eChapters

Introduction : Need to Change

During the era of Green Revolution, India remarkably achieved self-sufficiency in food production with the introduction of high-yielding varieties, extension in the irrigated cultivable land, high use of chemical fertilizer such as Urea and other sources of NPK fertilizers and increase in cropping intensity.During these processes, relative contribution of organic manures as a source of plant nutrients declined substantially. Due to heavy application of chemical pesticides an increase in resistance of insect pests has also been noticed for most of the regular used plant protection chemicals. Health hazards associated with intensive modern agriculture, such as pesticides residues in food products and groundwater contamination are matter of concern. In the progress of green revolution technologies and chemical dependent nutrient management has declined the overall productive capacity of the soil due to no judicious fertilizer use. Such concerns and problems faced by modern-day agriculture gave birth to new concepts in farming, such as organic farming, natural farming, biodynamic agriculture, donothing agriculture, eco-farming, etc. The essential feature of such farming practices imply, i.e., back to nature.

Introduction

There has been a slow evolution of information technologies in fruit crop production as innovators combined their prior field experience with an attitude of learning by doing while looking for practical applications for farm management. As a suite of technologies became available for use in agriculture production, a new management strategy that combined information with decision making became known as Precision farming. Precision farming is the emerging technology which involves maintaining of crop inputs on site specific basis with reducing waste, increasing the profits and maintaining the quality of environment. The main tools involved in this are Geographical Information System (GIS), Variable Rate Technology (VRT), Global Positioning System (GPS), Yield Monitoring and Remote Sensing.

Abstract

Horticulture crops play significant role in improving the productivity of land, generating employment, enhancing exports, improving economic conditions of the farmers and entrepreneurs and providing food and nutritional security to the people. For better management of the existing crops and to bring more area under horticulture crops, updated and accurate database is necessary for systematic planning and decision making. Remote sensing (RS) is an advanced tool that aids in gathering and updating information to develop scientific management plans. Many types of sensors namely microwave radiometers, laser meters, magnetic sensors and cameras collect electromagnetic information to derive accurate, large-scale information about the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Because these data and images are digital, they can easily be quantified and manipulated using computers. RS can be used in efforts to reduce the risk and minimize damage. The same data can be analyzed in different ways for different applications. A number of studies were aiming at identification of crop, area estimation, disease and pest identification, etc. using satellite data in horticulture. The potential use of RS techniques in Horticulture is briefly reviewed in orde

Introduction

In India, Fruits and vegetables comprises nearly 90% of the total horticulture production. India is now the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and leader in several horticultural crops, namely mango, banana, papaya, cashewnut, arecanut, potato, and okra (National Horticulture Board, 2015). The total area occupied by horticultural crops in India was 23.69  million ha and total production was 283 million tonnes in 2015-16 (Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare). Different horticultural crops like fruits, vegetables, spices, medicinal plants and plantation crops comprises a large chunk of the total crop sales value of the country and also secures nutritional security of the persons of the country. For systematic and efficient management of existing crops and to bring more area of the country under the cultivation of horticultural crops to increase overall horticultural production in term of time and area, a database must be created for decision making and planning. 

Abstract

Organic farming is a method of crop and livestock production that involves much more than choosing not to use pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics and growth hormones. Organic fruit production essentially excludes the use of many inputs associated with modern farming, most notably synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. Organic agriculture, the innovative farming system can build-on and enhance the traditional knowledge and practices of local and indigenous communities. Indigenous Knowledge can be broadly defined as the knowledge that anindigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. ITK in fruit production is important for reducing the cost of cultivation, reducing the pollution and also the natural resource base. It is very important to understand these age old practices to address the local problems and to document it before is vanished away.

Introduction

Any kind of garden established on the roof top of building is known as roof garden, which provides the opportunity to cultivate the quality vegetables, fruits and flowers in home. In this system plants and grasses are grown on a nutrition medium placed above a waterproof membrane. Roof gardening is mostly adopted in urban areas. It uses for decorative benefit, roof plantings make available food, manage temperature, hydrological remuneration, architectural improvement, habitats  for wildlife, frivolous opportunities, and in large scale it may even have ecological benefits (Louise, 2009). This considerably increases human health as adding organic cultivation.

Introduction

Controlled perpetuation of plants is known as plant propagation. Plant propagation can be broadly classified in two types: sexual and asexual. In sexual propagation, the fusion of male and female gametes gives rise to a new plant, whereas in asexual propagation which is also known as vegetative propagation, the development of new plants takes place without the fusion of male and female gametes, that is, the new plant develops from vegetative plant parts. Various techniques of asexual propagation are adopted in plant propagation, such as: grafting, budding, layering, cutting, etc. So far cutting and layering are concerned; the new plants are developed on their own root system, but in grafting and budding on the others’ root system. It means that in these two techniques (grafting and budding), two plant parts are joined to form new plants; the one which forms the root system is known as rootstock and the one forming the shoot system is known as scion. Plant propagation is both a science and an art. The science of plant propagation requires knowledge of plant physiology, nursery cultural practices, and characteristics of the particular plant that you want to grow. The art of plant propagation cannot be taught in a book or classroom, however, because it consists of specific technical skills that must be acquired through innate ability or experience and often requires a certain feel.

1.    Major Branches of Horticultural Science

    
2.    Potential Production Zones of Various Horticultural Crops in India
    
3.    Indian Horticulture
    
4.    Current Production and Projected Demand of  Horticultural Products
    
5.    Extent of Value Addition in Fruits and Vegetables
    
6.    Horticulture as Profession
    
7.    Projected Demand for Horticulture Professionals in 2020
    
8.    Major Career Opportunities in Horticulture
    
9.    Level of Employment (%) in Horticultural Processing Sector
    
10.    Conclusion
        
References

Introduction

Sensors are the key components for enabling any IoT(Internet of Things) application. The concept of IoT came as early as 1990 but the practical implementations of the IoT technology is actually becoming possible as the cost of the devices that are needed to create any IoT application have reduced. Sensors are one of the major hardware components needed to form IoT systems and decrease in its price has given a forward leap in developing IoT applications. Sensors have to be uniquely identifiable devices with a unique device ip address so that they can be easily identifiable over a large network. These have to be active in nature which means that they should be able to collect real time data. These can either work on their own (autonomous in nature) or can be made to work by the user depending on their needs (user controlled).

1. Introduction

Size reduction is applied to all the ways in which particles of the solids are cut or broken into smaller pieces. Size reduction operation of solids is referred to as 'Comminution", some of the common comminutive processes are - crushing, grinding, milling, mincing, and dicing. Breaking down of large sized particles of food substances into smaller particles is a common unit operation in many food processes, e.g. wheat flour, turmeric powder, spices, etc. are mostly used in powdered form. Some ofthe common objectives that are fulfilled by size reduction are:

1.    List of Spices
    
2.    Biotechnological Interventions in Spices
    
3.    Micropropagation
    
4.    Protocols for in vitro Multiplication of Some Spices
    
5.    Factors Affecting Large Scale Propagation Systems
    
6.    Field Performance of Tissue Culture Plants
    
7.    Other Tissue Culture Techniques
    
8.    Secondary Metabolites Production
    
9.    in vitro Germplasm Conservation
    
10.    Somaclonal Variation
    
11.    Molecular Marker Studies
    
12.    Disease Diagnostics
    
13.    Genetic Engineering
    
14.    Identification of Adulterants
    
15.    Future Prospects
        
References

1.    Botanical Background/Classification
    
2.    Nutritive and Medicinal Values of Fruits
    
3.    Genetic Resources
    
4.    Plant Propagation
    
5.    Design and Orchard Management
    
6.    Physiology of Fruit Trees
        
References

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is one of the most important tropical fruits of the world and is commonly known as the ‘King of fruits’ for its high quality fruits which are very popular among the Indians (Sharma et al., 2008). It is an oldest and extensively cultivated fruit crop in India having high socio-economic significance. India is the home of about more than 1000 mango varieties, which originated in the Indo-Burma region (Mukherjee, 1958). India is the largest producer of mango, grown in about 2.3 million hectares with an annual production of 15.02 million tonnes. However, its productivity is only 6.5 tonnes ha against 30 tonnes per ha in Israel. Improvement of productivity in mango continues to be the foremost issue in mango production (Sauco, 1993). Of late, all the mango importing countries are considering the India as a source of quality mangoes due to its varietal wealth and availability. Hence, it is imperative to improve the productivity and quality of Indian mangoes to meet the global need (Balamohan and Gopu, 2014).

Water is most essential thing to sustain life for plants, human and animals. In fact, land and water are the two important natural resources, which play an important role in horticulture production. Irrigation is the lifeline for any crop production. As Pomegranate is mostly grown under water scarce regions of India, so utilization of available water more effective and efficient irrigation system is need along micro-irrigation system offers the way of using water in a most judicious fashion for irrigation purpose. It is based on the elementary concept on irrigating root zone rather than entire land surface which results in higher water use efficiency and improved crop yield. This technique is now being used to mitigate water scare situation in the pomegranate growing regions of the country in enormous way.

1.    Vegetables for Nutritional and Health Security
    
2.    Status of Vegetable Production
    
3.    Classification of Vegetable Crops
    
4.    Influence of Environment on Vegetable Production
    
5.    Management of Seedlings in Nursery
    
6.    Vegetables Based Cropping System
    
7.    Water Management
    
8.    Plant Nutrients and Integrated Nutrients Management
    
9.    Micro-Irrigation and Fertigation
    
10.    Pollination Management
    
11.    Integrated Pest Management
    
12.    Biological Management of Diseases
    
13.    Mechanisms of Biocontrol
    
14.    Weed Management
    
15.    Management of Vegetable Crops Under Polyhouse
    
16.    Post Harvest Handling and Storage of Vegetables
    
17.    Marketing and Export of Vegetables
    
18.    Export Trade of Vegetables in India
    
19.    Seed Technology
        
References

Abstract

India is primarily agrarian country and this sector provides livelihood to a major part of the population. The indiscriminate use of agro chemicals since green revolution resulted in adverse effect on the soil fertility; crop productivity; quality of produce and more specifically on the environment system. Organic cultivation is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biofertilizers which helps to maintain soil productivity. Organic farming excludes or strictly limits the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides (herbicide, insecticides and fungicides), plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, antibiotics and genetically modified organisms. Thus, the importance of organic sources of nutrients was recognized in current scenario in order to get higher yield without disturbing soil health. In this context integrated use of inorganic and organic sources of nutrients in crop production is becoming very crucial for assurance of food security on sustainable basis, which in turn not only improve the soil fertility for sustained crop productivity but also to reduce the cost of inorganic fertilizers.

Introduction

In the environment of dwindling water resources and contention of the other sectors, the share of water allocated to irrigation is likely to be decreased by 10 to 15 per cent in the next two decades. One of the ways of improving water scarcity is by enhancing its use efficiency or productivity. Water use efficiency (WUE) is a broad concept that can be defined in many ways. For farmers or farm irrigators, WUE is the yield of harvested crop produce achieved from the available water to the crop from irrigation, rainfall and soil water storage. Improving WUE in pomegranate will be required an increasing in pomegranate water productivity (i.e. an increasing marketable yield per unit of water used by plants and reduction in water losses from the root zone (Chopde and Gorantiwar, 1998; Chopde et al., 2001; Intrigoli et al., 2011). For comprehensive improvement of WUE, it is necessary to raise the following ratios to their maximum: stored soil water content/water received through rainfall and irrigation, transpiration/water consumption, biomass yield/transpiration, water consumption/soil water storage and economic benefit/biomass yield (Frederick, 1993).

1. Introduction

The scientific naming of plants is called botanical nomenclature. Although, nomenclature is included in taxonomy, but it distinctly differs from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants, however, the botanical nomenclature provides names for the results of this process. Names are a means of reference to all living and non-living things. The common names of pants and animals vary from place to place and language to language. But, scientific names of plants and animals are universal. For uniformity and consistency, the scientific names are given to plants according to certain internationally accepted rules provided in International Code of Nomenclature. It was Linnaeus who for the first time proposed some rules for generic names of plants in his Fundamenta Botanica, 1736 and Critica Botanica, 1737. However, the first proper set of rules of plant nomenclature was drafted by A. P. de Candolle and passed by the International Botanical Congress at Paris in 1867. The present Botanical nomenclature is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), which replaces the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) in 2012.

Botanical nomenclature has a long history, going back to the period when Latin was the scientific language throughout Europe, and perhaps further back to Theophrastus. The starting point for modern botanical nomenclature is Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum (1753). In the nineteenth century it became increasingly clear that there was a need for rules to govern scientific nomenclature and initiatives were taken to produce a body of laws. These rules were published in successively more sophisticated editions after every six years. The most recent is the Melbourne Code, adopted in 2012.

All formal botanical names are governed by the ICN, and within the limits set by that code there is another set of rules, the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). The latter Code applies to plant cultivars that have been deliberately altered or selected by humans and require separate recognition

The following plants have been worked out in the laboratory of Prof. N. Raaman: Cynodon dactylon, Artemisia pallens, Leptadenia reticulata, Clausena dentata, Tylophora indica, Aristolochia bracteolata, A. indica, Cissus quadrangularis, Hypericum mysorense. and Solanum trilobatum. Out of some of the data of these plants have been included in the previous chapters. In this chapter, compound isolation (CD1) from Clausena dentata (worked by Dr. R. Kamaraj) and characterization of the compound are given in detail.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Recent advances in the field of regenerative medicine have opened up newer therapeutic modalities using cell-based and cell-free therapies, particularly stem cells, as potential candidates. As per the definition, stem cells are the undifferentiated progenitor cells that can regenerate and can also differentiate into various specialized cells (Hoang et al., 2022). They can be classified as embryonic stem cells (ESCs), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and postnatal adult stem cells (Locke et al., 2009). Among postnatal adult stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have emerged as a popular choice of candidate for therapeutics due to the relatively easy availability, simple isolation techniques, low risk of teratogenicity, minimal ethical and legal concerns unlike embryonic stem cells, hence, are easy to apply in clinical research and practice (Voga et al., 2020). Among MSCs of different origin, bone marrow and particularly adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADMSCs) received more attention and are one of the most common and promising stem cell types. These cells can be simply obtained from subcutaneous and omental fat or liposuction aspirates for the treatment of diverse clinical applications (Kim &Heo, 2014). These cells can also be expanded vigorously in vitro and differentiated into specific cell lineages such as adipocytes, osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and neurocytes and are even genetically stable in long-term cultures (Miana& González, 2018). Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent progenitor cells possessing self-renewal ability (limited in vitro) and differentiation potential into mesenchymal lineages, according to the (ISCT) International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (Dominici et al., 2006).