eChapters

The foods we eat contain nutrients. Nutrients are substances required by the body to perform its basic functions. Nutrients must be obtained from diet, since the human body does not synthesize them. Nutrients are used to produce energy, detect and respond to environmental surroundings, move, excrete wastes, respire (breathe), grow, and reproduce. There are six classes of nutrients required for the body to function and maintain overall health. These are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, water, vitamins, and minerals. Foods also contain non-nutrients that may be harmful (such as cholesterol, dyes, and preservatives) or beneficial (such as antioxidants). Nutrients that are needed in large amounts are called macro-nutrients. There are three classes of macro-nutrients: carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. These can be metabolically processed into cellular energy. Micro-nutrients are nutrients required by the body in lesser amounts, but are still essential for carrying out bodily functions. Micro-nutrients include all the essential minerals and vitamins. There are sixteen essential minerals and thirteen vitamins.

31.1 Introduction

Courtship is the behavioural interaction that occurs between males and females before, during and just after mating. It encompasses all expressive movements associated with pair formation and mating. “Courtship is the heterosexual communication system that leads to the consummatory sexual act,” says DeMorris. Arthropods, mollusks, fish, reptiles, and mammals are the most affected. It consists of various activities and serves a specific purpose. Many courtship activities ensure that people only mate with people of their species. The distinction between species’ courtship behaviour allows females to identify males of their species. It is concerned with reproductive fitness and provides opportunities for survival

Introduction

“Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress” -the theme of the International Women’s Day 2024 celebrated by the United Nations and multiple organizations across the world highlighted the need of review of different works and efforts in bringing gender equality in various development departmentsincluding agriculture and allied sectors. This reflects the importance being given to the efforts towards gender equality at the highest level.

Agrifood systems are a major employer of women globally and constitute a more important source of livelihood for women than for men in many countries. Empowering women and closing gender gaps in agrifood systems thus, enhances the well-being of women and their households, reducing hunger, boosting incomes and strengthening resilience.Increasing women’s empowerment is essential for women’s well-being and has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets and child nutrition. Also,the gender-transformative approaches to change restrictive social norms are cost effective and have high returns, but morework is needed on developing pathways to implement gender-transformative approaches.

Walking machine: A machine designed to carry its operator over various types of terrain; the operator sits on a platform carried on four mechanical legs, and movement of his arms control the front leg of the machine while movement of his legs control the rear legs of the machine.

Wane: Wane is a defect in a timber or plank.

Washer: A small, flat, perforated disk, used to secure the tightness of a joint, screw, etc.

Washer cutter: A device having a fixed center and either one or two adjustable cutting points for cutting washers from leather, rubber, etc.

Waste heat: Energy, that must be dissipated to the atmosphere from a process such as the heat transferred from condensing steam in the condenser of a steam power plant.

Waste spark system: An ignition system, that energizes the spark each time the piston is at top dead center whether or not the piston is on the compression stroke or on its exhaust stroke. For hydrogen engines, the waste sparks are a source of pre-ignition.

Water (H₂O): 1. A colorless, transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid byproduct of the combining of hydrogen and oxygen, 2. The liquid form of steam and ice. Fresh water at atmospheric pressure is used as a standard for describing the relative density of liquids, the standard for liquid capacity, and the standard for fluid flow. 3. The melting and boiling points of water are the basis for the Celsius temperature system. 4. Water is the only substance that expands on freezing as well as by heating, and has a maximum density at 4°C.

Animal body contains several fluids other than blood and lymph which have specialized functions for specific organs. Two of these fluids are cerebrospinal fluid and synovial fluid. The cerebrospinal fluids protects and supports brain and spinal cord function. Synovial fluid protects the functioning of the movement of the body by bone-muscular joints.

37.1 Introduction

Temperature describes the kinetic energy of the gases that make up air. As gas molecules move more quickly, air temperature increases. Among several environmental changes, increased air temperature affects the water cycle by increasing water temperature, which causes changes in local weather, water quality and river bodies (Gossiaux et al., 2019). This is because the water temperature is one of the most important factors for physicochemical properties of water quality (Szumiriska et al., 2020), aquatic habitats (Duggals et al., 2018), spawning rates (Besson et al., 2016) and fish growth (Collas et al., 2019) (Fig. 37.1).

5.1 Impact of climate change on agriculture

Climate change has both positive and negatively impact on agriculture, food security and land degradation. Climate change could exacerbate the land degradation processes by increases in rainfall intensity, drought frequency and severity, dry spells, f looding, heat stress, sea-level rise and permafrost thaw. The 1/4^th of ice-free land area in the world is prone to human-induced anthropogenic degradation (Certini and Scalenghe, 2011; Hooke et al., 2012). Soil erosion rate is 20-100 times faster than that of soil formation in agricultural field. The erosion rate is least is zero-tillage (non-disturbed field) and maximum at conventional intensive tillage practices. Climate change further exacerbates the land degradation. The permafrost areas, dry-lands, low-lying coastal regions, river deltas are more vulnerable. The occurrence of drought in dry-land was increased by around 1% per year during 1961-2013 periods. On an average 380-620 million people globally experienced desertification who lived in dry-land areas (1980s and 2000s) in South and East Asia, North Africa, Middle East, Sahara region, and Arabian peninsula. Moreover, people who are already living in degraded/ desertified regions are more negatively affected by climate change.

Specifically, the land surface air temperature has increased about twice as much as the global average temperature since the pre-industrial era. The land-surface air temperature has increased relatively higher than the world’s average surface (land and ocean) temperature since the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). The average land-surface air temperature has enhanced by 1.53°C (1.38-1.68°C), whereas, world’s surface (including land and ocean) air temperature has enhanced by 0.87°C (0.75-0.99°C). Subsequently, global warming triggered the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves and related damage. The direct and indirect impacts of climate change on global agriculture is summarised below for an overall idea about the importance of the issues.

Plant absorbs large number of elements from the soil and other sources during their growth and development. But all these elements are not essential for plant growth. Seventeen mineral elements are known to be essential for the growth and development of all plants. A list of essential nutrients, their source and forms by which they are absorbed by plants are presented in Table 1.1.

Except carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O), all the other nutrients are obtained by plants largely from soils, fertilizers or manures. It has been seen that the number of nutrients obtained from soil is about 5 times the number of nutrients obtained from air and water. However, most of the plant tissue, in general, from 74 to 99.5% is made up of C, H and O i.e. nutrients obtained from air and water and only 0.5 to 26% of the plant tissue is synthesized from soil constituents. In ordinary (normal) conditions of agriculture, except drought, C, O and H are not limited for plant growth. It is the remaining 14 elements from soil that are usually limiting plant development and hence considerable emphasis is placed on the improvement of soil in respect of greater availability of these 14 nutrients. It may be borne in mind that all nutrients are essential for all crops even though their requirements differ from crop to crop and even among varieties of a given crop. Secondly, all nutrients are equally essential regardless of amounts required. For example, to produce one tonne of grain, wheat may absorb 25, 9, 33, 3.7, 5.3 and 4.7 kg of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulphur (S), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg), respectively and 56, 624, 70, 24, 48 and 2 g of zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), boron (B) and molybdenum (Mo), respectively. If the crop (any crop) does not get the smallest amounts of micronutrients needed, it cannot make the best use of abundant NPK.

According to Liebig’s Law of minimum which he enunciated in 1855, the growth of a plant is limited by that nutrient which is in shortest supply. This law in fact lays the ground rules for balanced crop nutrition.

Fungicides have been used to manage plant diseases since ancient times. The use of sulphur as a purifying agent is documented in the Old Testament, Homeric poems published about the eighth century B.C., Vedic literature (1500-500 B.C.), Buddhist literature, Surpala’s Vrksayurveda (800 A.D.), and other texts. Chemicals’ importance as fungicides was recognised only when fungus were clearly identified as a cause of plant diseases.

Over the previous two centuries, a wealth of information on fungicides has collected, owing primarily to advances in fungicidal chemical expertise. Aside from chemical control, other alternative approaches of disease control have earned appropriate respect throughout this period. However, in today’s modern agricultural system, fungicides play an important role in disease management and are useful in increasing crop output by reducing the attack of hazardous plant pathogens.

The history of gardening in India is older than civilizations of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. During the pre-Aryan period (around 2500 B.C.), Indians were cultivating flowers and plants of religious significance. Later importance of gardening was not properly understood in India. But presently, importance of landscaping and gardening is realised by planners and landscaping has now become an integral part of any new establishment or property. Due to urbanization and industrialization, pollution has increased considerably and landscaping is one of the best options to reduce the problem. Landscaping is an art of beautifying a piece of land or garden or a landscape with planting materials and non-living materials in order to create a picturesque effect or to imitate nature in that particular land for human use. The importance of landscape gardening can be divided into three categories.

The effects of weeds, pests, and diseases result in the loss of between 20 40% of the world’s potential agricultural yield each year. By reducing crop loss from pest infestations, the use of pesticides can boost agricultural output by 25–50%. Only 25 to 30 percent of the area that is now being grown is protected by pesticides. Because domestic pesticide use is among the lowest in the world, there is significant room for expansion. India uses 0.6 kilogramme of pesticides per hectare compared to the global average of 3 kg per hectare. The use of crop protection products must be enhanced. There are now 1175 compounds accessible in the world, however only roughly 292 of them are registered in India.

Precipitation indices convert rainfall data into standardized measures of wetness, dryness, intensity and duration. They allow climatic conditions to be compared across locations and time scales despite differences in normal rainfall. This chapter introduces major indices such as the Standardized Precipitation Index, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, Percent of Normal and percentile-based measures. It discusses data requirements, calculation, interpretation, strengths and limitations. These indices support meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought assessment, wet-spell analysis, crop planning and water-resource management. By identifying the severity and persistence of rainfall deficits or surpluses, precipitation indices strengthen early warning, drought preparedness and climate-risk management in agriculture.

Abstract

The analysis of IRS - 1A satellite imagery has indicated the existence of two NE - SW trending sub parallel faults along which the coast is undergoing land subsidence as revealed by the concavity in the shore line, preferential migration of the river systems and the drainage congestion, absence of beach ridges, occurrence of off shore shoal etc. The study has further indicated chains of tectonically induced environmental problems such as ground water logging, coastal zone flooding, storm surges, harbour sedimentation etc.

The study and utilization of biomass for energy, composting, or other valueadded applications require accurate information about its properties. This begins with a scientifically sound process of sample collection, preparation, and analysis. Each step ensures that the data derived from biomass materials is representative, reliable, and applicable for research, industrial application, or environmental assessment.
Sample Collection
Biomass sampling methods vary depending on the biomass type and the analysis objective. For instance, truck-top sampling is used for biomass pellets, while quadrats are employed to gather cover crop biomass from fields. Regardless of the technique, the primary aim is to collect a representative sample that accurately reflects the overall characteristics of the biomass.
Purpose
The goal is to obtain a sample that accurately represents the average composition and properties of the entire biomass batch.
Biomass Types Commonly Sampled
• Agricultural by-products (e.g., husk, straw, stubble)
• Animal-derived waste (e.g., manure, poultry litter)
• Forest residues (e.g., bark, wood chips) • Organic or food waste
• Industrial biomass (e.g., bagasse, distillery by-products) Sampling Guidelines
• Random Sampling: Collect from multiple locations within a pile or batch to reduce sampling bias.
• Quantity: Gather a sufficient amount—typically several kilograms—based on whether physical, chemical, or energy content analysis is intended.
• Equipment: Use clean, non-corrosive tools such as stainless steel or plastic scoops.
• Preservation: Store in sealed containers or bags to maintain sample integrity and prevent contamination or moisture changes.

22.1 Introduction

Nanotechnology has proved to have infinite potential in increasing the quality of life of the human population. There is however, a growing realization regarding the potential health and safety risks of associated with development, production and application of these nanoparticles. Nanoscale particles are produced from a variety of different processes. Nanoparticles are the end product of a wide variety of physical, chemical and biological processes, some of which are novel and radically different, others of which are quite commonplace. Nanometer sized particles are also found in the atmosphere where they originate from combustion sources (traffic, forest fires), volcanic activity, and from atmospheric gas to particle conversion processes such as photochemically driven nucleation. A large quantity of nanoscale particles are also produced during the various human activities, Welding can generate large quantities of nanoparticles usually in the form of a well defined plume of aggregated nanoparticles.

Botanicals

Botanicals play a significant role in the development of a disease management approach that is both ecologically sound and acceptable to the environment. Plant products have been found to have fungicidal, bactericidal, and antiviral properties. It is known that 346 plant species have fungicidal, 92 have bactericidal, and 90 have antiviral properties. This proves conclusively that the plant kingdom is home to a sizable stockpile of chemicals that can control a range of plant diseases. Because many of them employ many modes of action and plant compounds are safer for species other than the targeted, there is also less chance of resistance developing.Plants and plant products known as botanicals are safer for protecting plants against pathogens.

N₂O: Nitrous Oxide.
Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA): Is represented which is a synthesised auxin.
Naphthalene ring/molecule: Two benzene rings condense to give the naphthalene molecule/ring.
Natality (birth-rate): i) It refers to the production of new individuals by birth or hatching. The natality rate is the number of young ones produced per female. ii) Refers to number of young individuals born or hatched per unit of time. iii) Refers to an organism or population of organisms that occurs naturally (i.e., independent of human activity) in an area.
Natural forest: A forest composed of indigenous trees and not classified as forest plantation. 

Pesticides are any chemical or mixture intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant as well as any substance or mixture meant for preventing, getting rid of, repelling, or controlling pests. Agricultural pests include insects, weeds, fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, rodents, and mollusks. The term pesticide, which refers to these pests and cide, which meaning “to kill.” Insecticides, fungicides, bactericides, weed killers, molluscicides, rodenticides, nematicides, and other types of pesticides can be classed as pesticides. Every manufacturer of pesticides as well as companies with CIB & RC registration must provide all scientific data on bio-ecacy, toxicity, residues, and safe waiting periods that has been obtained via laboratory research.

1. Mitochondria

Mitochondria are known as the “Power House” of a cell because they are the site of ATP production. In addition, they are also involved with photorespiration and oxidation of fatty acids and work in association with peroxisomes, glyoxysomes and chloroplasts.

Isolation of intact mitochondria is rather difficult. This is because the cell walls of plant tissue are rigid as compared to the single-layered wall surrounding the mitochondria. A significant fraction of mitochondria suffer structural damage during the process of tissue homogenization. Therefore, the pelleted mitochondria need further purification by sucrose gradient centrifugation.

Mitochondria can be isolated from green as well as etiolated leaf; however, the latter is preferred to obtain higher yield of mitochondria (Moore and Proudlove, 1983).

Chemotherapy is the procedure of treating a sick or infected plant using chemicals to kill the fungus. Chemotherapy has proven successful in very few circumstances. For example, plants have been treated with antibiotics to minimise the severity of “lethal yellowing” of palm trees caused by Phytoplasma and the decline of pears. Likewise, fungicides have been used to elm trees to mitigate the effects of Ophiostoma ulmi and O? neo-ulmi, the causative agents of Dutch elm disease. The chemotherapy drugs must, however, always be given repeatedly. Systemic fungicides like sterol biosynthesis inhibitors (SBIS), which partially penetrate plant tissues, eradicate recent infestations.

Chemotherapeutic fungicides are a class of systemic fungicides that have some plant mobility. They are capable of eliminating diseases even in parts of the plant that were not exposed to the chemicals. Unfortunately, pathogens develop resistance to systemic fungicides because they are site-specific