plants and animals to the substantially decomposed mixture of materials known as humus (Fig.1.1). Most soil organic matter originates from plant tissues. Plant residues contain 60 - 90 per cent of moisture and the remaining dry matter consists mostly of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, with smaller amounts of sulphur, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Though present in small amounts, these nutrients are of great significance from the standpoint of soil fertility.

1.1    General Circulation of the Atmosphere
    
1.2    World Climates
    
1.3    World Climate Classification by Köppen’s method
    
1.4    Climatic Classification over India
    
1.5    Asian Summer Monsoon and Rainfall Distribution
    
1.6    The Indian Monsoon
    Features of monsoon
    Monsoon circulation
    Onset of monsoon
    Withdrawal of monsoon
    Southwest monsoon rainfall
    Active phase of monsoon
    Break monsoon conditions
    Winter monsoon

1.7    Causes for Failure of Monsoon
    
    Prediction of onset of monsoon rainfall

1.8    Spatial Distribution of Weather Parameters over India
    Rainfall
    Temperature
    Humidity
    Sunshine and Radiation
    Wind speed

1.9    Famines in India
    
1.10    Historical Evidences of Droughts
    
1.11    Distribution of Drought Prone Regions over the Globe
    1.11.1    Occurance of drought in different countries
    
1.12    Distribution of Drought Prone Regions in India
    
1.13    Weather Phenomena Associated with Droughts
    
1.14    Effect of Droughts on Natural Resources
    1.14.1    Surface water resources
    1.14.2    Groundwater sources
    
1.15    Impact of Latest Droughts on Crop Production in India
    
1.16    Economic Impacts of Droughts in India
    
1.17    Economic Impacts of Droughts in other Nations
        
References

The aim of this book is to further strengthen the knowledge of readers on management of disasters so that they are better prepared to cope with more frequently occurring natural and manmade disasters.

The process that helps us to face disasters effectively is commonly known as disaster preparedness.  When a disaster strikes, it affects us directly and immediately. While as the government, international agencies such as United Nations, Red Cross Society, non government organizations, like Ramakrishna Mission, OXFAM, CARE, resident welfare associations in urban areas and panchayats in rural areas assist us when faced with disasters the community, invariably remains the first responders. Hence, the individuals as a part of community should prepare adequately to prevent, face and respond to disasters effectively. History has  shown that where communities have prepared adequately to confront disasters, losses to life and property have been less and environment could be protected. People living in an area may be prone to more than one type of disaster. For example Kutch District of Gujarat is vulnerable to floods, drought, cyclones and to earthquakes. Such an area is called ‘multiple hazard’ zone.