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Horticultural crops include the fruit crops, vegetables, spices, plantation crops, medicinal plants, aromatic plants, commercial flower crops and ornamental plants.

Knowledge on the methods by which these reproduce is of primary importance from the standpoint of plant breeding. Besides, their annual or perennial nature also decides the methods of breeding to be adopted to get desired improvement.

Two divisions of methods of reproduction commonly recognized are:

1. Asexual i.e. vegetative parts of the plants are utilized to produce new individuals.

2. Sexual i.e. gametic fusion, the resultant zygote develops into seed which is utilized to produce new individual.

This group can be further placed in several sub divisions according to the mode of pollination. They are

a. Naturally self pollinated crop - (e.g. tomato, pepper, brinjal) wherein cross pollination occurs less than 4 % only.

b. Often cross pollinated crop- (e.g. chillies, bhendi) wherein though self pollination is more frequent, cross- pollination may occur so frequently that some methods of preventing cross pollination between varieties and strains of different genotypic constitution must be followed throughout the breeding programme.
Common breeding methods can be applied to the above two groups, however, the parents chosen for breeding under often cross pollinated crop need to be selfed for few generations to select desirable, homozygous lines.

1. Introduction

Agricultural mechanization refers to usage of any improved tool, implement and machine by the farm workers to improve the efficiency of any operation to increase productivity. It also helps to reduce drudgery or stress which adversely affects human mental faculties leading to errors, imprecision and hazards and eventually loss of efficiency if done manually. In developed countries, however, mechanization is synonymous to automation. There is scope to mechanize every operation of crop production, post harvest and agro-processing.

The term plantation crops refers to those crops which are cultivated on an extensive scale in contiguous area, owned and managed by an individual or a company. The crops include tea, coffee, rubber, cocoa, coconut, arecanut, oil palm, palmyra and cashew. 
    ·    Coconut, cashew nut, cocoa, arecanut, oil palm and palmyra comes under Ministry of Agriculture.

Oilseed Crops consist of those groups of plants cultivated for substantial quantities of the oil, vegetable fat obtained from the seeds (endosperm) of the plants.

The major oilseeds grown world over are soybeans, sunflowers, rapeseed – mustard (or canola in USA & Canada), groundnuts (peanuts) and linseed. Seed oils from flax (linseed) and castor beans are used for industrial purposes. These Oilseed crops including oilseed bearing trees are the basic biological systems that produce oils, contributing to renewable energy production, help stabilize greenhouse gases, and mitigate the risk of climate change (Jaradat, 2016)

The oilseed crops are of heterogeneous group of plant species not having any common morphological and genetic features except production of seed oil. Crops like groundnut, sesame, castor bean, soybean and niger are grown during the rainy season and the others like rapeseed and mustard and safflower are grown in the post rainy season. Sunflower, however, may be grown in both the seasons. Hence the individual crops forming the conglomerate of Oilseed crops have to be treated differently for their improvement and production. Nevertheless, all of them produce a common end product viz., oil or vegetable fat, the importance of which is growing in product development, commerce and human and farm animal nutrition. The oilseed bearing crops have to be treated as a unique group in terms of research and development to come up with strategies for their judicious exploitation in the national farm economy. From the scientific point of view, the oilseed crops are energy rich and offer impressive potentials in terms of realizable production levels and valuable product development. In India good progress has been achieved so far in research and development of some oilseed crops; but there exists a need to scale to newer heights in terms of realising the hidden potentials of oilseed crops through basic and strategic research, with an integrated approach.

Agriculture has been the base of human livelihood since ancient time when the man started planting of seeds of some edible plants now called Agricultural crops. Domestication of food plants and animals was started with the development of human civilization. Thus agriculture can be explained as science and technology of growing food crops and rearing of animals. Still in several countries of the world, most of population is based on agriculture for their livelihood particularly in rural areas of that country. According to Williams and Haq (2002) there are over 7000 species of plants that can be used for food. The edible plants species grown for food are called agricultural crops. The crops grown in garden are known as garden cops or Horticulture crops. Horticulture is a branch of agriculture, which deals with intensive cultivation of garden crops such as fruits, vegetables, f lowers, ornamental plants, plantation crops, spices, medicinal and aromatic plants, and mushroom. It also deals with post-harvest technology of horticultural crops. Processing and Preservation of fruits and vegetables is a part of Post-harvest Technology of horticultural crops which deals with methods of processing and preservation of these crops to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables after harvesting.

All horticultural crops have their own importance in our society. Fruits, vegetables and spices are major ingredients of our meal. Spices add taste and flavor to our food and also have high medicinal values. Flowers and ornamental plants are used for decoration of environment and landscape. Aromatic and plantation crops have become industrial crops. Mushroom growing is a great enterprise. Among these crops fruits and vegetables are major crops and have been considered presently as highly economical and important food crops. There are 1200 crop species are used for vegetable purpose in the world (Hazra and Som, 2006). Fruits and vegetables are richest and cheapest source of all essential nutrients (carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals) required by our body for proper functioning of body organs and maintaining good health. Besides these nutrients they also supply water and fibers to our body which play vital roles in our body. Fruits and vegetables have important place in our daily diet and based on survey made by experts FAO WHO (2003) has recommended 400 g/capita/day of fruit and vegetables (fruits -100 g/capita/day and vegetables -300 g/capita/day) to be consumed for good health and prevent chronic diseases. Therefore, the demand of these food commodities has increased in the modern society due to increased awareness of the nutritional importance of fruits and vegetables. So that people must be aware that what part of fruit and vegetable is to be consumed?

1.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION

There is a folk tale from India which is mentioned under relevant situations. This tale teaches how different perspectives lead to different points of view. The tale of the blind men and an elephant originated in the ancient India, from where it has been widely spread to different parts of the world. This famous ancient tale mentions about six blind men who had never come in contact with an elephant during their lifetime and who know and visualize what the elephant appear like by touching it and feeling. In the tale it is highlighted that every blind man touches a different part of the elephant's huge body, but only one part, such as the leg, ear, tail, body or the tusk. These blind men then go on to narrate about the elephant on the basis of their touch and feeling and their recount of the elephant varied widely from each other. They were told that elephants could trample forests, carry huge loads and is very big in size. The six blind men were taken to the elephant and asked how it look like (Fig.1.1). The first blind man reached out and touched the side of the huge animal. "An elephant is smooth and solid like a wall!" he declared. "It must be very strong and powerful." The second blind man put his hand on the elephant's trunk. "An elephant is like a giant snake," he said. The third blind man felt the elephant's pointed tusk. "I was right," he decided. "This creature is as sharp and deadly as a spear." The fourth blind man touched one of the elephant's big ear and announced "I believe an elephant is like a huge fan or may be a magic carpet that can fly over mountains and treetops". The fifth blind man touched one of the four legs. "What we have here," he said, "is pillar of a house." The sixth blind man gave a tug on the elephant's coarse tail. "Why, this is nothing more than a piece of old rope and it appeared to him dangerous, indeed”.

A ‘spice’ is a seed, fruit, root, bark, bulb, corm, rhizome or any other part of a plant primarily used for enhancing the taste, flavor or color of food. Some spices serve as preservative of food substances. Many spices have antimicrobial properties. Spices are sometimes used in medicines, religious rituals, cosmetics, perfumes etc. Spices are more commonly used in countries having warmer climates, especially in meat preparations. Many spices have substantial antioxidant property due to the presence of phenol compounds, particularly flavanoids.

India is the major producer of spices and contributes about 75 per cent of world’s spice production. Developing and under developed countries of the world supply about 55 per cent of spices to the global markets and the major markets in global spice trade are the United States of America, The European Union, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Vegetables are defined as edible herbaceous plants or parts of plants consumed as raw or after cooking and are rich in vitamins and minerals, low in calorific value and neutralize the acid substances produced during digestion of high energy foods. Olericulture is a branch of horticulture that deals with production, storage, processing and marketing of vegetables and has its origin when man started growing vegetables for human consumption. The term Olericulture comes from Latin words holus-holeris = any kind of culinary vegetable, pot herb, and cultura = to cultivate.

Vegetable crops include a large number of plants, mostly annuals and a few perennials, grown for their edible leaves, stem, flower buds, flowers, fruits and roots. Vegetables are integral part of a balanced diet and are considered as “Protective foods” as their consumption prevent several diseases. They have a prominent role in combating malnutrition of animals and human beings.

1.1 Definition of Statistics

Statistics has been defined differently by different ‘Statisticians’ from time to time. These definitions emphasize precisely the meaning, scope and limitations of the subject.  The reasons for such a variety definitions may be stated as follows:

    i.    The field of utility of statistics has been increasing steadily and
    ii.    The word statistics has been used to give different meanings in singular (the science of statistical methods) and plural (numerical set of data) senses.

In order to have a clear grasp of the subject, we give below some selected definitions of statistics which are grouped under two main heads: ‘Statistics as numerical data’ and ‘Statistics as Methods’.  The former one is in plural sense and the latter singular sense.

Years ago before becoming the food producers, humans, for years remained food gatherers and the food collected from wild was sufficient to satisfy the food needs of human on the earth. The ever increasing population demanded more food to quench their hunger which is mainly served by plants but plants have limited intrinsic potential or threshold limit upto which it can put on biomass which ultimately could be consumed as food. Though by making certain modifications in the genetic make-up of the plant, the output can be altered. Before attempting any modification in the genetic make-up, it is necessary to understand the genetics and genetic behavior of the targeted plant. So the aim of studying the genetics and genetic behavior of the plants is to improve the quality and quantity of the produce. The inferences of genetics cannot be directly applied to the improvement but the principles of genetics and the genetic behaviors are set into particular situations. This part of genetics which deals with the improvement of the quality and quantity of the produce with the aim of benefitting mankind is called plant breeding.

Sustainable development and efficient management of water is an increasingly complex challenge in India. Increasing population, growing urbanization, and rapid industrialization combined with the need for raising agricultural production generates competing claims for water. There is a growing perception of a sense of an impending water crisis in the country. Some manifestations of this crisis are:

(a) Increasing costs of developing new water resource – Many major and medium irrigation projects seem to remain under execution forever as they slip from one plan to the other with escalating cost and time overruns.

(b) Siltation of reservoirs and owing to lack of maintenance, the capacity of the older irrigation systems seems to be going down.

(c) Declining groundwater table due to over-exploitation imposing an increasing financial burden on farmers who need to deepen their wells and replace their pump sets and on State Governments whose subsidy burden for electricity supplies rises.

(d) Water pollution and degradation of water-related ecosystems - Water in most parts of rivers is not fit for bathing, let alone drinking. Untreated or partially treated sewage from towns and cities is being dumped into the rivers. Untreated or inadequately treated industrial effluents pollute water bodies and also contaminate groundwater,

(e) Wasteful use of already developed water supplies, often encouraged by the subsidies and distorted incentives that influence water use,

(f) Besides in many rural habitations there are pockets where arsenic, nitrate, and fluoride concentration in drinking water are posing a serious health hazard

(g) Rise in water-logging and salinity resulting in degradation of soils in irrigated areas,

(h) Increasing water conflicts about water rights between upper and lower riparian states in a river, conflicts about quality of water, people’s right for rainwater harvesting in a watershed against downstream users, industrial use of groundwater and its impact on water tables and conflicts between urban and rural users etc

(i) The gross irrigated area does not seem to be rising in a manner that it should be, given the investment in irrigation. The difference between potential created and area actually irrigated remains large. Unless we bridge the gap, significant increase in agricultural production will be difficult to realize.

Introduction

Entrepreneurial communication is an action intended to forge a relationship with the other party in order to affect their interest, attitude, and behavior. This is due to the fact that it is never done without considering how it would affect both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. A person can transmit or receive information about another person’s needs, wants, perceptions, knowledge, or emotional states through the act of communicating. In the context of entrepreneurship, communication refers to a set of procedures for exchanging knowledge and understandings between individuals who are engaged in a predetermined or novel situation.

Every interaction that takes place during communication involves a shift and is dynamic. Since it is dependent on interaction and a transaction between speakers, communication cannot be understood s a straightforward process of transmission. The planned actions and activities are not hindered because the emission and reception occur simultaneously, with h the transmitter acting as both a receiver and a transmitter. The process of sending and receiving signals as knowledge, feelings, emotions, skills, talents, attitudes, activities, etc. is known as entrepreneurial communication.

In terms of information sharing about events, situations, involvement, impact, adaptation, etc., it is built on interactions between business owners, educators, and educated youth.

Shrimp culture, a subset of aquaculture is slowly emerging as one of the major and fastest-growing food production sectors in the world. Shrimp that were once caught from the wild are now being cultured using modern aquaculture methods. Thanks to international institutions such as the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) etc., who have the encouraged the production of shrimp that fetch huge returns on investment within a short period. Third world countries are also impressed by the potential of this sector to provide food security and to earn huge foreign exchange to redress their debt burdens.

Commercial shrimp farming developed in India on account of the government’s policy to promote shrimp culture because of its potential to utilise the vast saline tracts along the coastline, provide employment opportunities to coastal rural population and to earn valuable foreign exchange. After the liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991, development of shrimp culture gained greater momentum. Individual entrepreneurs were also encouraged to take up shrimp farming with both financial and technical support.

The market for shrimp is growing by leaps and bounds as they provide a cheap source of protein at only a little above half the cost of producing animal protein. The unique attraction of shrimp being a ‘high-value commodity’ has led to revolutionise its production, currently known as the ‘Blue Revolution’. The revolution has expanded its wings to the coastal areas of Odisha and is becoming one of the most sought out livelihood. The exponential increase in income leading to a dramatic change in the standard of living has lured the people to opt for shrimp culture. In almost all the coastal districts of the state (Odisha), shrimp culture is prominent now.

Laparoscope

The term laparoscope derived from Greek word “Laparo” meaning “flank,” which is the side of the body between the ribs and hips (abdomen) and “scope” means to look at or examine. Laparoscope can be defined as an instrument through which structures within the abdomen and pelvis can be seen or a fiber optic device that consists of a flexible tube. Fiber optic scope is used to directly visualize the internal anatomy of a hollow organ. Laparoscope is used in laparoscopy and laparoscopic surgery. It has lenses like a telescope to magnify body structures, a powerful light to illuminate them and a miniature video camera. The camera sends images of the inside of the body to a TV monitor in the operating room. Specialized surgical instruments can be inserted through the laparoscope.

Physiological or abiotic disorders are mainly caused by changing environmental conditions such as temperature, moisture, unbalanced soil nutrients, inadequate or excess of certain soil minerals, extremes of soil pH and poor drainage. The distinction between physiological or abiotic disorders from other disorders is that they are not caused by living organisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi, insects, etc.), but they are the result of abiotic situations (inanimate) i.e. their agents are non-living in nature which causes deviation from normal growth. They results in physical or chemical changes in a plant which is far away from what is normal and is generally caused by an external factor. Non-infectious disorders in some cases are easy to identify, but others are difficult or even impossible to recognize. Most of them are non reversible once they have occurred. For the identification of physiological disorders it is important that one must know that:

Flowers attract both young and old alike. They are associated with mankind from the dawn of civilization. These have become an integral part of human life in the modern era.
 
The Indian floriculture industry has been shifting from traditional flowers to cut flowers and dry flowers for export purposes. The liberalized economy has given an impetus to the Indian entrepreneurs for establishing export oriented floriculture units under controlled climatic conditions. About 60,000 hectares, area is under floriculture at present. During nineties, increasing demands for flowers in world market was coupled with production technology available abroad for high quality flowers.

Escalating chaos and entropy in ecosystem poses threats to resilience and stability
Since the beginning of industrial revolution in 18th century onwards and until today, the chronicle of civilizations depicts more horrible consequences that it we predicted. Ecological metamorphosis hag gone the dare devil way to deny the quiet and placid pathway of evolution as delineated by Charles Darwin, it has become more serendipitous, ephemeral and phenomenal as well. The changes are becoming non-linear in ecosystem, far away from simple harmonic motion. Bay of Bengal has become the global capital of depression followed by severe cyclonic storms, good enough to make the resilience of ecosystem unexpectedly disrupted and fragile. Continuous perturbation and chaos lead to upscaling entropy and disorder. An analogy can take a serpentine look like Cyclone-destruction of mangrove-flood-crop damage-migration-ingroup vs outgroup conflict and chaos.
When uncertainty and unpredictability cripples into system deeper, we need or it should be our choice to take the help of AI and machine learning. Peoples soft perceptions need to undergo a quantification process for better understanding of their role-contribution-mainstreaming process and as a result the tools like ANN, FCM, AHP, ARIMA would be more effective and inevitable.
From history data to present assessment and from assessed algorithm to practiced scenario, there will be more mathematics and strategy of analysis. In the beginning of eco-system analysis, we had history data only. Then we get busy to go for status report kind of data clubbing, cataloguing, and networking. Today we can underscore the application of AI in futuristic approach to ecosystem analysis including intervention plan and scenario analysis. We can quantify what amount of uncertainty an individual can sustain, confront and adapt to. For the honey collectors in Sundarbans, how many deaths and fear to die, as an abrupt attack by tigers can be adaptable to the poor collectors are of million dollars’ question.

India has a unique social and cultural setting with diverse people, culture and religions. It is one of the oldest and greatest civilizations of the world. Geographically India extends snow clad Himalayan mountains in the north to the tropical rain forests of the south. It is the 7th largest country in the world and well recognised in Asia by its mountains, seas, deserts, and vast stretch of fertile plain land, which give the country a distinct geographical identity.

India has a very rich, diverse religious and cultural heritage. The four main religions of India are - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. Hinduism is the largest religion in India, with approximately 80% of the population is Hindu while Islam (Muslim) is the second-largest religion having 14% (approx.) share.

Religion in India is characterised by the diversity of religious beliefs and practices. In Indian history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture. Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian religions and represent 83% of the total population of India approximately.

Hinduism

Hinduism is the main Indian religion. It is considered as a religious and universal order, a way of life which followed by the people who believed in Hinduism. The word ‘Hindu’ refers group of particular people who believes and follow Hinduism, the oldest religion in the world. It has also been described as ‘Sanatana dharma’.

Indian agriculture now stands at a cross road. By 2050, Indian population will overtake that of China’s. The world population in the same year will be close to 9.5 billion. And to feed the human population of this planet, the agricultural production needs to be increased 60% over the present one by 2050. For India the target is 450 million tons by 2050.

This is a humongous task. This mammoth escalation of targeted food production has to be carried out with the constraints and barrier created by climate change, erosion of soil, bio-diversity, ecological disruption due to mindless anthropogenic action and wrong planning.

The production, productivity, income, livelihood, and ecological resilience in agriculture are not performing in perfect orchestration. They are in apparent contradiction. To produce 1 kilogram of rice, the equivalent water foot print is about 4000 litres. It is obvious that enhancing food productivity, there could be more disruption and stress on soil, water and bio-diversity. The ecological resilience is a subject of musical chaos and symphony amidst ecological function-stress-conservation-extraction-. Without depletion and disruption, it is simply impossible to initiate and foster agriculture production as well as productivity. But the question is what could be level of endurance? Wherein restoration and retention, ecological resilience will move in resonance and complementary manner.

The two limbs of Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal form parts of North Indian Ocean (NIO) on the left and right respectively. Though the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal are located in the same latitudinal belt and receive the same amount of solar radiation, oceanographically these two basins exhibit remarkable differences. The reason for it is Bay of Bengal is shallow and less saline due to heavy river water discharge and Arabian Sea is deep and cold and more saline.