eChapters

Introduction
From the tiniest insects to the largest blue whales, all species in the animal kingdom have been shown to undergo the migration. Millions of animals embark on epic journeys every year in search of food, shelter, and opportunity for mating. These animals routinely travel thousands of kilometres by land, sea, or air, which both tests and improves their endurance. Among the most striking animal migrations are those of Arctic terns. The long-distance migration of these little birds from pole to pole is well-known. They are thought to move over 40,000 kilometres (25,000 miles) a year, spending the majority of their time at sea chasing an endless summer. One of the most well-known migrations is that of the monarch butterfly, which travels across several generations. Though they are widespread throughout the United States and beyond, monarch butterflies are most known for their ability to travel 4,800 kilometres (3,000 miles) from Canada to Mexico. Millions of monarch butterflies fly south each year from their northern ranges to the oyamel fir forests near the Sierra Madre mountains, where they build massive roosts to remain warm throughout the winter. The monarchs begin their annual migration northwards in the spring, taking three to five generations to reach their goal. The migration that is the most dramatic belongs to the wildebeest. They coexist with thousands of zebras and gazelles in enormous herds that number over a million. The yearly migration of wildebeest across Tanzania and Kenya in quest of new water and grazing land is well-known. One of the most magnificent displays of nature is thought to be the migration. Animals that migrate are essential to preserving ecosystem balance and sustaining life as we know it. They distribute seeds and serve as pollinators, which support the structure and functionality of ecosystems.

Participatory water management, principles of sustainable farming and crop water productivity and strategic water management practices
Participatory irrigation management
Farmers’ participation in management of water resources is one of the prime requirements to improve the irrigation efficiency and enhance food production to meet the future requirement. The objectives participatory irrigation management (PIM) are to achieve equity in water distribution, make best use of rain, surface and ground water conjunctively, develop community responsibility to collect water charges and create a sense of ownership of water resources and the irrigation system among the users so as to promote economy in water use and preservation of system, improve service deliveries through better operation and maintenance and achieve optimum utilization of available resources.
Participation of farmers in the realm or irrigation water management implies an active role of beneficiaries in all the facets of irrigation water management and its attendant linkages with the main system of management in agricultural/agronomic activities. This role is very different from the traditional passive role of farmers to look to the department for irrigation, for water supply and its distribution. The timing of farmers’ involvement is crucial. Farmers’ participation is most effective, when it takes place from initial stages of project planning, including the stage of project formulation. Such involvement forms part of ideal conditions for a partnership between farmers and government. The present theme “more crops per drop” is feasible provided the farmers are encouraged and supported to play an active role in the operation and management of the irrigation system. However, to operationalize this concept, there is a need to involve all the farmers within the command area, so that collective and collaborative action becomes possible.
Importance of Participatory Water Management
The per-capita availability of cultivable land as well as water is going to be stagnated, wherein irrigation is the only key factor leading to increased

INTRODUCTION
    
The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is considered to be oldest among the domesticated tree fruits. It considered a symbol of life in desert because it tolerate high temperature, drought and salinity more than many other fruits. Date palm fruits are eaten as raw dates (Khalal stage), Soft dates (Tamar stage) and dry dates (Chhuhara). Different processed products viz sugar, starch, vinegar, juice, toffies, wine, chutney, jam, pickels etc. are prepared from date fruits. Leaves of date palm trees are utilized for preparation of baskets, brooms, ropes, building materials, fuel and paper. The plantation is also useful for stabilization and maintenance of ecological balance in the desert regions

Introduction

India is the seventh largest having 329.73 million ha of geographical area and second most populous country having more than a billion population in the world. There is no other substitute other than to use every square inch of land and every drop of water effectively and efficiently. Though there was markedly increase in annual food grain production from 51 (195051) million tones t0 206 million tones (200001), still the death on hunger is visualized.

The demand for food is increasing with everincreasing population growth rate. So there is no option other than to increase food production. There is very little or no scope of horizontal expansion due to land limitation, the question of vertical expansion is the only way to fit with the situation. Genetically improved crop variety, hybrids, mechanized agriculture, higher rate of fertilizers and chemicals application may give one or two more green revolution, but the question lies how far it can sustain greenness?

Adoption of improved crop cultivars, cropping system, increasing cropping intensities, precision farming can hold good to get out of this situation where whole system is to be considered.

The cropping intensities in the states like Assam, Bihar, MP, Orissa, UP and West Bengal are 137.7, 137.8, 125.6, 154.6, 148.6 and 159.6 percent, respectively (FAI, 199495). This indicated that a vast majority of lands remain fallow during dry season due to lack of proper technologies, which are under rainfed conditions, neglected. Except West Bengal, more than half of the arable land remains fallow during rainless period. Increasing cropping intensities in rainfed uplands is not easily achievable but there is great potential of intensification of cropping in rainfed lowland by utilizing natural resources and conserved residual moisture. Pulses like black gram, green gram, lentil, lathyrus, chick pea and oilseeds like linseed, groundnut, rapeseed could not only increase the cropping intensities but also come forward to increase national productivity.

The world’s fisheries, encompassing both marine and freshwater environments, play a critical role in global food security, livelihoods, and economies. However, these vital resources are increasingly threatened by the far-reaching consequences of climate change. This chapter delves into the multifaceted impacts of climate change on the fisheries sector, exploring the complex interplay between rising temperatures, altered weather patterns, and ocean acidification, and how these changes affect fish populations, habitats, and the communities that depend on them.
We will examine the ways in which climate change is altering the fundamental
dynamics of aquatic ecosystems, leading to shifts in species distribution, disruptions in food webs, and increased vulnerability to extreme weather events. Special attention will be given to the differential impacts on various regions and fisheries, considering the unique challenges faced by small-scale fisheries and developing nations. Furthermore, the chapter will discuss the potential consequences for global fish production, economic stability, and food security, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable management practices and adaptive strategies to mitigate these adverse effects and ensure the longterm viability of the fisheries sector.
13.1 Climate Change Impacts on Marine Fisheries
Climate change is significantly altering marine ecosystems, leading to profound impacts on fisheries. These changes affect various aspects of fish biology and ecology, including fishery dynamics, migration patterns, and breeding seasons (Fig.13.1). Here’s a detailed breakdown:

Introduction

Food is a culture, emotion, hospitality and prestige which is closely knitted with tradition. Traditional knowledge is a community based functional knowledge system which is developed, preserved and refined by generations through continuous interaction, observation and experimentation with their surrounding environment. It includes beliefs, values, and practices gathered from the practical experience of older generation, and its whole function is survival and development of culture of people. Traditional foods, originated from ancestral kitchens are developed through ages, invented, modified, utilised and evolved to improve nutritional and social wellbeing of the people around the world. Most of them are culture specific, region specific, environment specific, community specific and season specific. These foods are socially, culturally and economically important and provide food security, enhance livelihood and improve nutritional and social wellbeing of people. Food culture arises out of the place of a people’s origin and so traditional local foods hold the potential to bind and stabilise communities and enable a cultural continuity through conserving their histories. Indian cuisine is represented as a wide spectrum of food cultures with distinctive regional differences and preferences (Achaya, 1998).

Abstract

Continental erosion and fluvial transport play an important role enhancing mobilization of organic carbon from soils and transferring this pool to the ocean through downstream rivers and streams. The Ganges-Brahmaputra river system represents one of the largest transporters of terrestrial carbon to ocean. Intensive agriculture in the Ganges basin coupled with atmospheric deposition (AD) of nitrogen may render the soil more prone to erosion loss of carbon and nutrients. The aims of this study were to quantify atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (AD-N) in the watershed and to assess the influence of land use and AD-N on carbon and nitrogen transport in Ganga River. We collected samples in summer low flow along a 1595 km long transect of the river to assess the status of DOC under variable land use and AD-N input and, at monthly intervals along a 35 km long transect to understand seasonal patterns and the influence of local control. Our study shows average deposition of reactive-N (NO₃^- + NH₄⁺) range from 19.7 kg ha^-1yr-1 in upper stretch to 38.6 kg ha-1yr-1 in the middle stretch. The AD-N in lower stretch was almost similar to the values recorded in the middle stretch of the watershed. The average concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in the river range from 0.62 to 5.3 mg L-1 and 52.0 to 385.6 µg L-1 respectively. The land-derived carbon and nitrogen emerging in surface runoff showed positive correlation with AD-N and the river DOC showed synchrony with land use, AD-N and autochthonous carbon pool. Our data indicate that DOC in Ganga River is rising and the land use together with AD-N is an important driver of rising DOC. We suggest that future climate model should consider large scale regional time series data on changing state of atmosphere-land-water coupling and associated shifts in carbon and nutrient transport of major rivers. This has relevance predicting region specific climate change drivers and preparing action plan for integrated river basin management (IRBM).

6.1. Introduction

Food packaging has a significant contribution in preserving the quality of the food throughout the processing and storage. The package containing food should maintain the quality of the product for the longest time under particular environmental conditions. The quality of various food and beverages decline with the passage of time and food become unacceptable to consume. The time in which food deteriorates and become unacceptable is termed as shelf-life. The degradation of quality with time under storage conditions depends upon intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors. The shelf-life study of a product provides important information to manufacturer and consumer regarding the quality of the food product throughout the storage time.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a complicated concept. The most often cited definition comes from the U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED): “Sustainable development is the development that fulfills the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their requirements.” Hence, sustainability has been defined as meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Introduction

According to the Forest Survey of India (FSI) “all lands, more than one hectare in area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10% is defined as Forest” (FSI 2009). The status of forests and forest management systems contribute to the vulnerability of forests to climate change. Indian forests are extremely diverse and heterogeneous. Forests and Climate Change are intimately intertwined. Forests have regulated the climate, rain, groundwater, soil of the earth over millennia. Their transpiration act as a regulator of the balance of oxygen and carbon-di-oxide: the world’s forests and forest soils currently store more than one trillion tons of carbon – twice the amount found floating free in the atmosphere. The forest and soils are home of biological diversity.

4.1. What is pH?

pH is used to classify substance as acidic, neutral and alkaline, based on the prevalence of free H⁺ ions. Water molecules on autoionization dissociate to produce H⁺ and OH^- in equal number, although degree of dissociation is very small because of its stability (about one molecule in 10 million is ionized at any one time). H⁺ ions later attached to un-ionized water molecule to give rise hydronium ions, (H₃O)⁺

1. Blast
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Pathogen attacks the crop at all stages of crop growth.
• Symptoms appear on leaves, nodes, rachis, and glumes. On the leaves, the lesions appear as small bluish green flecks, which enlarge under moist weather to form the characteristic spindle shaped spots with grey centre and dark brown margin (Leaf blast).
• Spots coalesce as the disease progresses and large areas of the leaves dry up and wither. Severely infected nursery and field appear as burnt.• Black lesions appear on nodes girdling them. The affected nodes may break up and all the plant parts above the infected nodes may die (nodal blast).
• During flower emergence, the fungus attacks the peduncle and the lesion turns to brownish-black which is referred to as rotten neck / neck rot / panicle blast (neck blast).
• In early neck infection, grain filling does not occur while in late infection, partial grainfilling occurs (Fig.1).

Rust
The rust of wheat has been studied more than any other disease in the world. K.C. Mehta and colleagues conducted exceptional research on the disease in India. There are three recognized wheat rusts. These include Puccinia graminis tritici, which causes black stem rust; Puccinia recondita, which causes brown rust (leaf rust); and P. striiformis, which causes yellow rust. Considering their later seasonal arrival, brown and yellow rusts inflict more damages than black rust.
1. Black or Stem Rust
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Symptoms are produced on almost all aerial parts of the wheat plant but are most common on stem, leaf sheaths.
• Brown pustules of uredina appear on lower surface of the leaves, leaf sheaths and the stems, and on the spikes. which give them a rusty appearance.
• Uredina form urediniospores , which are the repeating spores.
• Uredina gradually start producing teliospores and finally transform into telia.

INTRODUCTION

Peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] is a temperate origin crop but well adapted to sub-tropical regions. It is an important fruit crop of Rosaceae family and is the third most important temperate tree fruit species behind apples and pears. Trees of most peach cultivars require from 100–1000 hours of chilling.

NUTRITIVE AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Peaches are good source of sugars, vitamins and minerals. It has a rich source of vitamins A and C and also contains potassium and fibre. The fruit has over 80% water and one average sized peach have 7% of the dietary fibre which is required each day. It helps in maintaining healthy vision, skin care, nervous system, healthy bones, and teeth. It has anti-aging properties and also helps in detoxification, as well as improving digestion and cellular health. It has a wealth of essential nutrients and antioxidants which are valuable during pregnancy and it helps in strengthening the immune system. Peaches contain carotenoids and anthocyanins which have antioxidant properties and act as a protective agent against various problems i.e inflammation, cancer, atherosclerosis, obesity, cholesterol and other circulatory problems (Prior and Cao 2000; Wargovich 2000).

1. Introduction

Herbarium is simply a dried and pressed collection of plants arranged in an accepted sequence of classification (Lawrence 1951, Shetler 1969). It can be a very useful teaching aid or an absorbing hobby (Cronquist 1966). According to Fosberg and Sachet (1965) “A modern herbarium is a great filing system for information about plants, both primarily in the form of actual specimens of plants and secondarily in the form of published information, pictures and recorded notes”. It is also a research, training and service institution that serves as a reference centre, documentation facility and data store house (Radford 1986). It is now well recognized that a herbarium is a vast reservoir of facts about plants. The word ‘Herbarium’ was originally applied, not to a collection of plants but to a book dealing with medicinal herbs. Tournefort in about 1700 used the term as an equivalent to ‘Hortus Siccus’ which was later on adopted by Linnaeus (Stearn 1957). The present concept and development of herbarium is due to efforts of botanists for more than four centuries. The concept of herbarium has been changing continuously, which in turn, has affected the gradual development of herbarium and herbarium practices.

For practical reasons, the classification of the world’s flora is primarily based on herbarium material and the literature associated with it. Despite its limitations, a herbarium has certain advantages over living collections. It is usually only in the herbarium that we can compare all the related species of a genus in the same place, in the same state and at the same time (Davis 1961).

The herbarium material, therefore, formed the foundation of all botanical studies. We should, therefore, realise that herbaria are the custodians of enormous data pertaining to plants. They are usually seen as old-fashioned and expensive “stamp collection” without realising their paramount role in biological sciences. However, the world-wide rise of interest in the field of conservation, biodiversity and bioprospection offer a new chance for herbaria. Furthermore, computers offer a golden opportunity to raise the status of herbarium taxonomy by making routine curatorial procedures more efficient.

Although Jain and Rao (1976) elaborately discussed the methods of field collections, identification and preservation in the herbarium, the salient features of herbarium in up dated form with various procedures followed in Indian context are discussed in this chapter.

Maize or corn (Zea mays L.), which was first domesticated in Mexico, is the most widely grown cereal crop in the world. Maize is consumed as feed and food, and also has myriads industrial applications, including the production of bioethanol and starch. Due to its highest genetic potential, production and productivity among the cereal crops, maize is called as “Queen of the Cereals”. Noble Laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the Father of Green revolution stated 15 years ago that “The past two decades saw the revolution in rice and wheat, the next few decades will be known as maize era”. In India, maize is the third largest grain crop and its production and demand is increasing rapidly. In India, it is primarily a non-food cereal crop, with only 10% being consumed as direct human food, while the rest being used for feed, industrial and export purposes. The effective deployment of various frontier technologies viz. genetic engineering, doubled haploids, molecular markers, phenomics etc.has greatly helped in raising productivity of maize crop worldwide in the last decade.The present chapter provides an overview on role of frontier technologies in maize crop improvement.

1. Fruit : Types and their Classification

Fruit:The botanical definition of fruit is a seed-bearing part of a flowering plant or tree that can be eaten as food

or

Fruits are matured ovaries plus any associated flower parts and contain the seeds of the plant. The ovary may be subdivided into two or more carpels (then termed compound ovary) each bearing one to many ovules. Individual carpels develop into sections of a whole fruit, as with citrus where each familiar segment of the fruit represents one matured carpel. If the ovary is not subdivided, then it is termed simple. The ovules will mature into seeds if fertilized. Fruit has three parts.

Madhya Pradesh is a major pulse producing state of the country and more than half a dozen of pulses are grown on 48.99 lakh  ha area with an annual production of 41.73 lakh tonnes and average productivity of 852 kg/ha (Table 1).  The pulses production share of Madhya Pradesh is 28.6% to national pulses production. Amongst the pulses, chickpea, pigeonpea, moong, urad, lentil and field pea are the important crops of the state. These crops contribute about 3296 thousand tones to national pulse basket from an area of about 4318 thousand hectares (Table 2). Among the pulse crops grown in the state, chickpea accounts 76% in production from 60% area. Second important pulse is lentil (13%) followed by uradbean (12%), pigeonpea (8%), field pea (5%) and mungbean (2%) with percent share of 8, 5, 7, 3 and 1 in production, respectively. The area and consequent production of pulse crops in the state showed, in general, an increasing trend since 1981 till date (Table 2 and Fig.1). Linear increase in yield of these crops from 531 kg/ha to 764 kg/ha in this period is also witnessed as the impact of technological advancement in these crops in the recent past. Natural calamities mostly drought in few to most of the districts is the main reason of low productivity in triennium ended in 2004.

Introduction

Rainfed agro-ecosystems occupy a considerable place in Indian agriculture, covering 80 M ha in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid climatic zones; constituting nearly 57% of the net cultivated area. Rainfed areas contribute almost 100% of forest products, 84-87% of coarse-grain cereals and pulses, 80% of horticulture, 77% of oilseeds, 60% of cotton and 50% of fine cereals including rice, wheat, maize, sorghum etc (Srinivasarao et al., 2010; 2011). Rainfed regions support 60% of livestock, 40% of human population and contribute 40% of food grains and several special-attribute commodities such as seed spices, dyes, herbs, gums, etc. (Srinivasarao et al., 2011). It is estimated that even after achieving the full irrigation potential, barring for successful completion of river linking project, nearly 45 to 50% of the total cultivated area will remain dependent on rain. Undoubtedly, the rainfed agriculture would continue to occupy a prominent place in Indian agriculture for a long time to come (Venkateswarlu et al., 2011). Despite the progress made so far, rainfed agriculture in India encounters multiple risks and constraints relating to biophysical and socio-economic issues. Agricultural productivity in rainfed areas continues to remain low and unstable due to weather aberrations, nutrient disorder and poor socio-economic status of farmers.