eChapters

55.1. Aim

To determine dietary fibres in given samples.

55.2. Theory

Fibres can be classified into four categories like crude fibre (cellulose); acid detergent fibre (cellulose + lignin); neutral detergent fibre (cellulose + lignin + hemicelluloses) and total dietary fibre.

55.3. Procedure for estimation of dietary fibre

55.3.1. Acid detergent fibre (ADF)

Reagents: Cetyl tri-methyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) reagent and Acetone

Apparatus: Digestion apparatus vacuum pump, oven, desiccator and sintered glass crucible.

Purpose: The organic acids present in fruits and vegetables influence the flavour, colour, keeping quality and maturity. The maturity standards are determined by the acid and sugar ratio. The total acidity (citric acid) is determined by titrating the juice against standard alkali solution.

Equipments and chemicals: 10 ml., pipette, 25ml. Burette, small glass funnel, dropper, juice extractor, distilled water, 100ml. volumetric flask, burette stand, beaker, N/10 sodium hydroxide, filter paper, phenolphthalein indicator (one gram of phenolphthalein in 100ml. of 95% ethyl alcohol)

Principle: Sample extract in oxalic acid is titrated against standard sodium 2, 6 dichlorophenolindophenol dye to a faint pink colour which persists for 5-10 seconds.

(Indophenols Method)

Purpose: The ash content of plants represents the deposition of minerals elements in the plant or in its parts. The value of ash content in the plant tissue indicates the health of the plant. Plant ash is also used both in qualitative and quantitative estimation of mineral elements.

Material and Equipments: Crucible, oven, chemical balance and weight box.

54.1. Aim

To determine crude fibre in given samples.

54.2. Theory

Fibres can be classified into four categories like crude fibre (cellulose); acid detergent fibre (cellulose + lignin); neutral detergent fibre (cellulose + lignin + hemicelluloses) and total dietary fibre (Cellulose + lignin + hemicelluloses + pectic substances). Crude fibre is the organic residue of a sample. A fat free sample is treated with boiling sulphuric acid and subsequently with sodium hydroxide. The residue after subtraction of ash is regarded as crude fibre.

54.3. Reagents/ Apparatus/Glassware

1. 0.255 N Sulphuric acid solution

2. 0.313 N Sodium hydroxide solution

3. 10% Potassium sulphate solution

4. Ethanol

Fructose, a keto-hexose (called as fruit sugar), is usually accompanied by sucrose in fruits and estimated by the methods of Ashwell (1957).

Materials

Resourcinol reagent: Dissolve 1g resorcinol and 0.25 g thiourea in 10 ml glacial acetic acid. This is stable in the dark.

Dilute HCl: Mix five part of conc. HCl with one part of distilled water.

Standard fructose solution: Dissolve 50mg of fructose in 50 ml water. Dilute 5 ml of this stock soln. to 50 ml for a working standard.

Mechanical damage is inflicted on seeds during harvesting, threshing drying, processing and handling. Injury may occur from any kind of physical abuse. Threshing abuse probably is most serious but, seed conditioning and handling also contribute to seed injury. High temperatures during drying or drying too quick or excessively can cause injury. Susceptibility to mechanical injury increases as the moisture content of the seed decreases. Effect of all individual impacts received by the seed appears to be cumulative in total seed damage. Cereals are largely immune to mechanical injury presumably because of the protective outer structures, the palea and lemma. Large sized legumes are more suscepitable. Small seeds tend to escape injury during harvest and seeds that are spherical tend to suffer less damage than elongated or irregularly shaped ones.

Preparation of the material: Common minute material for analysis in Waring blender for 1 to 2 minutes. Do not over heat. Pass it through No.60 sieve and put is in airtight container.

Procedure: Take 2 to 3 g sample in duplicate in pre-dried and pre-weighed 7 cm diameter aluminium dishes. Remove the dish cover and put them in vacuum oven and dry for 6 hours at 88°C and 26-22 inch vacuum. During this process, admit to oven a slow current of air (2 bubbles per second) dried by passing H₂SO₄ replace the cover, cool it in desiccators and weigh again.

Principle: Addition of calcium chloride results in the precipitation of pectin as calcium pectate from an acid solution. Calcium pectate is washed with water to make free from chloride and is dried and weighed.

26.1. Aim

To determine the pH of food samples.

26.2. Theory

The hydrogen-ion concentration of a food is a controlling factor in many chemicals and microbiological reactions. Pure water has equal concentration of H+ and OH- ions, each having the value of 1×107g/litre at room temperature that is why water is regarded as neutral. The pH of pure water is 7.0, the solution having pH below 7.0 is regarded as acidic while solution with pH above 7.0 is alkaline. Most fruits and fruit products have pH below 4.0 while vegetable; milk and meat products have pH more than 4.0. The pH value of some fruits and fruit products is given in Table 6.1. Thus, with the increase in acidity in the solution, the pH value decrease and vice versa. However, presence of buffer salts helps in maintenance of pH. Estimation of pH of the food is important as the processing conditions for different food products are categorized on the basis of their pH.

Procedure: Standardize the pH meter with a buffer solution of pH. Take the sample solution in a 100 ml beaker. Put the electrodes in the solution and read on pH meter. After each observation, wipe the electrodes with a piece of cotton soaked in distilled water and rinse the electrodes with water with the help of a wash bottle and dry with filter paper.

Principle: The copper in the Fehling solution is reduced to red, insoluble cuprous oxide in the presence of invert sugars like glucose and fructose. The quantity of sugars solution liquids for complete neutralization of a known quantity of Fehling mixture is determined by titration using methylene blue as the indicator.

(Lane and Eynon Method)

Principle: A weighed sample is dried in an oven at 60-70⁰C up to a period of time when weighing made at 2 hour intervals do not differ by more than 2-3 mg.

23.1. Aim

To determine the total soluble solids in fresh and processed fruit and vegetable products.

23.2. Theory and principle

Total soluble solids (TSS) are determined by means of brix which measures the specific gravity or by using hand refractometer which measures refractive index. Brix is a measure of soluble solids only in case of pure sucrose solutions. Generally, the fruit juices contain more sugar than any other soluble constituent. Hence, brix provides a useful guide of soluble solids or sugar contents. Brix hydrometer is used to determine the percentage of brix in syrup while Abbe refractometer gives refractive index as well as degree brix. The Refractive index of the test solution is measured at 20°C using a refractometer and the soluble solid content is determined by the use of tables correlating refractive index with soluble solids. Generally, hand refractometer is used for determining TSS in food samples in fruit processing units (Table 3.1).

Purpose: The estimation of total soluble constituents gives the approximate amount of water soluble substance present in the sample. Among the various soluble substances the amount of sugar is 80-85 percent. The TSS value is roughly considered to be the amount of sugar and soluble minerals present in fruits and vegetables. The total soluble solid content can be determined by hand refrectometer.

Material and equipments: Hand refrectometer, juice, muslin cloth or tissue paper and glass rod.

1. VARIETY

Variety is a seed/crop which suit the prevailing agroclimatic conditions, high yielding and possessing desirable attributes such as disease resistance, earliness and grain quality. Similarly, the seed should be pure, appropriate classes, and obtained from an authorised official agency.

2.1 Introduction

Greenhouses are used mainly for cultivating vegetables and fruits during the off-season to provide favorable growing conditions. Proper management of the greenhouse structure is necessary to create these off-seasonal favorable conditions for plants. Factors like site selection, location, atmospheric conditions, cropping pattern, and structure of the greenhouse are considered during the development of a greenhouse. The National Committee on the use of Plastics in Agriculture (NCPA-1982) suggests conducting site-specific greenhouse technology trials before implementation across the nation.

1. Introduction

Jackfruit is a fruit crop that is under appreciated and neglected. The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) is a member of the Moraceae family. India is the world’s greatest cultivator and producer of jackfruit, also known as the poor man’s fruit because it grows more in rural than metropolitan areas. It is a pretty huge tree that bears the world’s largest edible fruit. The jackfruit is a tropical fruit native to Southeast Asia. It is thought to have originated in India’s rainforests, in the Western Ghats, and is now widely farmed throughout the region’s lowlands. The leading jackfruit producers in the world include Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. Jackfruit can be found in East Africa, Brazil, and Caribbean nations such as Jamaica. Bangladesh’s national fruits are the jackfruit, mango, and banana.

ABSTRACT

Owing to paucity of available genetic / molecular markers, onion breeding still relies heavily on phenotypic selection methods. DNA markers can provide plant breeders genetic information for indirect selection of plants. All the DNA based procedures require high quality plant genomic DNA. Abundance of polysaccharides and phenolics present in plant tissue often impede PCR amplification. The polysaccharide contaminants can also produce downstream problems by inhibiting many of the enzymes that are employed in subsequent analysis and cloning. RFLP based markers in Allium species pose certain problems due to relatively large size of the genome compared to most other herbaceous crops. As an alternative, RAPD would prove advantageous in genetic analysis of Allium. Here we present our results on optimization of DNA extraction in onion to get amplifiable quality of DNA for further RAPD analysis. Leaf samples were collected from the onion germplasm maintained at Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bangalore. Dried leaf protocol was suitably modified to obtain fair quality of DNA. After varying each of the ingredients of the extraction buffer we arrived at the optimal extraction buffer, which resulted in good quality DNA. Quality was analyzed by subjecting the DNA to agarose gel electrophoresis and restriction digestion. Extracted genomic DNA was quantified with ‘Hoefer’s Dynaquant’ (Pharmacia, USA). The DNA quantity ranged between 160-2400mg/gm of dried powder. The standardized 25ml PCR mixture contained template DNA (25ng), 5 pmol of primer (Operon Tech. Inc., Alameda), 2mM MgCl₂, I unit of Taq polymerase (Bangalore Genei), with 10x buffer along with 200 mM each of dNTPs. Amplifications were performed in thermal cycler (MJ Research, PTC 100) for 45 cycles after an initial denaturation of 95°C for 3 minutes. In each cycle denaturation for one minute at 95°C, annealing for one minute at 35°C and extension for two minute at 72°C was programmed with final extension step at 72°C for 5 minutes. This fine tuned protocol resulted in clear, informative RAPD profile.

1. INTRODUCTION

India is blessed with all types of vegetation because of the diversified climatic and physiographic factors like tropical, subtropical, temperate and alpine. Due to its wide ranging environmental regimes and diverse biological communities, it is one of the world’s 12 “Mega diversity” nations. Out of nearly 425 families of flowering plants in the world, 328 families with 21,000 species are found in India. Further, in India about 20.64 % area is under forest where various species of trees are found, depending upon the climatic conditions.

There are about 29 species of pine which produce edible nuts and utilized at least by indigenous tribal culture in the world. Most of these nut bearing pines are haploxilon (soft) pines, although several species are of diploxilon (hard) pine group. Spain is the largest producer of Pinus pinea and China is the largest producer and exporter of Pinus koriences and Pinus sibrica nuts. Some of the famous edible pine nut species are listed in Table 1. Chilgoza (P. gerardiana Wall.), commonly known as ‘chilgoza’ or ‘Neoza’ is a member of genus Pinus that maintains a very unique position of being an integral part of the vibrant, but fragile ecosystems of the great Himalayas in the Indian sub-continent. The chilgoza pine is the only pine which is of immense social forestry importance. The earning for the bread and butter of most of tribals in HP is from the chilgoza nuts. Further, it also forms an important part of their diet as well as an item essential for some social obligations. Tribals are still adopting the age old practices for chilgoza nut extraction and further their selling to the agents at throw away prices during peak season of nuts.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops cultivated in the world. It is used as raw in salads and also used as cooked vegetable in the preparation of curries. Processed items such as tomato puree, ketchup, pickle, chutney, whole peeled tomatoes and tomato powder are also consumed considerably. It is a rich source of Vitamins A & C. Lycopene and other flavonoids in tomato serve as good source of antioxidants. Tomato occupies 5 million hectares with a productivity of 34t/ha. in the world. In India it is cultivated in an area of 0.88 million hectares with productivity of 21 t/ha.

ABSTRACT

Cassava has developed importance mainly as an industrial crop due to its ability to store large quantities of starch (74% to 85% of dry weight) within secondary root structures. Cassava starch is exploited as a source of human food, feed for livestock and as raw material for the food processing and chemical industries. Research accomplishments during the last four decades helped India to have the top position among cassava growing countries with an average yield of 24 t ha-1. However several traits like starch quality, high protein , post harvest deterioration etc can be altered only through the development of transgenics. The present study summarizes the results of the experiments undertaken to optimize the protocol for the development of transgenic cassava through Agrobacterium mediated gene transfer. Friable Embryogenic Callus (FEC) was developed in the cassava var. TMS 60444 us ing Murashige and Skoog (MS) media with picloram (50μM). Experiments were conducted to study the efficiency of different Agrobacterium stains viz, AGL 8, GV3101, C58C1, LBA 4404 and EH105 in transforming FEC. The strains differed in their growth rate. The strains EH105 and AGL were slower in growth as compared to other strains and the protocol was modified accordingly. Among all the strains, EH105 resulted in maximum recovery of transgenic tissues. The paper also summarizes the present status of development of transgenic cassava along with future thrusts.

1. INTRODUCTION

Wild pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is one of those fruits which has got a great economic importance. The name “pomegranate”is derived from Latin pomum (apple) and granatus (seeded) which has influenced the common name for pomegranate in many languages (like in German Granatapfel, seeded apple). It has widely been cultivated throughout India and drier parts of South-East Asia, Malaysia, the East Indies and tropical Africa. The most important growing countries of pomegranate are are Egypt, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, India, Mayamar and Saudi Arabia. In India, it grows in the vast tract of the hill slopes of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. One of the important centers of wild pomegranate, in Himachal Pradesh is Darlaghat, located about 50 Km from Shimla. The fruit provides substantial income to the farmers particularly where it is found growing wild such as in Mandi, Kullu, Sirmour, Solan, Shimla, and Chamba districts of Himachal Pradesh. It is found very common and gregarious in drier and sub-marginal land of mid hill regions of outer Himalayas at an elevation of 900-1800 m above mean sea level (a.m.s.l). Wild pomegranate is considered as one of the commercial fruits of Himachal Pradesh in the form of dried arils popularly known as “Anardana”. Besides Anardana, other value added products can also be prepared from this fruit as detailed in this chapter.

Dietary constitution of Indian people is mostly cereal based. However, the cereals supply chiefly carbohydrates. Therefore, there is deficiency of protein, minerals and vitamins, especially vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin C, etc. in the diet. The dieticians advocate the intake of 125 g leafy vegetables, 75 g other vegetables and 100 g root and tuber vegetables (total 300 g) everyday because vegetables provide all the nutrient components like carbohydrates, protein, fat, minerals, vitamins and water along with roughages, which are the essential constituents of a balanced diet.

India has attained food security by increased cereal production due to green revolution. In case of vegetables, although there has been increase in production from 15 million tonnes during 1950 to 94 million tonnes in 2005 but still more vegetables are needed to meet the minimum requirement of at least 250 g per day per capita. There has also been increasing demand for fresh export and for processing industries. Moreover, there is a pressure for increasing vegetable supply caused by constantly increasing population in a world of limited acres.

Addition of new agricultural land is of course not possible. In this situation, plant breeding can be expected to contribute substantially to greater vegetable productivity. This can be accomplished not only by the breeding of basically higher yielding varieties but also by the development of varieties that help to stabilize production through resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses.

1. INTRODUCTION

Food additives have been used for centuries in food processing practices such as smoking and salting of meat. Prior to the advent of refrigeration, food grown in the summer had to be preserved for the winter. Salt, sugar, and vinegar were commonly used preservatives. Additives serve many roles and their common uses includes maintaining product consistency and palatability, providing leavening or controlling pH, enhancing flavour and imparting colour. A food additive can be defined in many ways. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, which develops international regulatory guidelines for food additives, provides the following definition of a food additive:

"Any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself, and not normally used as a typical ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results, or may reasonably be expected to result, (directly or indirectly), in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such food. The term does not include contaminants or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities".

F.A.O and W.H.O in 1956 defines food additives as non-nutritive substances added intentionally to food, generally in small quantities, to improve its appearance, flavour, or storage properties. The definition did not include vitamins and minerals. Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FASSI) in 2011 defines food additives “as any substances which is added to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation or treatment of such food and affects the characteristics of such food, but does” not include contaminats or any substance(s) added to the food maintaining or improving the nutritional values. Food additives are those added intentionally to foods and are not naturally a part of a food but can be a part of food unintentionally.

7.1 Introduction

In this chapter, process, outcome and impact evaluation of the vegetable integrated pest management programme (IPM) implemented in the subtropical area of the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state during 2008-09 and 2009-10 was studied. There are many research designs employed for impact evaluation. These include one group before and after comparison design, one group time-series design, non-equivalent control group design and ex-post facto research design. Social scientists most often used before and after IPM (longitudinal) comparisons, with and without IPM, and control group (latitudinal) comparisons, and a combination of the two (longitudinal and latitudinal). A robust measure of the impact of a programme, however, is the difference-in-differences (Ashenfelter and Card, 1985) quasi-experimental design, a statistical technique used in econometrics and quantitative sociology to determine the difference between the treatment (with) and control group (without) over time. The difference-in-differences quasi-experimental design, also called double difference (DD), used to compare the treatment (with IPM) and control group (without IPM) over time. The objective of our quasi-experimental empirical study was to determine the impact of the vegetable IPM programme on the adoption of non-chemical pest management practices, pesticide use, and field use environmental impact in the sub-tropical region of the J&K state. Difference-in-difference quasi-experimental control group design (with/without, before/after) was used to compare the changes before and after the IPM programme between the IPM trained farmers and the non-IPM farmers. The DD model was employed to identify the impact of the IPM programme on the adoption of non-pesticide IPM practices, pesticide use by weight (a.i.), pesticide use frequency, farmers’ knowledge regarding safe use and handling of the pesticides, and field use environmental impact to address the bias introduced by a non-random sampling procedure as the farmers from FFS were selected intentionally (Table 1). The DD model also eliminated the in-built, systematic or seasonal effects other than the training effect.

Digging and Filling of Pits

1.    Marking of pits and planting should always be done with the help of planting board.

2.    The guide pegs are installed at both the ends.

3.    One meter deep pits of one meter diameter should be dug.

4.    Top 30 cm soil should be kept on one side, which is used for refilling the pits as it is fertile soil.

5.    Bottom 70 cm soil should be kept on other side, which is discarded.

6.    The pits should be left exposed for a few days before actual planting.

7.    These pits should be refilled with mixture of topsoil, 2-3 baskets of silt and 2-3 baskets of well-decomposed farmyard manure.

8.    The refilled pits should be watered a few days before planting the tree. To each pit add carbofuron (25g) for control of white ants.

ABSTRACT

In vitro propagation of Plumbago rosea was attempted. One year old plants were used as the source of explants. Nodal explants were inoculated on half strength MS medium supplemented with 2,4-D 1.0 mg l^-1. Induction of callus was observed three weeks after inoculation. The calli were sub-cultured on half strength MS medium supplemented with BA (0.5, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 mg l^-1) and IAA (0.0 and 1.0 mg l^-1). Eight treatments with six replications were tried. Benzyl adenine 2.0 mg l^-1 promoted the proliferation of shoots (23.2). Rooting of micro shoots was obtained on MS medium supplemented with IBA 1.5 mg l^-1. The plantlets were then transferred to pots containing sand/soil mixture (1:1) and kept in a mist chamber. The survival rate was found to be 90 per cent.

Importance of fruits in human diet is well recognized since time immemorial. They are important part of a healthy diet as natural sources of energy, essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants ever since the beginning of humancivilization. Our country is bestowed with varied climatic conditions, which had made it possible to grow diverse group of fruits from its temperate to tropical, to subtropical and even to arid niches. The cultivation of fruit crops is, presently, one of the most important and profitable proposition. Growing fruit crops translate into realization of more yield/ income from a unit area of land than any of the agronomic crops. However, there is need to considerably increase the yield of fruit crops, particularly under changing environmental conditions as under such conditions diseases are getting more prevalent. Therefore by adoption of proper protection practices, yield of fruit crops can be improved.

Plant diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and phytoplasmas reduce crop yields (Khoury and Makkouk, 2010).Adoption and support for using participatory approaches help to farmers in disease management of fruit crops, reducing costs and improving production efficiency. Fungal, bacterial and viral diseases pose serious threat in the cultivation of fruit crops in India. To reduce the losses caused by plant disease, a complete knowledge of disease management strategies of fruit crops are essential which are as follows:

1. DISEASES OF MANGO

Mango is considered to be the king of fruit. India is the largest producer and exporter of mango in the world. Mango possess unique nutritional and medicinal qualities apart from being a rich source of vitamins A & C, besides its attractive form and appearance, delicious taste and appetizing flavor, the ripe mango fruit according to nutritional experts is also highly invigorating, fattening, laxative and diuretic. Every part of mango from root to tip is used in a variety of ways. This crop is affected by many fungal, bacterial and other non parasitic diseases.

1. Mango Malformation Disease (MMD)

Mango Malformation Disease is a fungal disease of mango caused by several species of Fusarium, some yet to be described. Mango is the only known host of the disease. The disease spreads on a tree very slowly, but if left unchecked, can severely reduce yields. The main method of spreading MMD to new areas is through infected vegetative planting material. There is no evidence that the disease can spread on fruit or the seeds, or that it affects human health. It usually associated with the bud mite, Aceria mangiferae but the mites have been shown to spread the disease within a tree and not between the trees. Mango malformation, also known as bunchy top, is a very serious threat to the mango industry, particularly in northern India. The Etiology of the disease still remains obscure and diverse claims have been made about its causes, e.g., physiological, viral, fungal, acarological and nutritional.

Introduction
Vegetable crops are highly susceptible to biotic stresses indicated by disease causing micro-organism (fungi, bacteria, virus and phytoplasma). Indiscriminate use of chemicals for the control of diseases, insect pest have
several disadvantages, particularly increased cost of cultivation, residual toxicity in food chain and development of resistance against pathogen. Management of diseases involves use of resistant varieties and integration of cultural and chemical control measures. Of the biotic stresses much of the breeding efforts have been directed towards developing resistance against diseases. In fact, breeding for resistance, has been one of the most important objective of vegetable breeder in the last half of the century. Genes that contribute to pathogen tolerance/resistance can be obtained from local germplasm resources, or through exotic lines, wild species or genera, or lines from other breedingprograms. In the biotechnological approaches for vegetable breeding also,  most of the achievement has been to generate transgenic plants resistance to disease. Often breeding for resistance has assumed greater importance in a number of vegetable crops.
Major Diseases of Tomato
Early blight: The casual organism is Alternaria solani. The symptoms appears as small, black spots with enlarged and concentric rings in a bull’s eye pattern in the center of the leaves. Tissue surrounding the spots may turn yellow. On fruits, dark brown concentric rings are seen that affects the market quality.

1. Damping-off
Pathogen
Pythium aphanidermatum (Edson.) Fitz.
P. debaryanum                  
Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn.
Fusarium spp.
Sclerotium spp.
Symptoms
Damping-off of onion seedlings occurs in two stages:
    (i)    Pre emergence
(ii)    Post emergence
In pre emergence stage, plumules are killed before they reach the soil surface. They may be infected, killed even before the hypocotyls have broken the seed coat.

Introduction

Amaranthus species were grown as the principle grain crop by the Aztecs 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, prior to the disruption ofthe South American civilization by the Spanish Conquistadors. Synonyms such as “mystical grains of the Aztecs,” “super grain of the Aztecs,” and the “golden grain of the Gods” were used to describe the nutritious amaranth grain. Vegetable Amaranthus spp. were and are presently utilized for food from such diverse geographic areas as southwestern United States, China, India, Africa, Nepal, South Pacific Islands, Caribbean, Greece, Italy, and Russia (Stallknecht et. al., 1993). Amaranthus grain is extremely nutritional pseudo-cereal with a higher amount of proteins when compared to true cereals. It is a reasonably well balanced food with functional properties that have been shown to provide medicinal benefits. Amaranth associate underutilized crop and an inexpensive supply of proteins, minerals, vitamin A and C, appears to be a future crop which may substantiate this demand because of its tremendous yield potential and biological process qualities, conjointly recently gained worldwide attention (Topwal, 2019). Amaranth as a unique plant with a long and mysterious history is the obj ect for science and also for business. Its characteristics such as absence of gluten and special composition of oil lead this plant to the position of very important plant for the future. The Advantages of Amaranth for Food Industry: Gluten-free, High-quality protein, Non Food-allergy, Thickening property of amaranth starch. The Advantages of Amaranth oil for Cosmetic Industry: Squalene content has a preserve function for skin and hair against sun and radiation, Available for very sensitive skin, Non- Allergy amaranth oil on skin. Amaranth has a big advantage, because it could be use by two ways-biomass for the bio fuel production and grain for food production (Matusova, 2008). As dyes, the flowers of the ‘Hopi Red Dye’ amaranth were used by the Hopi (a tribe in the western

Scab

Ventruia inaequalis (Spilocaea pomi Fr?)

Diagnostic Symptoms

• Symptoms generally noticed on leaves and fruits.

Introduction

The apple (Malus domestica), a valuable and economically significant crop, is grown in India’s northwestern Himalayan region. After Orange, Banana, and Grape, it is the fourth most widely grown fruit worldwide. The tree is native to Central Asia, where its wild ancestor Malus sieversii is still found today. Apples have been cultivated in Asia and Europe for thousands of years. The world’s largest apple grower is China and in India it is grown in the hills of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir in India. The average summer temperature during the active period is about 21-24°C growing season. Apple does this best in areas where trees are dormant. The color development will be better in winter when plenty of sunlight hits. It is possible even at an altitude of 1500 -2700 meters from sea level. 1000-1250 mm well distributed rainfall during the growing season which is most suitable for optimal growth and fertility of apple trees.

Introduction

The banana (Musa parasidiaca) belongs to the Monocotyledons class, the Zingiberales order, and the Musaceae family. It is indigenous to Southeast Asia. They thrive in tropical and subtropical climates and are widely grown in countries such as India, China, the Philippines, Ecuador, Brazil, Uganda, Colombia, and Indonesia. A banana’s average length is 7 to 9 inches, and its diameter is 2 to 3 inches. Bananas are frequently planted during the rainy or monsoon season, when the soil is moist and the young plants can absorb enough water. In tropical and subtropical climates where they are commonly grown, the planting season typically runs from April to June. Planting may take place in September or October in areas with a dry season, following the rainy season.

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.

Introduction The betel vine, scientifically identified as Piper betle L., belongs to the Piperaceae family, which encompasses plants such as pepper and kava. Paan leaves, widely cultivated in countries like Thailand, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and various Southeast Asian nations, are commonly used as a popular mouth freshener after meals. This traditional practice is predominantly observed in South Asia and among specific Asian diaspora communities worldwide, where betel leaves are commonly chewed as part of a betel quid or paan, often combined with areca nut or tobacco.

In the cultural traditions of Odisha, offering a bundle of betel leaves symbolizes respect and marks the beginning of auspicious events. Taxonomically, betelvine falls under the genus Piper in the Division Magnoliophyta, Class Magnoliopsida, Order Piperales, and Family Piperaceae.

Introduction

Brinjal, Solanum melongena L. a solanaceous and the native vegetable of India is very favourite among the Indians. It is an economically important vegetable among the small scale farmers and low income consumers of India. It ensures some assured source of income to the resource poor farmers throughout the year due to long fruiting and harvesting period. Brinjal fruits are of a low calorie value and have a mineral composition that is beneficial for human health; these fruits are rich source of minerals (potassium, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, chlorine, iron etc.) and vitamins and have some medicinal importance (Choudhary, 1967). In India, brinjal is grown on the wide range of soils and other variable environmental conditions. In production and productivity, India stands second in the world after China which is mainly grown in the states like West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The world production of brinj al in the year 2016 was estimated to be 51.29 million MT in an area of 1.79 million hectare with productivity of 28.59 MT per ha China, the world leader of brinjal production produced 32.03 million tones of brinjal with a productivity of40.96 Mt per ha in an area of 0.78 million ha. The productivity of brinjal as compared to China is very less (18.90 MT/ha) in India although we are the second largest producer ofthis popular vegetable (FAOSTAT Website (http://faostat3.fao.org/home/E).

Introduction

Brinjal (Solanum melongena), is a self-pollinated plant also known as eggplant, is an easily cultivated plant belonging to the Solanaceae family.Brinjal ishigh productive vegetable and easily grown everywhere.It is also known as poor’s man vegetable. Brinjal is cultivated widelyand grown as a vegetable crop in any environment. Brinjal grown large amount in India, Pakistan, Chinaand United States. The origin of the brinjal is India. In Brinjaleconomic parts are fruit. It is a high nutritional valuable food.The brinjal fruit and whole plant use as a medicine in some area. It is cultivated everypart of India except high attitude, all the year around. Depending upon consumer’s preference and yield, different types of cultivars are cultivated.Somewild spp of brinjal are fond in northeast states of India and Malaysia. Solanum insanum, a wild cultivar of the plant, mainlyobserved in the dry and hilly region of west Bengal.Some yellow color brinjal varieties are found in Malaya.

1. Introduction

Eggplant or brinjal (Solanum melongena L. family. Solanaceae) is the major vegetable crop of wet and hot climatic zone of south Asia (Srinivasan and Huang, 2008). After China, India is the second largest brinjal producer country in the world (Majumdar and Das, 2020). It is nutritious vegetable and consumed in throughout the world. Brinjal is considered as Indian native crop and it has been cultivated for last 4000 year. India is known to be the Origin Centre of brinjal cultivation, from where it distributed to throughout the world (Choudhury and Malda, 1968). In India, brijnal crop grow almost throughout the year. Brinjal fruit contains moisture 92.7g, carbohydrates 4.0g, proteins 1.4g, minerals 0.3g, vitamins 124 I.U. and vitamin 12.0mg per 100 g of edible part (Kalra et al., 1988). It is used as vegetable purpose as well as pickle (Singh et al., 1963).

Introduction

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L) belonging to family Brassicaceae, is an herbaceous annual or biennial plant which is cultivated for its edible flower heads being are used as vegetable or salads. The broccoli plant has a broad green stalk, or stem, that give produces thick, leathery, oblong gray-blue to green in color leaves. The plant produces large branching green flower heads covered with numerous white or yellow flowers. Broccoli can be annual or biennial depending on the variety. Broccoli is a rich source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and has a reputation as super foods (Hatanaka and Ware, 2020).

It is admitted that they are susceptible to a numerous of serious diseases that leads to reduction in yield. Thus, it is the utmost requirement to control such biotic stressors in order to obtain desired quality and decent yields. The most important diseases and its control measures are being portrayed in this chapter for both home gardener and the commercial producers for cruciferous vegetables particularly broccoli (Mani et al., 2020).

Blackrot of Cabbage

Economic Importance

Blackrot is an important bacterial disease of cabbage and other crucifer crops worldwide. The disease was first described in New York on turnips in 1893, and has been a common problem for growers for over 100 years (Smart and Lang, 2013). Blackrot has been given many names such as bacterial blight,black stem, black vein, stem rot or stump rot (Pfeufer and Davis, 2019). These pathogen is particularly damaging to cabbage and cauliflower, but turnip, rutabaga, collard, kohlrabi and Chinese cabbage are also susceptible. Broccoli and radish aregenerally resistant to Blackrot (Flynn,1999).

Chilli is reported to be an inhabitant of South America and widely scattered in all tropical and sub-tropical countries including India. Amongst all the important consumed crops, chilli occupies a dominant position and its economic losses worldwide due to few serious diseases like chilli anthracnose, Phytophthora leaf blight and fruit rot, bacterial leaf spot, bacterial wilt, Cercospora leaf spot, chilli leaf curl virus and so on. Capsicum annuum L., C. frutescens L. are the biological names of chilli. Bird’s eye chilli is grown in Mizoram and some areas of Manipur and Assam. Chilli has got its own regional names. In Hindi, it is popularly known as Lal Mirch, in Gujrat as March, in Marathi as Mirchi and so on. Kanthari White is grown in Kerala and some parts of Tamil Nadu. Kashmir chilli is grown in temperate region such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and also in sub-tropical regions of North India. Red chilli held high amount of vitamin C and provitamin A, whereas green chilli too contain a considerable amount of both substances. In addition, peppers are a good quality source of most B vitamins, vitamin B6 in particular. They are very high in Potassium, Magnesium and Iron supplement.

Introduction

Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli, are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. Chili peppers are widely used in many cuisines as a spice to add "heat" to dishes.

Botanical Name : Capsicum annum

Family : Solanaceae

Chromosome Number (2n) : 24

Diseases of Chilli

 1. Powdery Mildew

The disease was first reported from Morocco in 1937.

Anthracnose or Fruit Rot and Die Back

Colletotrichum capsici

Diagnostic Symptoms

Dieback symptoms

• Small, circular to irregular, brownish black scattered spots appear on leaves .

Introduction

Chrysanthemum, commonly known as “mums” or “chrysanths,” is a genus of plants that bloom and belong to the Asteraceae family. These plants are native to Asia and northeastern Europe, with China being the primary centre of diversity for the genus. Chrysanthemums are well-known for their attractive and colorful f lowers, and they are popular ornamental plants in gardens, floral arrangements, and as cut flowers.

Chrysanthemum morifolium is a herbaceous perennial flowering crop. It is the second most popular cut flower worldwide, right behind roses, and a significant decorative plant for commerce (Silva et. al., 2013). Certain species’ flowers, such as those of Chrysanthemum morifolium and Chrysanthemum indicum, are rich in nutrients and biologically active substances and are used to make medicinal tea and cosmetics, respectively (Lin et. al., 2010).

Gummosis

Phytophthora spp

Diagnostic Symptoms

• Dark water soaked large patches appear on the basal portions of the stem near the ground level.

Introduction

The innermost layer of the pericarp is the endocarp. The segments are also called “liths”, and the space inside each lith is a locule filled with juice vesicles, or “pulp”. From the endocarp, stringlike “hairs” extend into the locules, which provide nourishment to the fruit as it develops. Citrus fruits are notable for their fragrance, partly due to flavonoids and limonoids (which in turn are terpenes) contained in the rind, and most are juice-laden. The juice contains a high quantity of citric acid giving them their characteristic sharp flavour. The genus is commercially important as many species are cultivated for their fruit which is eaten fresh, pressed for juiceor preserved in marmalades and pickles.

Coconut

 Kingdom: Plantae

 Phylum: Magnoliophyta

 Class: Liliopsida

 Subclass: Arecidae

 Order: Arecales

 Family: Arecaceae

 Genus: Cocos

 Species: Cocos nucifera Linnaeus

 1. Bud Rot

The fungus Phytophthora palmivora is responsible for the ailment known as “bud rot.” Butler first mentioned bud rot in India in 1906. Due to a number of factors, the disease has recently spread to practically every region of the state in a very serious manner.