eChapters

2.1 Introduction

Biomass store solar energy in the chemical form and it is most precious and versatile resources on earth. Biomass, unlike fossil fuels, is a renewable energy resource that is available where the climatic conditions are favorable for plant growth and production¹. The term biomass is used for all organic materials which are combustible in nature, mainly plant and animal origin present in land and aquatic environments. Biomass is considered carbon neutral, because the amount of carbon it can release is equivalent to the amount it absorbed during its life time. There is no net increase of carbon to the environment in the long term when combusting the lignocellulosic materials. Therefore, we can say that biomass is a renewable source of energy and can play vital role in responding to concerns over the protection of the environment and the security of energy supply^2,3.

Biomass energy accounts for about 15% of the world’s primary energy consumption and about 38% of the primary energy consumption in developing countries⁴. Furthermore, biomass often accounts for more than 90% of the total rural energy supplies in developing countries⁵. It is the main source to meet out domestic energy in developing countries⁶. The efficient use of fuel wood is much more eco-friendly than the use of efficient and conventional fuels like kerosene and liquefy petroleum gas (LPG). LPG emits 15 times more CO₂ per kg than wood, and kerosene emits nearly 10 times as much. CO₂ is the prominent candidate for global. It is commonly assumed that biomass fuel cycles based on renewable in nature and greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral because the combusted carbon in the form of CO₂ is soon taken up by re-growing vegetation⁷.

2.1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Forests covered only 31 per cent of the land in the world in 2011, while land used for agriculture, (cultivable land, perennial crops and pastures), covered 38 per cent (FAO 2011). In the history of humankind, agriculture is a recent invention (Mazoyer and Roudart, 2005). With the transition from the huntergatherer lifestyle to one of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution, farmers quickly expanded their activity into forest areas. They developed shifting cultivation, an agricultural practice with temporal rotations in forest ecosystems. Shifting cultivation still exists today in tropical regions and is the livelihood basis for hundreds of millions of people (Mertz et al., 2009). The range in the population estimate is extremely wide, because of difficulties in counting smallholders spread out under the tree canopy at the margins of tropical forests, as also due to confusion that exists in differentiating shifting cultivators from other farmers involved in small-scale agriculture (Thrupp et al., 1997).

Introduction
At the moment, liposomes, which are tiny bubble-like structures made of phospholipid bilayers, are an important part of all drug transport methods. Their unique ability to hold medicinal chemicals that both like and don’t like water is what makes them stand out. These molecules’ ability to change forms is very important for making different medicines more bioavailable, stable, and effective (Shah et al., 2020; Wagner and Vorauer-Uhl, 2011). Since Alec D. Bangham first found liposomes in the 1960s, they have gone from being simple experimental models to highly advanced carriers that are now used in both clinical and business settings. Liposome production has changed over time from simple lab methods to complex systems used on a commercial scale. At the moment, these methods can make liposomal formulations that are of high quality and consistently good traits (Alavi et al., 2022; Wagner et al., 2006). It is very important to know how to control the physicochemical qualities of liposomes during the manufacturing process. This includes things like size, charge, lamellarity, and how well they encapsulate (Mozafari et al., 2005; Watwe and Bellare, 1995). It is important to know the qualities of liposomes in order to figure out how they act in biological systems, like how fast drugs are released, how long they stay in circulation, and how they spread throughout the body. What method is used to make liposomal pharmaceutical compositions has a big effect on how safe and useful they are. Over the years, many methods have been developed to make liposomes with specific properties that are useful for their purpose (Sorgi and Huang, 1996; Patil and Jadhav, 2014). One of the first and easiest ways to make liposomes was through thin-film hydration. It was mostly used in places where study was being done. “Thin-film hydration” is the process of an organic liquid evaporating after lipids dissolve in it, which makes a thin film (Redziniak et al., 2017). After that, a watery phase is added to the film, which causes multilamellar vesicles (MLVs) to form. This method is easy to use and works well for smallscale applications, but it often creates liposome populations that aren’t all the same size or level of encapsulation. In order to get around these problems, methods like sonication and extrusion are used to make liposomes that are smaller and more uniform (Vemuri et al., 1990).
There is a method called “sonication” that can be used to efficiently change larger liposomes into smaller unilamellar vesicles (SUVs). The size of liposomes can be reduced very well with this method, which is known for being one of the first to do so. With this method, liposomes with diameters generally smaller than 100 nm can be made very efficiently. Because of this, these liposomes work well for many cellular purposes. Despite this, sonication could create heat and mechanical forces that could damage the structure of the liposome membrane or make it less stable for molecules that are particularly fragile. Improving the sonication settings is necessary to find the best balance between making the liposomes smaller while still protecting the inside parts (Liu and Meng, 2021).
An effective way to make liposomes with a precise and uniform size distribution is through extrusion. A pressure-based method can let liposomes pass through

Wilt

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum

Economic Importance

• Wilt is one of the major diseases of cotton, found wherever this crop is grown like Mexico, African countries, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, India and West Indies.
• In India, the disease was first reported from Nagpur by Evans in 1908.
• It appears in almost every cotton tract of the country. However, it is more or less absent in the loamy soils of Indo Gangetic plains and sandy loams of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other States.
• In affected susceptible varieties yield losses exceed 45-50%.

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an agro-ecological approach for sustainable crop production and intensification. CA comprises the resource conserving agricultural production practices that aim to achieve more produce at less cost while enhancing the quality of the natural resource base. CA is all about providing multiple options for farmers, endowed differentially. The basic components of CA include drastic reduction in tillage, adequate retention of crop residues on the soil surface, use of economically feasible diversified crop rotations, avoidance of freewheeling and practice of controlled traffic, if possible. These elements of CA are not site-specific but represent unvarying objectives that are practised to extend CA technologies efficiently across all production conditions. No-till agriculture is considered as a revolutionary step in the direction of preventing land degradation and rehabilitation of the resilient but fragile lands. No-till agriculture together with other associated management practices such as direct seeding into loose crop residues to provide soil cover and to conserve soil moisture, judicious choice of crop rotations and agro-forestry tree species constitutes CA. CA is thus being widely accepted as an important component of the overall strategy for enhancing productivity, improving environmental quality and preserving natural resources for food security and poverty alleviation in such areas.  Recent CA trials conducted in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu seem to bring out that the rainfed tropical India stands to benefit more from CA than the irrigated areas.

Introduction

In the past few decades, there has been a considerable demand for certain air-breathing fishes from India, mainly in the research laboratories of western countries. This is probably due to their unique modifications, especially in the respiratory and circulatory systems. Though, the air-breathing fishes are capable of extracting oxygen both from water as well as air, yet their transportation to long distances in living conditions posed several problems, such as hypoxia, injury, disease and finally death.

Proper sanitization of all the equipment and accessories is one of the essential steps for the study of the structure of gills, determination of oxygen uptake of fishes under normal conditions, under the association, under anaesthetization, under ammonia toxicity and all other steps of packing and transportation in this pandemic of COVID-19.

For effective live fish transportation, inside and out comprehension on the ideal ecological conditions for negligible pressure and greatest endurance is required. At the point when the fish leaves its normal climate, it should be in a self-supportable climate that provisions important necessities, for example, ideal temperature, oxygen and so forth.

Transportation of different life cycle stages (spawn, hatchlings, fry, fingerlings and adults) of fish is traditionally done in different types of containers. The age-old practice of transportation entails heavy mortality probably due to depletion of oxygen, hypertension of carbon dioxide, the toxicity of accumulating wastes, hyperactive strain and exhaustion, infection, injury and variation in pH, temperature, salinity and hardness etc (Jhingran, 1985). A portion of dissolved oxygen is utilized both by the fish and other microorganisms for their metabolism. As a result, the system becomes gradually deplete of oxygen and affects the fish. To overcome the problem of high mortality during transportation, it is essential to evaluate suitable conditions for their transportation. An inexpensive or less expensive method of live fish transport will help our aqua-culturists in many ways.

Introduction

Fish play an important role in meeting current and future food needs within the global food system. Fish farming holds tremendous promise in responding to the surging demand for food, which is taking place due to increasing population. Fish now accounts for almost 17 percent of the global population's intake of protein, and in some coastal and island countries, it can top 70 percent. Aquaculture has been identified as an important solution to address the challenges to global food security arising from climate change and the projected world population of 9.5 billion by 2050. However, the challenges facing this sector, including overfishing, habitat degradation, and climate change, necessitate international cooperation and coordination.

Introduction
Liposomal formulations constitute a distinctive category of nanomedicine platforms, showcasing potential applications in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmetics (Salave et al., 2024). Since their discovery, liposomes have attracted considerable interest because of their biocompatibility, ability to encapsulate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, and potential to improve drug bioavailability while minimizing toxicity (Bangham, 1992; Dhayalan et al., 2024). The pharmaceutical industry is rapidly recognizing liposomes as effective drug delivery vehicles capable of changing pharmacokinetics, targeting particular tissues, and managing drug release. The unique properties of these vesicles, mainly made up of phospholipids and cholesterol, have created new opportunities for developing drugs that present difficult therapeutic indices (Wang et al., 2023). Nonetheless, the intricate architecture and functional diversity require comprehensive and advanced analytical evaluation, essential for maintaining quality, efficacy, and stability during the formulation’s lifecycle (Fan et al., 2021 a). The swift progress in liposomal drug development has resulted in a heightened need for strong analytical techniques. Establishing reliable, reproducible, and precise analytical methods is a crucial step in the formulation and commercialization of liposomal drugs (Khan et al., 2024). These methods must consider not only the physical and chemical stability but also the entrapment efficiency, particle size distribution, surface charge, and drug release kinetics, along with other essential characteristics. Considering that liposomal formulations consist of multiple components that interact dynamically, a thorough analytical approach is crucial. The complexity of ensuring quality and performance in liposomal products arises from the diverse physicochemical characteristics of liposomes, which can be affected by formulation composition, the encapsulated drug, and external environmental factors (Giordani et al., 2023).
The primary focus of liposomal characterization is the assessment of particle size and size distribution, as these factors have a direct impact on pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and cellular uptake. Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) are widely used methods for assessing liposome size and distribution, offering important information regarding batch-to-batch consistency and formulation stability (Nadkarni et al., 2024). Furthermore, the size of the particles influences their circulation duration in living organisms, as smaller vesicles typically attain extended circulation and enhanced tissue infiltration. A key parameter, zeta potential, or surface charge, offers insights into the electrostatic stability of liposomal suspensions, which is essential for predicting aggregation behavior and shelf-life (Biscaia-Caleiras et al., 2024; Paramshetti et al., 2024).
Encapsulation efficiency is a crucial metric for therapeutic effectiveness, indicating the ratio of the drug contained within the liposome to the overall quantity utilized in the formulation. This aspect is essential, particularly for powerful medications where precise dosing is required. Measuring encapsulation efficiency typically requires the use of separation methods such as ultracentrifugation,

9.1. Introduction

Reproduction is an important event in the life of an animal (both male and female). The success of a dairy farm depends on the reproductive efficiency of cattle which depends on the efficient reproductive management. The animals should be reproductively sound. The cow should be a regular breeder with calving interval of 12-13 months to minimize the generation interval and to increase the profitability of the dairy farm. The bull should have high libido, produce good quality semen with high fertility rate.

Wood apple (Feronia limonia (L) Swingle) is a thorny tree commonly found in dry deciduous forests. In India, it is known by several common names like elephant apple, curd apple, monkey fruit, kavat, curd fruit and kath bel. In Malaysia, it is known as gelinggai or belinggai; in Thailand, ma-khwit; in Cambodia, kramsang; in Laos, ma-fit; in French, pommed’ elephant, pomme de bois or citron des mois. The tree is very hardy and has tolerance to drought and salinity. Its cultivation as a fruit tree is rare, but fruits of naturally occurring trees in community lands, forests and on roadsides are  used for chutney and pickle making. Fruits being rich in pectin, minerals and vitamins offer unique opportunity to utilize them extensively for processing. Extensive root system and synchronization of its reproductive phase with high moisture availability make it a suitable crop for arid zones.

Origin and Distribution
The wood-apple is native and common in  wild in dry plains of India and SriLanka and cultivated along roads and edges of fields and occasionally in orchards. It is also grown throughout Southeast Asia, in Northern Malaysia and on Penang Island. In India, the fruit was traditionally a “poor man’s food” until processing techniques were developed in the mid-1950’s. It is one of the very hardy trees  growing all over the plains of India, especially in the semi-arid and arid regions. It is more common in Deccan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatishgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand. Iit also occurs in the Western Himalayas upto an elevation of about 500 m amol.

Grape, Vitis vinifera Linn. is one of the most important fruit crops grown in India. It belongs to the family Vitaceae and is a remunerative temperate fruit crop of India. It is believed that Armenia near the Caspian and Black seas in Russia is the centre of origin of grape. By the end of 12^th century, it was introduced in India from Iran and Afghanistan. Grapes are normally eaten fresh as table fruit.

Grapes are used in a wide range of food products - from raisins to wine. They are also loaded with several nutrients and antioxidants and also have high amounts of phytonutrient resveratrol. According to some studies, this phytonutrient is good for heart. It is a good source of calcium, phosphorus, iron and vitamins. In fact, while grapes are good for our overall health, it is especially lauded for its heart benefits. There are several colours of grapes, including red, black, purple or blue (concord), green (which is used to make white wine), pink and yellow. Concord grapes are usually used to make grape juice, grape jelly and grape flavouring.

Cymbidium is a genus in the orchid family Orchidaceae. It was first described by Olof Swartz in 1799. The name is derived from the Greek word “kumbos”, meaning “hole”, “cavity”. It refers to the form of the base of the lip. The flowers are long-lasting, both on the plant and when cut large attractive and available in a wide range of colours. Smaller plants are now coming into vogue as decorative pot plants. These have smaller flowers but they are as desirable as the standard varieties and often more acceptable in modern homes. The popularity of miniature cymbidium is now spreading from Asia to the worldwide orchid community. These ancient flowers have been treasured in numerous societies for nearly two thousand years. Many orchid lovers are most charmed by its fragrance and form rather than its petite size.

ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION

Cymbidiums figure in the earliest historical records of human association with orchids from China and Japan. Cymbidium native of the monsoonal forest foothills of the Himalayas with the warmer growing Asiatic species from the tropical lowland monsoonal forests. The species come from the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal running through China and Japan, Indo-China down to Malaysia to Australia. This genus is distributed in tropical and subtropical Asia such as northern India, China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Borneo and northern Australia. The larger flowered species from which the large flowered hybrids are derived grow at high altitudes. They have been cultivated for thousands of years especially in China. Cymbidiums became popular in Europe during the Victorian era. One feature that makes the plant so popular is the fact that it can survive during cold temperatures as low as 7^oC. Originating in temperate and tropical parts of India, Nepal, China, Japan and down to Malaysia and Australia, cymbidiums are probably the most widely grown of all orchids because of their ease of cultivation and long-lasting flowers. From the 40-50 species, thousands of hybrids have been bred with flowers ranging in colour from white, yellow and orange to pink, red, brown and green, and varying in size from 5-10 cm across. There are several species existing in the Indian forest area. Several species are existing in the forest of Nagaland (Changkija et al., 1992), some of them are given in Table 1.

Introduction

India is the second largest producer of vegetable in the world after China. Every year diseases cause economic losses (8-23%) and also post-harvest losses (20-25 %) in vegetable crops. Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is a nutritionally important and remunerative crop grown throughout the world and is consumed both as a vegetable, shelled green beans as well as dry beans. It is known commonly known as french bean, common bean, kidney bean, field bean, snapbean, dry bean etc on the basis of its variety and edible purpose. The crop is infected by a number of diseases. Common bacterial blight, Anthracnose, White mold, Bean Common Mosaic, Bean yellow mosaic, Web Blight, Halo blight, Dry root rot and wilt, Bean Rust are some of the major diseases.

Bacterial Blight of Bean

Three types of bacterial blight are found to occur in beans viz. Common bacterial blight or Bacterial blight, Halo blight and Bacterial brown spot. These three diseases affect leaves, pods, stems and seeds in similar manner such that it is usually impossible to distinguish the diseases from one another based on the visual symptoms. While common blight is usually more prevalent in warmer weather, the other two occur more in cool weather.

1.1. Background Introduction

We live in a world with “throw-away” societies that are involved in a pattern of consuming packaged products that don’t even last past a single use or even a year and discarding the waste. This lifestyle generating waste is negatively impacting public health, environment and imposing socio-economic problems on us. The waste is continuously consuming our land, resources, and energy for storage, management, treatment, and disposal. Solid waste was an urban issue initially but has reached every corner nowadays. 

Introduction

Carbon on earth is stored primarily in rocks and sediments. Only a tiny fraction resides in mobile reservoirs – the atmosphere, oceans, soil and terrestrial biosphere – to play a vital role in biological, physical and chemical processes at the earth’s surface. The small fraction of C present in the atmosphere as CO₂ is especially important, as its abundance is a major regulator of the climate of the planet. The rapid increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ over the past 150 years, reaching current concentrations of about 380 ppm, corresponds with combustion of fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial age. Conversion of forest lands to agricultural use also redistributed C from plants and soils to the atmosphere and altered ecological balance through physiological effects on vegetation. The understanding of C sources and sinks has advanced enormously in the last decade. However, we cannot yet quantitatively define the global effects of human activities such as agriculture and forestry on climate change. An understanding on the long-term changes in atmospheric concentration will help enhance understanding on how the earth’s climate will evolve in future.

Cyanide poisoning

Cyanide poisoning occurs in animals due to sorghum and/or other chemicals and characterized by ataxia, incoordination, cystitis, paralysis, and death.

Etiology • Sorghum – drought resistant varieties.

• Fumigants, fertilizers,

• Pesticides.

• Industrial leakage/waste, electroplating.

• Photographic processes.

Introduction

Agroforestry refers to practices, which deliberately or intentionally mix or retain woody perennials on the crop/animal production systems. It combines elements of agriculture, crops and/ or animals with elements of forestry in production system in a unit of land, either simultaneously or sequentially. The term woody perennials includes tree, shrubs, bushes, palm, bamboos, etc. which in agroforestry context are often referred to as multipurpose trees and shrubs (Wood, 1988). The word deliberate has significance a few trees remaining during the process of land clearance for agriculture is not agroforestry. To qualify as agroforestry, a system should actively promote the woody perennials for a particular purpose, or purposes, on the farm (Bhatt et al., 2001). This land use system is particularly suitable for resource poor marginal farmers became diverse needs are fulfilled by one system with escape routes during natural calamities. In hill agro-ecosystems, agroforestry plays an important role in sustainable resource conservation and food security. It is also used to diversify and intensify farming systems through integration of indigenous tree-crops.

Plant hormones - They are defined as:

1. Small
2. Organic compounds;
3. Synthesized by the plant;
4. Active in low concentration (<10^-6);
5. Promote or inhibit growth and developmental responses;
6. Often show a separation of the site of production and the site of action (although this isn’t as clear a distinction as in animals).

Based on these criteria, would the following substances be considered hormones? Ca²⁺, sucrose, 2 4 - D, glycine, or K⁺?

Abstract: Water lily, bulbous ornamental, constitute element of aquatic gardens. A variety of flower colour, flower forms, modes of reproduction and leaf sizes exist in Nymphaea. This species is a complex hybrid group. A wide range of polyploidy (including aneuploidy, trisomy, polysomaty), polymorphism and heterozygosity exists within the cultivars of water lily. Genetic information and trait heritability is almost unknown for this crop. Breeders have created synthetic water lily hybrids. Low fecundity, limited fertility, reproductive barriers, low seed set, relatively low elemental (founding) species among elite germplasm often pose significant challenges to flower breeders. Breeding objectives with high priority include tolerance to drought, year round flowering and lower seed tannins. Future breeding and genetic studies are needed to further transform this crop.

Keywords: Nymphaea, correlation, sterility, interspecific hybridization polyploidy.