eChapters

Introduction

Perishable nature of horticultural produce is a major factor contributing in high post-harvest losses. The metabolic processes such as respiration, transpiration, and ethylene production remain active after the harvesting of produce, which drive ripening and senescence Fig. 1. Thus, an effective post-harvest handling is crucial to delay these changes. The rate of these processes depends on the produce’s physiological characteristics, composition, and storage conditions like temperature and humidity. Low-temperature storage is the simplest and most efficient method to slow down deterioration Escobedo-Avellaneda and Welti-Chanes, 2016. Combining low temperatures with methods that limit oxygen exposure, which fuels many enzymatic reactions, further extends shelf life and maintains food quality. Reduced oxygen levels decrease respiration and the activity of enzymes like polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase.

Fruits are living commodities which continue to respire and transpire even after harvest. The storage life of fresh fruits is indirectly proportional to the rate of their respiration which in turn depends on the atmospheric gas composition in which they are stored. Normal air contains about 20.9% oxygen (O2), 78.0% Nitrogen (N₂) and 0.03% carbondioxide (CO₂). Lower levels of O₂ and higher levels of CO₂ in the storage environment result in reduced rate of respiration, delayed ripening and increased storage life. The reduction in O₂ concentration and increase in CO₂ concentration in the storage room with precise control and maintenance of these gases throughout the storage period is generally referred as controlled atmosphere (CA) storage.

CA storage is generally used for long term storage or long distance transportation of fruits in combination with low temperature storage. The use of CA storage for extending the post harvest life of fruits has increased steadily worldwide during the past 60 years. This trend is expected to continue with the advancement of technologies in attaining and maintaining CA during transport, storage and marketing of fresh fruits.

1). Stem Gall
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Symptom appears in the form of tumor-like swellings of leaf veins, leaf stalks, peduncles, stems as well as fruits.
• Infected veins show a swollen hanging appearance to the leaves.
• Initially the tumors are glossy which rupture later on and become rough. They are about 3 mm broad and up to 12.5 mm long.
• Badly affected plants may be killed.
• In the presence of excessive soil moisture, especially under shaded conditions, when the stem fails to harden and remain succulent, the tumors are numerous (Fig-1).
Etiology
Scientific Classification
Kingdom : Fungi
Division : Ascomycota
Class : Taphrinomycetes
Order : Taphrinales

Coriander aphid: Hyadaphis coriandri: Aphididae

Coriander aphids are yellow-green in color, dusted with grayish wax. They have short, dusky, slightly swollen, siphunculi (or cornicles). The Aphids form dense, damaging colonies on leaves, heads, and stems of their host plants.

In its native land, Florida, USA, the life cycle of the coriander aphid is similar to that of other host-alternating aphids. Overwintering eggs occur on other hosts.  A fundatrix (or stem mother) hatches from the egg in the spring. Her offspring are parthenogenetic, and the winged-females are spring migrants. They colonize summer host plants in the family Umbelliferae.

English name : Coriander
Botanical name : Coriandrum sativum L.
Family : Apiaceae
Chromosome number : 2n = 22
Centre of origin : Mediterranean region Coriander of commerce is the dried fruit of Coriandrum sativum L., an aromatic spice crop belonging to the Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) family. Coriander is an ancient flavouring agent documented in ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Roman literature dating as far back as 5000 BC. Its leaves, stems, and fruits have been utilized for culinary and medicinal purposes. The composition of coriander seeds includes 6.3% moisture, 1.3% protein, 24.0% carbohydrates, 0.3% volatile oil, 0.44% phosphorus, 1.2% potassium, 0.8% calcium, 0.02% sodium, and 0.006% iron. Additionally, they contain vitamins such as A (175 IU/100 g), B1 (0.26 mg), B2 (0.23 mg), niacin (3.2 mg), and vitamin C (12.0 mg). In contrast, fresh coriander leaves comprise 87.9% moisture, 3.3% protein, 0.6% fat, 6.5% carbohydrates, 0.14% calcium, 0.06% phosphorus, and 0.01% iron.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
 
Coriander is a native of southern Europe and Asia Minor. In a treatise, Farrell (1999) has described coriander as indigenous to the Near East and Mediterranean region of North Africa and Southern Europe. According to early Sanskrit writings, coriander was known as far back as 5000 BC for its cultivation in India. Persia grew coriander 3000 years ago for adding fragrance to hanging garden of Babylon and seeds were found in Egyptian tombs of 960 BC. It has been used as an ingredient to traditional and folk medicine in the Middle East and Asia for more than 2000 years. There is archaeological evidence of coriander cultivation from Early Bronze Age in Macedonia (Fragiska, 2005)

The disease appears as tumour like swelling or galls on leaf veins, leaf stalks, peduncles, stems and on fruits. The galls on the vein give a swollen and hanging appearance to the leaves. These are elongated, looks glossy in beginning but later rupture to become rough and corky. When stems remain succulent, numerous tumours may form on them. In severe case, the plant may kill prematurely.

Problem: Cost of cultivation depending upon the seed and time. More yields can be obtained during right time of sowing, but net profit is very less due to the glut in the market. We can get more return from early or late sown crop during both the season due to the high cost in the market.

Anthracnose
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Pathogen infects the seedlings and produces small reddish circular spots on the cotyledons and primary leaves.
• Lesions develop on the collar region, stem may be girdled, causing seedling to wilt and die.
• In mature plants, the fungus attacks the stem, leading to stem splitting and shredding of bark.
• Most common symptom is boll spotting. Small water soaked, circular, reddish brown depressed spots appear on the bolls.
• The lint is stained to yellow or brown, becomes a solid brittle mass of fiber.The infected bolls cease to grow and burst and dry up prematurely(Fig-2).
Etiology
Scientific Classification
Kingdom : Fungi
Division : Eumycota

The disease i s seen at all crop growing stages. The fi rst symptoms appear at the time of emergence of seedlings, when the cotyledons are attacked. They become yellow and turn brown followed by wilting and drying of the affected seedlings. In the fi eld, the wilting symptoms appear in patches. First of all, the older leaves become yellow, loose their turgidity, wilt, turn brown and droop.

This is the commonest symptom of nearly all respiratory diseases and is indicative of an effort to expel a foreign substance causing irritation on any place in the cough reflex path.

The center is in the medulla close to the respiratory centers. This is activated reflexly by the afferent impulses traveling up mostly along the vagus and to a less extent, the vagus and the phrenic (to bronchi and diaphragm), the spinal accessory, intercostals and other nerves supplying the accessory muscles of respiration. The peripheral fibres of the vagus and the phrenic are also sometimes directly affected causing cough reflex.

The medullary center itself may also be excited or restrained by impulses from superior cerebella centers, so that cough may be induced or controlled by voluntary efforts.

ABSTRACT

Microbial contamination is perceived as the most serious threat faced by plant tissue culture research laboratories and commercial production units. A culture is often viewed as contaminated when obvious microbial growth incited by fungi, yeast or bacteria is noticed on the culture medium. On the other hand, there can be situations when microbes may be present in a covert or latent form with serious side effects on the cultures. The present investigations were taken up with the objectives of elucidating the cause of poor growth, lack of regeneration response or modification of rooting observed with visibly clean cultures of different horticultural crops. Apparently clean cultures of grape, banana, watermelon, eggplant, gerbera and chrysanthemum of recent origin or after long-term in vitro culturing were used in this study. Indexing the medium of such cultures using fungal/ yeast and bacteriological media brought out the covert association of one or more bacterial types with varying proportions of incidence in such cultures. Indexing of tissue revealed bacterial presence in different parts of in vitro plantlets. In some instances, bacteria showed endophytic colonization while being not detectable in the tissue culture medium subsequent to a disinfection or antibiotic treatment. Such bacterial association appeared to be the cause of in vitro decline observed with long-term micropropagated cultures, lack of reproducibility of tissue culture protocols, failure of in vitro rooting etc. besides being a threat to in vitro gene banks and germplasm exchange.

The cowpea aphid: Aphis craccivora: Aphididae

Hosts
 
Groundnut, red gram, peas, beans, safflower, lab-lab niger

Symptoms of damage
 
Both nymphs and adults cause the damage by sucking the plant sap from shoot tips, pods and leaves.  Infested pods become malformed and withered.  Severe infestation may result in complete drying of affected pods.  They also act as vector of virus diseases in pea. 

INTRODUCTION

Crataegus species, or hawthorn, are shrubs or small trees that have been widely and globally used for treating cardiac problems (arrhythmia, angina, hypertension and gastrointestinal ailments. Fruits of the plant are also consumed as food and nutritional supplement. Crataegus species has several pharmacological properties attributable primarily to presence of flavonoids and anthocyanins. The major flavonoids reported are hyperoside, vitexin, and glycosylated derivatives of these compounds. Crataegus has been listed as the plant for future in terms of its utility and significance. Though the species can be easily grown, its commercial cultivation is not yet popular. This presentation highlights the medicinal significance of the species for its greater utilization.

10.1. Origin and distribution

• Native of India and tropical South East Asia.

• Distributed throughout plains of India from Uttar Pradesh to Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

10.2. Economic importance

• King of bitters.

• Economic part - Dried leaves and tender shoots (Whole plant)

• Leaves contain three bitter principles: Deoxy andrographolide, Andrographolide and Neo andrographolide.

• Roots contain flavonoids like andrographin, panicothin, aplegenin etc.

INTRODUCTION

Himalayan region is known for the diversity of its cultural heritage and climate. In Indian part, this mountain range includes states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. The climatic variability of the region,from sub-tropical to extreme dry temperate, offers great attraction to naturalists, all across the globe. The forest formations here are the natural habitats of a large number of flora and fauna. The flora found in these forests varies with the altitudinal gradient and is quite distinct. In the sub-tropical Himalayas, for example,the predominant vegetation is of deciduous type consisting of trees, shrubs, scrubs, climbers and xerophytes. Man-made Chir pine forests can also be witnessed. At middle elevation, the climate is sub-temperate and supports a mix of broad leaves and pines forests.In the high reaches including Trans Himalayas, climate is typically wet or dry temperate. In the wet temperate climate, evergreen forests are the predominant vegetation, whereas, the dry temperate areas do not support any significant vegetation.This variation in climate and altitude has a great impact on the biodiversity found in the region, and represents about seven percent of the country’s total biodiversity.

Among this diversity, many valuable and rare medicinal and aromatic plants grow wild in the region. The herbs which are traded from this region are of immense value for the preparation of Ayurvedic drugs in the form of monoherbal preparations or as multi-compound herbal formulations. Charak Samhita mentions that the herbs of the Himalayan forests excel in efficacy.

2.1 Introduction

Horticulture plays a pivotal role in global food production and is essential for ensuring food security and improving nutrition. However, the increasing pressure on agricultural resources, coupled with environmental challenges, necessitates the adoption of innovative technologies to enhance productivity and sustainability. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool in this regard, offering unprecedented capabilities in data analysis, pattern recognition, and decision-making. In horticulture, AI holds immense potential for revolutionizing crop and soil monitoring practices, enabling more efficient resource utilization and better management strategies.

2.2 Foundations of Ai in Crop and Soil Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence (AI) forms the backbone of modern crop monitoring techniques, enabling the processing of vast amounts of agricultural data and the extraction of actionable insights. This section provides an in-depth exploration of the fundamental principles of AI, machine learning, and deep learning, elucidating their applications in crop monitoring within horticulture.

2.1.1 Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Definition and Scope: AI refers to the development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Types of AI: AI can be categorized into two broad types: narrow AI, which is designed for specific tasks, and general AI, which exhibits human-like intelligence across a wide range of domains. In the context of crop monitoring, narrow AI applications are more prevalent, focusing on tasks such as image recognition, predictive modeling, and decision support.

Introduction
  
Horticultural production can be highly profitable, increase employment opportunities, and bring about increasing commercialization of the rural sector. Horticulture thus has a role to play in a world where 1.1 billion people continue to live in extreme poverty on less than US$1 a day and another 1.6 billion who live between one and two dollars per day (Von Braun et al., 2004). While in past, priority to achieving self sufficiency in food grain production in our country, over the years, horticulture has emerged as an indispensable part of agriculture, offering a wide range of choices to the farmers for crop diversification. It also provides ample opportunities for sustaining large number of agro-industries which generate substantial employment opportunities. The horticulture sector contributes around 28% of the GDP from about 13.08% of the area and 37 % of the total exports of agricultural commodities (Annon, 2007).

ABSTRACT

Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench. is a medicinal and nutraceutically important herb of American origin, extended its distribution to other parts of the globe in subtropical and temperate environment. This species is known for various biological properties such as antimicrobial, immuno-stimulatory and anti-inflammatory properties due to the presence to several bioactive compounds loaded in the form of phenylpropanoids, flavonoids, terpenoids, lipids, nitrogenous compounds, carbohydrates and others such as ascorbic acid, sitosterol, linoleic acid, cyanidin glycosides and sesquiterpene esters in different quantities. Published data reveals that its major chemical constituents possess anti-anxiety, anti-depression, cytotoxicity, anti-infective and anti-mutagenicity properties. Besides, plants respond to abiotic and climatic signals that are responsible for various adaptive responses at the cellular level and vary with ecosystem in which the species grows. It may behave differently in different ecological climates, thereby, modifying their gene expressions, and this reveals that the plant growth and the adaptability are mainly affected by microclimatic factors. Experimental trials conducted to collect data on growth phenology in relation to crop-weather interaction and investigated result is presented in this research. Studies on chemical evaluation of E. purpurea under two constrasting environment, subtropical and temperate climate, with reference to cichoric acid and chlorogenic acid undertaken for this plant is also presented. Future studies in relation to the application of biotechnological interventions and chemical evaluation at different time scale would be a great contribution to the science for this species as it has the tremendous potentials which may lead to development of various nutraceuticals and value added products in future for human health and medicines.