eChapters

Modern agriculture faces the challenge of increasing food production while minimizing environmental impacts like soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss. To address these issues, integrating microbial biotechnology with nanotechnology has emerged as a promising approach. Nanoparticles (NPs) with plants and microbes, enhances nutrient uptake, plant growth, and stress tolerance. Bioinoculants, which contain beneficial microorganisms, promote plant health, but are limited by stability and environmental factors. The synergistic use of nanoparticles and bioinoculant offers a novel solution, improving crop yield, nutrient uptake, and resilience to stress, reducing dependence on chemical inputs. This integration supports the development of more resilient, resource-efficient, and environment-friendly agricultural systems.

Fungal diseases are a significant threat to crop health and productivity worldwide, causing substantial economic losses and compromising food security. The development and spread of fungal diseases are influenced by a complex array of factors, including crop susceptibility, pathogen virulence, and environmental conditions. Among these environmental factors, weather plays a critical role in determining the severity and impact of fungal diseases on crops. Weather conditions, such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind, can significantly affect the life cycle of fungal pathogens, including spore production, dispersal, and infection. For example, high temperatures and dry conditions can inhibit the growth and development of some fungal pathogens, while cool and wet conditions can favor their development and spread. Similarly, wind and precipitation can facilitate the dispersal of fungal spores, leading to the rapid spread of disease (Fig. 7.1). Understanding the impact of weather on fungal diseases is essential for developing effective disease management strategies. By recognizing the weather conditions that favor or inhibit the development of fungal diseases, farmers and crop managers can take proactive measures to prevent or mitigate disease outbreaks. This may involve adjusting planting dates, irrigation schedules, and fungicide applications to minimize the risk of disease. Furthermore, knowledge of the weather effects on fungal diseases can also inform the development of more accurate and reliable disease forecasting systems.

Marriage and family dynamics concern the structures, relationships, roles and processes through which families function and change. This chapter examines forms of marriage and family, mate selection, family authority, role allocation, communication, adjustment and decision-making. It considers changing family patterns, marital relationships, parenting styles, family life-cycle stages, conflict, divorce and the influence of social and cultural factors. Questions also address family welfare, interpersonal relationships, responsibilities, values and the challenges experienced by contemporary families. By connecting theoretical concepts with everyday family situations, the chapter helps learners understand how individuals and families adapt to transitions, maintain relationships and promote the well-being of their members.

Alstroemeria, commonly associated with Peruvian lily, is a valuable commercial cut flower appreciated for its attractive colours, long stems and excellent vase life. This chapter discusses its origin, distribution, genetics, botanical characteristics and commercially important cultivars. Production aspects include climate and soil requirements, propagation through rhizomes, planting, irrigation, nutrition, crop management and greenhouse production. The chapter also explains physiological problems such as flower abortion, pest and disease management, harvesting, postharvest treatment, grading and yield. Particular emphasis is placed on commercial-quality stems and management practices required to achieve consistent production under protected conditions.

El Nino means ‘The Little One’ or ‘Christ Child’ in Spanish. It was originally recognized by fisherman of the coast of South America as the appearance of usually warm water in the Pacific Ocean, occurring near the beginning of the year i.e. around Christmas. That is why the name is used. El Nino, the periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters that affects the weather worldwide. C. Fred and T. Andrus of the University of Georgia studied the ancient fish bones from refuse left about 6000 years ago by ancient peoples in Peru and found that ocean catfish lived in water that averaged 60 to 70 warmer than now and that there was little variation in temperature. He concluded that if El Nino was occurring at the modern rate, once every two to seven years, then the bones from the fish would have reflected the temperature variation.

Introduction

In this era of international competitiveness of knowledge economy, there is an emergent need for identifying new knowledge streams likely to emerge for mapping the directions for transition of knowledge from industry to information technology. National Knowledge Commission, Government of India has undertaken a survey of agricultural sector for exploring and discovering the dynamic role of innovation of knowledge for growth and competitiveness and recommended for ascertaining the role of the Governmental factors as innovation enablers in development of Indian economy (Anon, 2006). The knowledge network and development of knowledge infrastructure in the field of information and communication technology lead for knowledge generation, knowledge transfer and it’s preservation as intellectual property right which will support for adoption of effective knowledge management practices and provide guidelines for envisioning the policy makers to formulate appropriate plans in the filed of research and development.

Cashew is one major crop of Konkan region of Maharashtra and requires comparatively less expenditure for cultivation as compared with other crops. Under normal planting density (7m x 7m), about 200 plants/ha are occupied. If the cashew grower has its own land, then for first five year of orchard establishment and maintenance, total expenditure of Rs. 47447 is come up. Year wise expenditure (first five years) on cashew cultivation per hectare is presented in Table 61.

2.1. Introduction

A system of housing is more or less synonymous to the system of management of dairy cattle. Housing is essential to protect the animals from extreme climatic conditions, wild animals and theft. Housing also helps to maintain normal health of the animal by proper feeding, watering and reducing environmental stresses. An efficient housing system ultimately leads to an efficient management and reduce labour requirements to the minimum.

Indian agriculture – the back bone of our economy accounts for about 65 per cent of the country’s employment and 20 per cent the total export earnings. Despite a drastic increase in the food grains production during the last five decades, the profit margins of farmers particularly small and medium farmers has declined due to certain serious problems like declining water table, deterioration in soil health, outbreaks of new pests diseases and weeds, and environmental pollution etc. With the globalization of market, the farmers will have to change themselves from mere producers’ in the domestic markets to producer cum seller in a wider market sense in order to best realize the returns for his investments, risks and efforts. Now the focus should be on high quality produce, low cost of production and high productivity.

Diamond back moth: Plutella xylostella: Plutellidae
 
The adults of this moth are small, greyish brown having pale whitish narrow wings and with inner margins yellow. There are three pale whitish triangular markings on hind margins of each forewing. At rest, when both forewings come together, they form a dorsal median patch of three diamond shaped yellowish white spots that give them their name diamond back moth. Hind wings have a fringe of long hairs.

Helminths include the nematodes (roundworms), trematodes (flukes) and the cestodes (tapeworms). The adult worms live in intestine and discharge the eggs or larvae that comes out with the faeces. Therefore, diagnosis is based on the detection of eggs or larvae in faecal samples.

Overview of Nematode infections in humans and animals

The phylum Nematoda, (roundworms), is the second largest phylum in the animal kingdom, encompassing up to 500,000 species. Members of Nematoda are elongated, with bilaterally symmetric bodies that contain an intestinal system and a large body cavity. According to a report approximately 60 species of roundworms parasitize humans. Intestinal roundworm infections constitute the largest group of helminthic diseases in humans. According to 2005 report of World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 0.807-1.221 billion humans suffers from ascariasis, 604-795 million from trichuriasis and 576-740 million from hookworm infections worldwide.

Abstract

In the hybridization programme, the horticulturally desirable female line HC-17- 11(susceptible) was crossed with powdery mildew resistant male line FC-1.  Over the years, the variety CHP-2 proved its stable resistance (average disease score 1.58 on 1-5 scale) to powdery mildew under natural epiphytotic conditions as well as supremacy in yield performance (11.7-28.0 t/ ha) over the check variety (10.3-16.5 t/ha) in different testing centers of AICRP(Vegetable Crops) and farmers’ fields (20-26 t/ha).Additionally, the pods are medium long (9.25 cm),light green,7-8 seeded with 48-52 per cent recovery of light green, sweet and tasteful  shelled peas. The shelled peas contain 1.4 per cent soluble protein and 9.5 mg ascorbic acid/100g of fresh shelled peas.

Introduction
 
Soybean (Glycine max L. Merril) is the world’s most important oil yielding legume which contributes 25% of the global edible oil, about two thirds of the world’s protein concentrate feeds for livestock, poultry and fish. India ranks fifth in the area and production in the world after USA, Brazil, Argentina and China. The contribution of India in the world soybean area is 10% but to total world soybean production is only 4% indicating the poor levels of productivity of the crop in India (1.1 t/ha) as compared to other courtiers (World average 2.2 t/ha) which is a major cause of concern.

Germplasm
 
Germplasm of crop may be defined as sum total of hereditary materials, i.e. all alleles of various genes present in a crop species and its wild relatives. The germplasm can be utilized in a breeding programme in following ways:
•    Direct release as a variety
•    It may be subjected to selection for developing a variety
•    It may be used as one of parents in hybridization programmes

MOLECULAR BREEDING

Molecular breeding is the application of molecular biology tools, often in plant breeding.

Genetic markers

Genetic marker is defined as a gene whose phenotypic expression is usually easily discerned, used to identify an individual or a cell that carries it, or as a probe to mark a nucleus, chromosomes or locus (King and Stansfield, 1990). Three broad classes of genetic markers are morphological markers, biochemical markers and DNA or molecular markers.
 
(1) Morphological markers

Morphological markers are based on the visually assessable traits viz., morphological and agronomic traits. However, they are limited in number.

Hay quality really means feed value. The ultimate test of hay quality is animal performance. Quality can be considered satisfactory when animals consuming the hay give the desired performance.
 
Characteristics of Good Quality Hay

    1.    Hay should be nutritious therefore prepared form plants cut at an appropriate stage of maturity when it has the maximum nutrients.
 
    2.    Good hay should be leafy. The leaves are generally richer in proteins, minerals and vitamins then other parts of the plant.

    3.    Hay should be green in colour. The green colour indicates the amount of carotene which is precursor of vitamin A. The green colour should be preserved by minimizing the bleaching, leaching arid fermentation losses.

  Term anesthesia by Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes (1886).
  Anasthesis (Greece Word) – absence of sensation.

History of Animal Anesthesia
  Paracelsus (1540) produced ether and reported it to have a soporific effect on fowl. 
  Sir Humphrey Davy (1800) suggested that N₂O might have anesthetic property. 
  Chloroform was discovered by Liebig in 1831.
  Dr. Horace Wells (1844) discovered the general anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. 

The importance of lipids have already been elaborated. They play a major role as source of energy and as components of membranes which have implications in plant growth regulation. The complete metabolism of fat leads to oxidation, the final products being CO₂ and water. The burning of one mole of palmitic acid gives 2340 kcal.  The molecular weight of palmitic acid is 256. This works out to approximately 9 kcal/g of palmitic acid. This energy is twice that derived from either sugars or proteins. Fats and oils are thus better and more efficient forms of storage of energy in living beings.

Introduction

Many insets inhabit the soil and participate in different activities which will result in changes in soil physico-chemical properties. Thus soil is a very good habitat for some insects. Several insects spend either complete or few stages of their life cycle in soil. Soil provides protection from predators for many soil dwelling insects especially in immature stages. Few insects also undergo diapauses in soil. Soil insects include phytophagous, scavengers, predators and parasites. Among these, soil macro fauna especially termites and white grubs are very important pests of many crops and their activity also brings many changes in soil ecosystem.

Termites

Termites (Order: Isoptera) are eusocial, polymorphic and live in small to large colonies. The colony consists of different castes viz., functional reproductive (queen and king), sterile workers and soldiers, which are morphologically distinct.  The tasks of the latter two castes include foraging, nest building and care of eggs and young ones and defense. All species maintain symbiotic relationships with microorganisms, which aid in digestion. Few species build the often-spectacular mounds or arboreal nests and others build subterranean nests. They constitute important group of soil fauna and play a major role in the arid and semiarid tropics. Worker castes are dominant and are responsible for major functions in the colony. During the process of food collection, the workers generally attack the plants that are weakened due to some internal growth factors or environmental causes such as drought or poor soil conditions (Roonwal, 1978).

Ivy gourd (Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt), a climbing, herbaceous perennial plant in family Cucurbitaceae, grows well under hot-humid conditions. The genus name is derived from the Latin coccineus, which means scarlet in reference to the fruit color. Thus, it is also called scarlet-fruited gourd. Other vernacular names are: little gourd in English, courge écarlate in French, pepino cimarrón in Spanish, tam leung or phak tam leung in Thai, kundree or kundru in Hindi, pepasan in Malay, hong-gua in Chinese, and tindori in East Africa (Schippers, 2002; MMPND, 2007; USDA, 2007). The plant is often collected wild or cultivated in home gardens in tropical Asia, and its tender shoots are consumed as potherb (Wasantwisut and Viriyapanich, 2003). Bundled tender shoots of ivy gourd in the village market setting are common scenes in Southeast Asia (Boonkerd et al., 1993; Engle et al., 1998). The fruit of its sweet type cultivar is also used widely as a vegetable in India (Ramachandran and Subramaniam, 1983; Sarnaik et al., 2001; Bharathi, 2007). Ivy gourd has a potential to be a valuable vegetable in the tropics to diversify cropping system in peri-urban and urban agriculture, and to improve diet and health, especially where vitamin A deficiency is of developing concern.