eChapters

Rice-wheat cropping system is the most important food production system in India. This system has enabled the country to attain food security during last three decades and provided livelihood to millions of farming families in recent times. The productivity of this system has now started showing signs of decline or stagnation at many places. There are also concerns of declining soil health and other related environmental problems. At the same time, food demand is rapidly increasing due to increasing population and income growth. During the past 30 years, agricultural production has been able to keep pace with population demand for food. This came about through significant area and yield growth. Area growth was a result of new lands being farmed and through increases in cropping intensity, from a single crop to double or even triple crops per calendar year. Area growth will be less important in its contribution to production growth in the future as more land is used for urban areas and industry. Yield growth will have to be the mainstay for providing the means for meeting future food demands unless food imports start to play a major role. Total factor productivity is declining and farmers have to apply more fertilizer to obtain the same yields. There is, therefore, a huge challenge ahead to meet future food demands without damaging the natural resource base on which agriculture depends, producing food at a cost that is affordable by the poor, and with incentives to farmers that allow them to improve their livelihoods. Water will become a major limiting factor for sustained production in the next decade. Rapidly growing urban areas and industry will compete with agriculture for good quality water. There are already reports of declining water tables in some areas leading to more costly pumping of groundwater and increased costs of production.

This chapter describes various conservation agriculture technologies to attain the goal of increasing productivity and meeting food security needs while at the same time efficiently using natural resources, including water, providing environmental benefits and improving the rural livelihoods of farmers. The major success in the last few years has been the development and deployment of conservation agriculture technologies (CATs) with farmers in the rice-wheat systems. CATs range from simple surface seeding, where wheat seed is broadcast on the non-ploughed soil; no-till with a special opener for placing seed in the soil also without ploughing; reduced tillage and bed planting. This has benefited farmers through less cost, more yields and more income. CATs are defined as any practice that will result in improvement of the efficiency of natural resources. These technologies are rapidly gaining popularity among farmers as they result in higher production at less cost with significant benefits to the environment and more efficient use of natural resources. This ultimately results in higher profits, cheaper food, and improved farmer livelihoods. Crop diversification is also easier as less land is needed to produce staple cereals, freeing up land for other crops.

Abstract

Livestock sector has gained momentum world over with consistently increasing market demand for live stock products. India with annual 171 million tons of liquid milk production, 74 billion egg production, 3.8 million tons of poultry meat and 11.50 million ton of fish production offers enormous opportunities for women agri-preneurs to venture into this area. Micro-enterprise development related to livestock rearing activities like dairy farming, sheep husbandry, goatry, poultry, livestock feed production, vermin-composting and value added product development and production are the important enterprises in which women can utilize their technical skills. Finance for infrastructure and small scale agro-processing units are requisites to success of rural women entrepreneurs as these will help them to enhance their competency to use raw materials from the farm and livestock to earn substantial income. Rural women entrepreneurs are facing tough competition from the large scale organizations and urban entrepreneurs where governmental interventions are essential. The women producers are not collective in their approach for marketing their products because they are scattered and mostly uneducated. The women entrepreneurs are heavily dependent on middlemen for marketing of their products who pocket large amount of profit. Hence, government should take steps to provide market information of different products and finance to the rural entrepreneurs at concessional rates.

Philosophy of defence in plants

Plants cannot move and must resist or tolerate co-located pathogens.

Plants have evolved very powerful preformed defense systems in the form of structural and toxic barriers.

Plants cannot keep intruders out, they can only limit (contain) them.

Plants can tolerate more nutrient runoff. They often sacrifice a piece of tissue to contain pathogens.

Introduction

Germination is a critical stage for the establishment of plant species, especially those that grow naturally in arid and semi-arid environments (Alouani and Bani Aameur, 2004). Several factors may influence germination percentages in natural environments. Among these factors, seed dormancy contributes in part to germination failure of many species under adverse environmental conditions (Bewley, 1997). There are two categories of dormancy: coat- enhanced dormancy (seed coat dormancy), where the embryos isolated from these seeds are not dormant and embryo dormancy (internal dormancy), where the embryos themselves are dormant (Bewley, 1997;

Introduction

Tissue culture refers to the technique of growing cells, tissues, or organs under controlled, artificial conditions. This allows propagation of tissues from a small sample of cells/tissues under sterile conditions. Plant tissue culture is widely used for various purposes, including the production of disease-free plants, rapid multiplication of plants with desirable traits, genetic modification, conservation of rare or endangered species, etc. Tissue culture is a valuable technique because it enables consistent and large-scale production of plants, ensures genetic uniformity, and allows manipulation of plant biology at cellular level. In this chapter, we will discuss about the major types of tissue culture techniques and their advantages, disadvantages, as well as applications in brief.

Different Types of Tissue Culture

Callus culture involves induction and growing of unorganized, undifferentiated cell masses from an explant on a nutrient/culture medium. The part of plant used to induce callus is called explant which can be tissue, organ or part of a plant.

Organ culture is used to maintain or grow an entire organ or a part of organ in vitro. It preserves the structure and function of the organ for studies or transplantation.

Embryo culture involves isolating and growing embryos from seeds or ovules in a nutrient medium. It is used to bypass seed dormancy or rescue embryos from hybrid crosses that may not develop naturally.

Cell suspension culture involves growing dispersed cells or small cell clusters in a liquid medium under continuous shaking. This is used for large-scale production of cells, secondary metabolites, and studying cell biology..

Introduction
Embryogenesis begins with the fertilization of the oocyte by the sperm, leading to the formation of a zygote. This single cell undergoes a series of highly regulated mitotic divisions known as cleavage, forming a multicellular structure called the blastocyst. As the blastocyst implants in the uterine wall, the cells continue to divide and differentiate into the three primary germ layers: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. Each of these layers gives rise to specific tissues and organs, controlled by genetic instructions and cellular signalling mechanisms.One of the most critical aspects of embryogenesis is the intricate interplay of cellular signalling pathways and genetic mechanisms, which regulate the precise growth and differentiation of cells into tissues and organs. Understanding these mechanisms not only helps in comprehending normal embryonic development but also in diagnosing and treating developmental disorders in veterinary practice.
Cellular Signalling in Embryonic Development
Cellular signalling is a fundamental process in embryogenesis that ensures cells communicate with each other to perform specific tasks. The coordination of cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, and apoptosis (programmed cell death) is essential for the proper formation of tissues and organs.
Types of cell signalling
1. Short range signalling: It involves communication within a cell as well as between nearby cells. This includes:
a) Paracrine signalling: where a cell releases signals that affect neighbouring cells.
b) Autocrine signalling: where a cell sends signals to itself, affecting its own behaviour.

Experimentation is fundamental to scientific investigation because it provides a systematic basis for studying natural and controlled systems and drawing conclusions from observations. In forestry and horticulture, experiments are often affected by developmental, environmental, genetic, sampling, and experimental variations. This chapter introduces the principles required for planning, conducting, analysing, and interpreting such experiments. It explains comparative experiments, the need for experimentation, experimental units, sampling units, plots, blocks, treatments, factors, levels, and sources of variation. Particular emphasis is given to the basic principles of experimental design—randomisation, replication, and local control—which help improve validity, precision, and coverage of experimental results.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The cumin (Cuminum cyminum Linn.) belonging to family Apiaceace is an important seed spice believed to be indigenous to northern Egypt, East Mediterranean region, Iran, Turkey  and India (Amin, 2003; Raghavan, 2007). It is popularly known as safed jeera and is one of the most common spices of daily use in the Indian sub-continent. Cumin is well known to ancient civilization. It is one of the oldest spices known since biblical times, valued mostly for their digestive properties and for flaovouring bread and other dishes during the periods of ceremonial fasting. As early as 5000 BC, Egyptians preserved the bodies of their kings by mummifying them with cumin, anise and marjoram.

Introduction

Salinity is a significant environmental stress for crop plants it account for about 70% of the losses in the crop yield. It adversely affects seed germination, seedling growth and different metabolic activities in plants (Begum et al. 1997). It reduces DNA, RNA and protein synthesis and differentially influences the activities of the hydrolytic enzymes (Kumar et al. 1996).

Plants are classified as glycophytes or halophytes according to their capacity to grow on high salt medium. Most crop plants are glycophytes and cannot tolerate salt stress. High salt concentration decreases the osmotic potential of soil solution creating a water stress in plants. Secondly they cause severe ion toxicity since Na+ is not readily sequestered into vacuoles as in halophytes.

The widespread nature of saline soils compounded by the geographical distribution of man’s population and agricultural practices are largely succeeded in increasing salinization in arid and semi-arid lands. Most of the crops are sensitive to even low concentration of NaCl.

Introduction

Seed as an input is the precursor for agricultural development as it alone can guarantee 20-30 per cent share of crop productivity (Koudinya and Kumar, 2014). Rigveda, the world’s most ancient scripture available, prescribes the importance of seeds as “Subeejam Sukshetre Jayate Sampadyate” which literally means, “A good seed in a good field can lead to the prosperity and posterity of the entire human race”. Seed production is indeed important to take care of a country’s food and nutritional security needs. At the same time, seed export across countries is vital for ensuring competitiveness in the domestic seed industry besides generating employment and valuable foreign exchange which in turn can be used for scaling up the seed sector’s efficiency itself (Poonia, 2013). As a matter of fact, seed trade is one of the reasons for huge advances made in the Indian seed industry through development and exchange of genetic transformation, marker-assisted breeding and nanotechnology (Nandi et al., 2013). As of 2014-15, global seed industry has reached USD 45 billion in which international seed export alone was worth USD 10 billion. Further, with the estimated growth rate of 9.2 per cent during 2015-2020, the world seed business is expected to be over USD 92 billion. Presently, USA, China, France, Netherlands and Brazil are the top markets comprising more than 66 per cent of the global share in seed trade. Corn, soybean and vegetables account for more than 75 per cent of the total global seed market volume. As of 2014-15, the value of the Asian vegetable seed market was USD 6.75 billion in which China had a major share (41 per cent) and the Indian share was around 7 per cent. Moreover, the world vegetable seed market alone is expected to grow at the rate of 7 -8 per cent per annum and reach USD 8.8 billion by the year 2020 (Parashar and Kumar, 2016).

Abstract

Most of the vegetables available in the market contain large quantity of pesticide residue. This has created serious health problems among the people. Self-sufficiency in safe to eat vegetable production can be achieved either by commercial production or better farming by family in kitchen garden. As quality control mechanism is not strong and well established, the produce from commercial farming can’t be assured as safe to eat product. The continuous effort taken by our centre and other existing systems in the state for the last six years have made the people aware about the quality of vegetables. In Kerala, most of the families, especially in town and nearby areas are having only 3 to 10 percent of land. The space they can spare for vegetable production either on the ground or on roof top is hardly 10 to 40m². Pest and disease attack is another issue in Kerala. Hence our centre gave importance for the design and development of 10m² /20m² /30m² poly-kitchen garden which could accommodate 160 to 350 plants (almost all pest susceptible crops required for a family can be accommodated inside these structures.) suitable for a family by utilizing multi-tier grow bags (one multi-tier grow bag can accommodate 35 to 50 plants), grow bags and troughs. In these structures, cultivation practices can be done even during night without the fear of snake and mosquitoes by fitting a fluorescent lamp. This technology was approved by Government of Kerala and declared 75% subsidy for establishing this full facility for a family. In order to popularize this technology among the public, we had conducted many training programmes and empowered the women (house wife/employed woman) in vegetable production and to make their mindset to ensure a kitchen garden (either a conventional type grow bag kitchen garden or poly-kitchen garden) in their house plot. When we started working with this goal (in 2013, when project was started), < 20% of required vegetables for the state was produced in the state. On account of our continuous effort, by the year 2016, state managed to pick up its vegetable production by 64.5%

Introduction

In 1990, the magnitude of fungal diversity, that is, the actual number of species worldwide, was estimated conservatively to be at least 1.5 million. Of the 1.5 million estimated fungi, it has been estimated that 14,000 species produce fruiting bodies of sufficient size and suitable structure to be considered macro-fungi which can be called mushrooms. Of these, about 50 % or 7,000 species are considered to possess varying degrees of edibility and more than 3,000 species from 31 genera are regarded as prime edible mushrooms. To date, only 200 of them are experimentally grown, 100 economically cultivated, approximately 60 commercially cultivated and about 10 have reached an industrial scale of production in many countries (Hawksworth, 2001). Of the 14,000 species of mushrooms in the world, around 700 have known for medicinal properties. Thus, mushrooms have vast prospects as sources of medicines. The early herbalists were more interested in the medicinal properties of mushrooms than in their basic value as a source of food. Humankind has constantly searched for new substances that can improve biological functions and thereby make people fitter and healthier. About 3.5 billion people worldwide, all over half of the world populations rely on plant-based medicines and dietary supplements for their primary health care. Of the plant materials involved in medicines or health tonics, quite a few are fungi. The practice of using fungi as herbal medicines can be traced in different early records of the ‘materia medica’. The earliest book on medicinal materials the “Shen Nongs Herbal” recorded the medicinal effects of several fungi such as Ganoderma lucidum, Poria cocos, Tremella fuciformis, Polyporus umbillatus and other unidentified fungi. The most famous of all work on the traditional medicines “Pen Ts’ao Kang Mu” which was compiled by Li Shi-Zhen of the Ming Dynasty recorded the medicinal fungi totaling more than twenty species, including Ganoderma lucidum, Poria cocos, Polyporus umbellatus, Lentinula edodes, Termitomyces albuminosus, Auricularia auricula, Pleurotus ostreatus, Armillaria mellea etc. A very unique insect-infecting fungus, Cordyceps sinensis, was for the first time taken as a medicinal fungus in the book “Essentials of Materia Medica”. There have been new discoveries and developments in the field of medicinal fungi, which have greatly enriched the treasure house of our traditional medical and medicinal sciences. As a result of large number of scientific studies on medicinal mushrooms in the past three decades, the traditional uses of many mushrooms have been confirmed and new wider uses found. Some traditionally important and leading medicinal fungi in the Oriental medicines are presented below

Interpretation of Drainage Patterns Through Aerial Photographs

Aerial photographs can provide a useful tool for interpreting the drainage patterns of a landscape. Drainage patterns are formed by the natural movement of water across the land and the way in which it flows from high to low areas, creating channels and streams that eventually converge into larger rivers and bodies of water. Different types of drainage patterns can be identified through aerial photographs, which can help to understand the underlying geology and topography of the landscape.

Here are some of the different drainage patterns that can be identified through aerial photographs:

1. Dendritic pattern

This pattern resembles the branches of a tree and is the most common type of drainage pattern. It occurs in areas where the underlying rock or soil is uniform and has no preferred direction of erosion. The streams converge into larger rivers, which may flow in a particular direction.

Introduction

Human and animal body comprises of various tissues that are the functional unit of organ functioning and coordination. The tissues are further consisting of well differentiated cells that makes the tissue to behave in a special way for a particular purpose. The animal tissues are divided into epithelial, connective, muscular and nervous tissues. Epithelial tissues form the protective covering and inner lining of the body and organs. Connective tissues develop from the mesodermal cells of the embryo. they support and bind other tissues in the body. The muscular tissue develops from the mesoderm of the embryo and meant for movement and locomotion. Nervous tissue makes up the peripheral and the central nervous system and is responsible for initiation and transmission the nerve impulse. The tissues are biochemically composed of water, lipid, protein, ash, and carbohydrate along with other mineral and vitamins that are needed for its basic functioning. The extracellular matrix (ECM) forms a major component of connective tissue that forms layer and surrounds the cells or tissues meant for protection, signalling and communication. The protein component of ECM basically includes collagen, elastin, keratins, fibrillin, fibronectin, laminin and proteoglycans. Collagen is the major protein component of connective tissue that provides tensile strength, shape and fixes the organ in its position. Collagen is not homogenous rather consists of around 19 different types of proteins. There are around 30 variants of protein found in collagen. collagens type I and type II are respectively found in skin and bone. Collagen is triple helical polymer of highly elongated fibrils consisting of around 1000 amino acids majority of which consists of glycine along with proline and hydroxyproline. The forces like hydrogen bonds, covalent bonds, electrostatic, hydrophobic, and van der Waals are responsible for stabilizing the structure of collagen.

Introduction Handling and restraining is done to perform different management technique like drenching, dressing, vaccination etc safely, correctly, quickly and painlessly. Procedure • Handling should be done gently • Animal should not be shouted or beaten, always try to call/speak before touching. • Approach animal from behind and from their left side • Head and neck portion should be handled first • Always  have the owner or attendant along with you while handling strange animals Common appliances used in controlling animals 1. Rope: essential tool most often used for restraining animals. Cotton rope is preferred for strength, safety and easy to make knots 2. Halter: It is used as a least harsh of all restrain methods for animals. Halter are used to teach the animal to lead, to routinely handle them for day t

12.1 Introduction

Nature has a provision for destroying and disposing off wastes and dead plants and animals. This decay or decomposition is carried out by tiny micro-organisms called bacteria. Making of farm-yard manure (FYM) and compost is also through decomposition of organic matter (OM). When a heap of vegetable or animal waste and weeds etc., die or decompose at the bottom of backwater or shallow lagoons, bubbles can be noticed rising to the surface of water. Sometimes these bubbles burn with dancing flame at dusk. This phenomenon has puzzled man for a long time. It was only during the past hundred years that Scientists unlocked this secret as the decomposition process. The gas thus produced was and is still called “Marsh Gas.” The technology of harnessing this gas under artificially created conditions is known as Biogas Technology.

Abstract

Remote sensing has wider applications in agriculture right from landscape mapping, soil moisture, planting dates, cropping systems to climate change effects. Growing uncertainties of weather and climate change pose a major threat to food security of the country and thus warrant for farmers empowerment of informed decision in agricultural risk management. The technology is competent to monitor crop growth, predict crop yield in terms of quantity and quality, assists in estimating crop acreage, its condition, disease and pest status. Over the last two decades, the development of space technology has led to a substantial increase in satellite earth observation systems. Simultaneously, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has rendered increasingly effective the processing of data for specific uses and their instantaneous distribution on the World Wide Web (WWW). Satellite data provide better coverage in time and in area extent than any other alternative. It is important to make maximum use of this information to monitor our environment. Access to these Satellite data and products is only the beginning. In addition, the ability to interpret, combine, and make maximum use of this information is an integral part of weather and climate management at the national level. Production estimates, post harvest and quantity available for market enable the farmers and policy makers to chalk out sustainable strategy to match supply with market demand.

In vitro cloning is a vegetative propagation performed in the Plant Tissue Culture system. In vitro micropropagation cloning propagation is mostly applied to the vegetatively propagated plants and in particular in ornamental, fruit and in a few orchard crops and in vegetable crops besides in many forest tree species.

10.1 Introduction

Persimmon is known as the national fruit of Japan. In India, persimmon was introduced by the European settlers somewhere in 1921. At present it is grown on a limited scale in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, hilly areas of Uttar Pradesh and parts of eastern India. No organized cultivation of this fruit has yet been undertaken in India. The fruit is commonly known as ‘Japaniphal’ which is cherished for its unique flavour and high nutritional content. It is mainly originated from China, Japan and Korea (Lucas-Gonzalez et al., 2017) and is cultivated in warm region of China, Japan, Brazil, Italy and Mediterranean region (Bubba et al., 2009). It was originally cultivated in China and Japan, and it is therefore also known as the ‘Chinese date plum’. Persimmon is good source of various bioactive compounds that possess antioxidant activity which is beneficial for human health, owing to their ability to prevent from various chronic diseases.

Abstract

Seed technology deals with the various aspects of seed- right from production to make it readily and timely available to the end users. The advancement in seedtechnology was realizedlong back and itwas considered equally important to the development of new technology (varieties). Considering the importance of seed as well as variability among seed of different crop species or even in same crop species, the researchers initiated work and focused their direction of research accordingly which resultedinto worthy achievements. Brief overviews of the advancements made in seed technology are being discussed in this chapter. However, efforts are still on to get rid of problems of seed technology in order to strengthen the seed industry, which makes the highest contribution to rural development, probably among all industries.