eChapters

Introduction

Among the various vegetable crops, tomato (Lycopersicurn esculentum) is one of the important and popular vegetable and plays an important role in balanced nutrition and hence it is called as `poorman’s orange’. Tomato fruits can be seen in the market round the year. In India, tomato occupies an area of 2,90,279 ha with the productivity of 15.85 t/ha and production of 46,03,446 tonnes (www.nhb.gov.in). Among the different districts of Tamil Nadu, Salem district has an area of about 6311 hectares under tomato with 17,359 tonnes of production. Pest management is one of the important dimensions in cultivating tomato crop that needs significant attention. The objective of pest management technologies are maximize pest control in terms of overall economical, social and environmental values. In order to restore ecological balance, it is necessary to integrate all the available pest management techniques in the most compatible manner with the least use of chemicals which is the principle of pest management. ‘Pest management technology’ utilizes all suitable techniques and methods in a compatible manner as possible and maintains the pest population below their economic injury levels given by Bikramjit et al. (2007).

Genus : Corylus 
Species : avellana L.
Family : Betulaceae
Chromosome No. : 2n=2x=28

European filbert Corylus avellana L, is known by several names common being Cob, cobnut, hazel, Spanish or Lambert nut, which has been due to its origin, fruit shape, husk and the general appearance. ‘Filbert’ has also come from name ‘full beard’ as the nut of commerce is fully enclosed by the long husk. It is this husk or involucres which very often has been used to distinguish between various species and cultivars. Corylus the genus has been derived from korys which indicate bonnet, hood or helmet and there are several other views of its name being derived after the name of some renowned places. The word ‘hazelnut’ is from anglosaxon haesel meaning hood. Further the term hazelnut is used in European and Filbert in Asian countries for and its other species. However in America, the term is used to refer to three native species C. archericana, C. californica and C. cornuta. Filbert is an important member of birch family, Betulaceae which has a long history of cultivation (8000 to 5500 B.C.). 

Materials Required

Fruits/vegetables, thermometer, refractometers, NaOH, Phenolphthalein, glassware, weighing balance, plastic crates for storage of commodity, water cooling facility.

Procedure

    1.    Harvest the fruit / vegetable
    2.    Count No. of unmarketable fruits in every 100 fruits harvested
    3.    Record the internal fruit temperature in about 5-10 randomly selected fruits with the help of a thermometer
    4.    Pre-cool the commodity in cold water (<5ºC), air or refrigerator till the temperature reaches near its optimum storage temperature
    5.    Record the internal fruit temperature
    6.    Record the time required to pre-cool the commodity
    7.    Keep the product for storage at ambient conditions alongwith control
    8.    Record the difference in the shelf life and quality during storage

The insect larva after the complete development emerges out from the egg by rupturing the egg shell chorion. It passes through several stages called as instars. Each instar is separated by a moult; the growth from larva to adult involves some degree of morphological changes or metamorphosis. The egg hatches into 1st instar larva which later moults to the second instar larva and so on until at a final moult the adult imago stage. The insect moult takes place after attaining adult except in the insect apterygote insect. In family pantatomide full insect moulting occurs. Many insects especially those with a small number of instars (mosquitoes) and (chrysocoris stolli) insect moulting occurs as Ist, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th imago instar and then after sometime adults insect emerges.

Metamorphosis of Insect: The development process by which first instar immature stage is transformed into the adult is called metamorphosis, which means literally change in the form. The developing stage is morphologically different from the adult. The degree of difference varies from slight to extreme with many intermediates stage. E.g., Cockroaches, Butterfly, Chrysocoris stolli Wolf. The insect may be grouped on dependance of degree of metamorphosis as:

Landscaping is both science and art and is an aspect of the environmental impact of a hotel that needs to be addressed. Understanding and blending the elements of both nature and construction is effective landscaping. Whether Landscaping is extensive or small consumes a large amount of water, fertilizers and herbicides and generates solid waste.

Ecogreen’s Greenscaping Operation provides cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions for landscaping. Greenscaping operation deals with two aspects:

1. Solid Waste Management, and

2. Water Conservation

The subject on micrometeorology deals with small scale meteorology of near ground surface with its related elements of both physical and biological processes. When this micrometeorology is integrated for crop production purposes, then it becomes crop micrometeorology, which is very important in the science of agricultural climatology. This crop micrometeorology gets varied with the architecture of the crops grown, available soil moisture, agronomical practices followed, soil texture, topography of the area, the nature of climate and weather that prevails etc. The soil surface heat, exerts a profound frictional effect on wind movements and hence it is different from the air layers at higher levels. These special features constitute the microclimate, which is modified compared to a flat bare surface by factors like topography, nature of soil surface, presence of vegetation and type of vegetative cover. The presence of crop canopy leads to distinct differences in the thermal and humidity regimes of the soil, the air layers immediately above it and the distribution of radiation and wind profiles inside the canopy. The study on the physical exchanges of the transfer of heat, momentum and moisture in the microclimatic region is called as micrometeorology (Venkataraman and Krishnan, 1992).

Radha Krishna Murthy (2002) reported that the micrometeorology is the micro scale of both the physical and meteorological factors that are taking place within the ecosphere. The ecosphere means the area between just above the crop canopy and just below the root zone of a crop. Further he was on the opinion that the microclimate of valley is important as compared to the entire climate of the mountain for the bio-life of valley. For the crops purpose, the microclimate is the climate of the ground surface to top of the crop canopy or otherwise it can be called as crop’s climate, a modified one from the Stevenson’s Screen climate/weather observation.

4.1. Seed policy

4.1.1. Seed policies formulated for governing seed quality control system

Introduction

Fruits contain various beneficial compounds that possess biological activities and can be used as pharmaceutical nutraceutical products. Most of the fruits contain polyphenolic components that can promote antioxidant potential on human health. Wild Blueberries, strawberries, plums, oranges, grapes, cherries and mangoes are rich in antioxidant. Additionally, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal and chemopreventive effects are associated with the various fruits. Besides polyphenols, other compounds such as xanthones, carotenoids, saponins also exhibit health effects. Fruit consumption is considerably increasing in the daily diet because they supply high levels of biologically active compounds that impart health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Fruits provide an optimal mixture of antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, polyphenols and carotenoids, vitamins, phytoestrogens, glucosinolates and anthocyanins. Diets rich in fruits may help to delay the ageing processes and reduce the risk of certain types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic diseases. The combination of vitamins, minerals, phenolic, antioxidants and fibre seems to be responsible for these effects. The most dietary components in fruits acting as antioxidants are fibre, polyphenols, conjugated isomers of linoleic acid, D-limolene, epigallocatechin, gallate, soy protein, isoflavones, vitamins A, B, C and E (group of tocopherols), calcium, selenium, chlorophyllin, alipharin, sulphides, catechin, tetrahy-drocurecumin, seasaminol, glutathione, uric acid, indoles, thiocyanates and protease inhibitors.

The microscopic features reveals that wood is composed of minute units called cells. The fundamental differences between different kinds of woods are founded on the types, sizes, proportions, pits and arrangements of different cells that compose the wood. Softwoods have a simpler basic structure than do hardwoods due to the presence of only two cell types, and relatively little variation in structure within these cell types. Hardwoods have greater structural complexity because they have both a greater number of basic cell types and a far greater degree of variability within the cell types. In each case, however, there are fine details of structure that could affect the use of a wood.

The structure of a typical softwood is relatively simple. The axial or vertical system is composed mostly of axial tracheids, the radial or horizontal system and the rays, are composed mostly of ray parenchyma cells. According to estimates, 1 cubic metre (about 35 cubic feet) of Spruce wood contains 350 billion to 500 billion cells. The basic cell types are called tracheids, vessel members, fibres, and parenchyma

The structure of a typical hardwood is much more complicated than that of a softwood. The axial or vertical system is composed of fibrous elements of various kinds of vessel elements in various sizes and arrangements, and axial parenchyma cells in various patterns and abundance. Like softwoods, the radial or horizontal system are the rays, which are composed of ray parenchyma cells, but unlike softwoods, hardwood rays are much more diverse in size and shape.

Special Staining
A. Spore stain
Spores may be spherical or oval and may be central subterminal or terminal in position within the cell. Shape, size and position of the spore in the cell are useful for the identification of sporulated organisms. Spores are difficult to stain and when once stained, they are difficult to decolourize. With Gram’s stain, mature spores remain unstained bodies. Modified Ziehl-Neelsen’s method of staining will be used for the staining of spores.
Composition
a. Concentrated carbol fuchsin
b. Sulphuric acid 0.5 % solution.
c. Loeffler’s alkaline methylene blue
Materials
Old cultures of B. subtilis and Cl. Chauvoei and staining solutions.
Procedure
1. Make smears and fix over flame.
2. Stain with carbol fuchsin and steam for 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Wash with tap water.
4. Decolourize with 0.5% sulphuric acid.
5. Wash with water.
6. Counter stain with Loeffler’s methylene blue for 2 minutes.

Introduction

Land and water are important natural resources available for agriculture crop production. The resource is available either for agriculture or for human / animal consumption, from precipitation in the form of rain. According to National Commission of Agriculture, half of the available land in India will continue to depend on dry land even after our total surface and ground water potentials are fully exploited by 2025 A.D. So far efforts were made in improving the irrigation potential to step up crop production and very little attention has been paid to dry lands. Considerably improved but the farmers in dry land areas are still suffering.

Trees are major capital assets in cities Just as streets, sidewalks, public buildings and recreational facilities are a part of a community’s infrastructure, so are publicly owned trees. Trees — and, collectively, the urban forest — are important assets that require care and maintenance the same as other public property. Trees are on the job 24 hours every day working for all of us to improve our environment and quality of life. Urban forest provides many environmental benefits to our community. Aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits, trees within our urban forest improve our air, protect our water, save energy, and improve economic sustainability.

In other words, since most trees have been planted much of the tree cover is in urban areas as opposed to “natural lands”. Therefore, estimated pollutant uptake rates are higher for residential compared to natural or unmanaged lands. Possible management implications of these estimates are that air pollutant uptake benefits from tree planting may be optimized by planting in areas where air pollutant concentrations are elevated and where relatively high planting densities can be achieved thereby enhancing the health of urban dwellers.

Agricultural production system has gone a long way in supporting the world’s food requirement. The projected estimates revealed that to meet the global population of about 11.3 billion in 2050, the global demand for cereal will increase by 60% (Rosegrant and Cline, 2003, Bengtsson et al., 2006). Agriculture is considered as the chief agent of environmental transformation. The unrestrained attitude of Homo sapiens towards the use of natural resource catalyzing the causes leading to global warming, has increased the challenges manifold to provide food security in a sustainable manner. Increased concentration of CO2 and other green house gases have resulted in an increase of 0.760 C in surface temperature globally since nineteenth century and the mean global surface temperature is predicted to increase by an additional 1.30C to 1.80C by 2050( IPCC, 2007). Sinha and Swaminathan (1991) reported that an increase of 20C in temperature could decrease the rice yield by about 0.75 t/ha in the high yield areas and a 0.5oC increase in winter temperature would reduce wheat yield 0.45 t/ha.

• General considerations

 • Scope

 • Exfoliative cytopathology

 • Interventional cytopathology (Biopsy)

 • FNAC

 • Imprint cytopathology

 • Crush smear cytopathology

1) Bacterial Blight
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Bacterial blight of pomegranate was first reported in India from Delhi in 1952.
• First water-soaked lesions develop on fruits within 2–3 days and appear as spots.
• Initially, spots are black and round and surrounded by bacterial ooze.
• Under favorable conditions, spots enlarge to become raised, dark brown lesions with indefinite margins that cause the fruit to crack.
• Disease may cause up to 90% yield reduction (Fig.1).
Etiology
Domain : Bacteria
Phylum : Proteobacteria
Class : Gammaproteobacteria
Order : Xanthomonadales

This family of sub-class polypetalae is represented by only 5 genera and over 70 species. Members are cosmopolitan in distribution, except in very cold regions, and are favorite plants for garden pools. Plants are mostly ornamental, few are medicinal or edible. Flowers of water lily are variously coloured and open just above the water surface in ponds while that of crow lily (Nuphar) are golden yellow and extend up and out of the water in the pond. Nymphaea nouchali is the Indian red water-lily. Victoria regia is a native of South America. Genus Nymphaea attained wide spread fame as ornamentals in Europe and North America in the early 19th century. Word ‘Nympha’ in Greek and in Roman mythology means ‘Nature-goddess’. Nymphacine is an alkaloid present in all parts except seeds and contain 47% starch and fatty oils. Flowers are used as cardiac tonic to relieve pains and cures diseases of liver and skin and rhizomes are used in tannin industry, seeds for culinary purposes and leaves as dining plates. Dried rhizome powder is used to cure piles.
Among the few bulbous ornamentals which survive only in water, one of them is water lily. Water lilies constitute an important element in tropical aquatic ornamental horticulture because of their strikingly beautiful flowers with wide spectrum of colours. Its flowers are very formal in shape and rather more attractive than lotus. Many are fragrant and there is great variation even in size of the flowers and leaves. Unripe fruits of Nymphaea rubra are used as vegetables and flowering stalks as vegetables and salad. Rhizomes are used in tannin industry and seeds for culinary purposes. Leaves are used as dining plates. Nymphacine alkaloid is available in all parts of the plant except the seeds which are free from this alkaloid and contain 47 per cent starch and fatty oils. Rhizomes of N. stellata are edible and also used to relieve cardiac pains. Rhizomes of N. nouchali are used to cure dysentery and diarrhoea. The vegetable ‘kamal kakri’ is actually the rhizome of N. nouchali.

Abstract

High moisture paddy can be dried in a trolley drier at farm level/grain market to reduce losses during various post harvest operations. During last two paddy harvesting seasons quality analysis of eight, most popular varieties of fresh paddy arrivals from about 40 grain markets, scattered all over Punjab, was performed. Monitoring of paddy in grain markets showed that maximum number of samples (62.7%) was in the range of 12-18%, moisture content (w.b.). Over-dried paddy samples (<12% m.c., w.b.) were only 9.1%. The samples with more than 18% m.c ,w.b. (high moisture paddy) were 28.2%, which have to be dried to safe moisture levels. Milling characteristics of the analyzed samples indicated that the broken percentage was highest (25.5%) in PR-113 followed by PR-111 (20.6%) and minimum in Pusa-44 (12%). The highest insect- pest infestation (Sitotroga cerealella (olivier) was observed in PR-108, followed by PR-116, PR-113, PR-111, Lal Mundi, Govinda, PR-114 and Sharbati. The Mycoflora isolated and identified were Aspergillus, Penicillium, Mucor, Rhizopus, Alternaria, Curvularia, Helminthosporium and Cladosporium spp. Maximum fungal infestation were associated with samples of PR-108 variety. To avoid further proliferation of mycoflora and inset pests, paddy should be dried to safe moisture levels for further storage and processing. For this, a trolley drier has been developed by converting a conventional farmer’s tractor trolley, into a portable drier, which can reduce 5% moisture of 1 tonne batch of paddy in about 100 minutes, consuming 56 kWh of electrical energy

Advancement of both biological sciences and computer technology gave birth today’s one of the hottest area known as bioinformatics. Gradually bioinformatics analysis has become an essential component to the continued improvement and development of any kind of biological research work. It has various applications in medicine, biotechnology, agriculture etc. Some of the applications of bioinformatics related to biological information analysis are as follows [1]
    
·    Information related to bio-molecules can be mapped (e.g.), the sequences can be parsed to find sites where so-called “restriction enzymes” will cut them.
    
·    Sequences can be compared, usually by aligning corresponding segments and looking for matching and mismatching letters in their sequences. Genes or proteins that are sufficiently similar are likely to be related and are therefore said to be “homologous” to each other.
    
·    If a homologous exists then a newly discovered protein may be modeled - that is 3D structure of the gene product can be predicted without doing laboratory experiments.
    
·    Bioinformatics is used to attempt to predict the function of actual gene products.

1    Dental formulae and eruption of tooth

2    Ageing based on rings of the horn

3    General appearance of animal

4    Longevity of different animals

Rainfed areas currently constitute 55 per cent of the net sown area of India and are home to two-thirds of livestock and 40 per cent of human population. Livestock plays an important role in the rainfed agro-ecosystem, because of inherent risk involved in the crop farming. The aspect of milk production costs in the country need to be reduced to make the dairy industry competitive. The milk production costs are generally high because of small herd size, difficult collection conditions in hills and high feed costs. Cost of production of rearing animals can be reduced either by improving per unit productivity or reducing feed cost which is the major constituent of total cost. The scientific practices of growing feed and fodder needs to be disseminated among the farmers for increasing the efficiency of dairy animals.

Forages also contribute in prevention of soil erosion and decline in organic matter and fertility. They can also help in reducing nitrogen fertilizer costs and the energy costs associated with application of nutrients.This chapter attempts to determine the economics of different fodder and fodder seed crops for highlighting their importance in the livestock sector in hills.

Introduction

Livestock are vital to subsistence farming and sustainable livelihood in most developing countries. Of India’s population of one billion people, more than 70 percent live in the rural areas. India also has more than 30 percent of the world’s bovine population. So, Milk production costs are generally high Livestock rearing plays a significant role in the economy of the Indian people. Crop residues and pastures / grasslands are the major feed resource for this activity.

Climatic, topography, physiographic factors, altitude and related aspects have influenced the distribution of various crop and grass species, which determine the fodder/forages production both qualitatively and quantitatively (Whyte, 1968). Though livestock rearing is an important occupation of farmers in India, the scientific forage cultivation has remained almost neglected. Thoughtless cutting of trees and indiscriminate use of grazing areas has lead to denudation of hill slopes, which has resulted in critically low biomass availability and adverse effects on livestock production in hills and thus, the livestock productivity remains very low.