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Improved Varieties of Asparagus

(1) Perfection

Source : Developed at IARI, New Delhi

Maturity : Early

Spears : Large, green, succulent, heavy cropper and uniform in maturity

Production Technology of Asparagus

Climate

Asparagus is temperate season vegetable and bears excellent crop between a temperature range of 15-24ºC for most of the growing season. The ideal day temperature is 25-30^oC and night temperature 15-20^oC. It can tolerate frost up to some extent but continuous freezing is harmful for its growth. Spear initiation occurs at soil temperature of more than 10ºC. Spear elongation is faster at high air temperature. Root and shoot development is reduced below 13ºC and above 29ºC. Due to warm weather, spear tips open prematurely and quality of spears is reduced. Elevation of more than 1000m is good for high yield.

Asparagus is an herbaceous perennial that is widely grown in the United States, Germany, Spain, and France, with India contributing only a little amount. For many years, asparagus has been grown. This was a favourite crop of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. It belongs to the Liliaceae family and is thought to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean and further east in the Caucasus Mountains. It’s a monocotyledonous perennial that’s farmed for its edible stems (spears).

ABSTRACT

Grape is a commercially cultivated fruit crop in India. As a result of large-scale introduction, the origin and authenticity of many grape varieties is unclear and the subject of some controversy. Many of the varieties were mixed up and now have led to confusion regarding their correct identification. To explore the genetic relationships between different grape varieties and to analyze their diversity, molecular marker technique has proved to be useful. In the present study, 34 grape varieties have been characterized using Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) markers. Out of 93 ISSR primers screened initially, 11-showed good polymorphism. Total 174 bands were obtained, out of which 145 were polymorphic. The similarity indices were calculated using DICE coefficient and NTSYS Pc 2.1 software.

Cluster analysis resulted in the formation of two main clusters. One, of the varieties belonging to Vitis vinifera and other of V. labrusca. Varieties belonging to V. vinifera appeared more diverse by forming distinct sub-clusters based on their colour, flavour and seeds. Out of 34 varieties screened, 10 varieties are grouped in white berries cluster and 15 in coloured (red /black) berries cluster. Three white varieties- Italia, Queen of Vineyard and Thompson seedless are grouped into cluster of coloured varieties. The cluster of labrusca varieties showed homogeneity and had five varieties except Dakh, which belongs to vinifera. It may be wrong introduction. Concord separates initially from all other varieties. Incidentally, Concord is a pure selection from V. labrusca, while varieties like Bangalore blue, Black Muscat, Catawba and Muzzafar Nagar in labrusca group may be the hybrids of labrusca x vinifera. The current study thus revealed that genetic relationship among grape cultivars could be assessed using ISSR markers.

ABSTRACT

DNA based molecular marker technologies have been used extensively to study the genetic relationships and to develop markers for identification of cultivars/varieties in various crops. The present study is an attempt to assess the variability and relatedness among 49 varieties/ accessions of black pepper (Piper nigrum L) based on the data generated by both RAPD and AFLP analyses. The similarity matrix was subjected to cluster analysis and dendrogram generated using the software Ntsyspc 2.1. The dendrogram revealed an average similarity of 63 per cent among accessions. Two selections from the variety Karimunda, namely Sreekara and Subhakara, together formed a single cluster with almost 92 per cent similarity. The dissimilarity observed between the varieties Panniyur 1 and Panniyur 3 the progenies of the same parentage, Uthirankotta and Cheriyakanyakadan was only 18 per cent. Based on RAPD analysis 34 varieties were grouped into 5 clusters. Distinct clustering was not observed in AFLP analysis. The results obtained were correlated with the taxonomical interrelationships reported for these varieties. The overall study has thus helped in understanding the relationship among the local cultivars and released varieties.

1. Introduction

Several herbs have been used traditionally to prevent and treat human and animal diseases. Recently, scientific evaluation of plants and preparations of plant origin medications have received more attention. Cassia occidentalis had been reported to be used as antidote of poison, blood purifier, expectorant, anti inflammatory agent and a remedy for the treatment of liver diseases (Ghani, 1920, Kabiruddin, 1951). C occidentalis was tested for antifeedant and insecticidal properties. It was studied successfully for its anti-parasitic (Tona et al., 1999), hepatoprotective activity (Jafri et al., 1999). Stimulation of the immune system is highly desirable for the treatment of immunodeficiency and infectious diseases. The  anti-inflammatory and hepato protective effects of C occidentalis may relate to an influence of plant compounds on immunocompetent cells. The present study was undertaken to find out the effect of methanolic extract of C occidentalis leaves on the humoral immune response in rabbits.

Availability of genetic variability and exploitation of this variability are two basic requirements of successful crop breeding programmes. The presence of genetic variation in a character is a must for any improvement in that character. If all the individuals in a population are identical i.e. no variation is there, selection cannot be done, so no improvement will be done. In case of crops, if variation is not present or variation is very small, variations are created through hybridization, mutation, polyploidy etc. Selection is identification and isolation of desirable plants from a variable population. A population consists of large number of heterogenous individuals with different morphological expressions. This variability is contributed by three factors: 1. Genetic constitution of individual, 2. Environmental effect on the individual and 3. Interaction effect between gene and environment. These three factors contribute towards the phenotypic variability among the individuals of the population. Assessment of magnitude of variability present in a crop species is of utmost importance as it provides the evidence for effective selection. Phenotypic variation in a population arises due to genotypic and environmental effects.

Withania somnifera, also known as Ashwagandha, Indian ginseng, Winter cherry, Ajagandha, Kan-aje Hindi, Amukkara in Tamil and Samm Al Ferakh, is a plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family.

Grasshoppers : Trilophida an- nulata : Acrididae

The nymphs and adults of this grasshopper feed on the margins of leaves of Aswagandha. It is only a minor pest, nibbling on the leaves.

Atuna racemosa subspecies racemosa is shown to be a species with many uses throughout its range from Malaysia to Melanesia. The principle uses described are the seed oil used as anti-inflamatory massage oil and for hair dressing, the seed pulp that is used for caulking and varnishing boats, the wood for house construction, and many parts of the plant as ingredients of local medicines. The medicinal uses of this species deserve further study since it has been shown to have both anti-bacterial and anti-inflamatory action. It is also uncertain whether its distribution over the Pacific is natural or human caused.

Atuna racemosa Rafin. is a widely distributed tree species that ranges from the Malay Peninsula through Malesia, Australasia and to the Pacific islands as far as Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. As with many useful plants, its natural distribution is uncertain because it has been transported around from island to island during the various migrations of the Pacific islanders.

Nutrition affects the development of human body immune system, playing a vital role in modifying the threat of exposure and susceptibility to infectious patho gens, acuteness of morbidity and success of treatment. Keeping in view the pres ent pandemic and emerging viruses such Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Hantavi ruses, Nipah viruses for which no effective preventive and curative treatment is in hand, a healthy immune system could be one of the most important defences to f ight off (El-Gamal et al., 2011). Vegetables are rich source of essential vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fibres; however, certain vegetables hold more significance in view of boosting immunity.

Automatic microclimate monitoring in greenhouses utilizes sensors and control systems to gather and analyze data on environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light, and soil conditions. This data is then used to adjust and regulate the greenhouse environment, ensuring optimal conditions for plant growth. By maintaining ideal climate parameters, this system enhances crop production efficiency and supports sustainable farming practices.
MAIN COMPONENTS OF A GREENHOUSE ENVIRONMENT
Various factors influence the environment inside a greenhouse, with heat, humidity, light levels, and ventilation being some of the most important. Achieving the right balance of these factors is crucial for maximizing crop yields. For example, efficient air circulation promotes better plant growth, ensuring higher productivity.
Let’s now take a closer look at the main components of a greenhouse environment:
Light
The right amount and quality of light are essential for photosynthesis, which supports proper plant growth. IoT-enabled sensors can monitor light levels inside the greenhouse and adjust artificial lighting to complement natural sunlight, ensuring optimal conditions for the crops.
Air Quality
Air quality plays a crucial role in plant development. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO?) and oxygen (O?) must be carefully regulated. IoT sensors can measure these gases and adjust ventilation systems in real-time to maintain optimal levels for healthy plant growth.

Protected structures such as cloches, low tunnels, greenhouses, livestock housing, aquaculture facilities and phytotrones provide varying degrees of climate control for agricultural production. While cloches and low tunnels provide only passive modification of the growing environment, all other protected structures have the possibility of active and precise growing environment control.

GREENHOUSE TECHNOLOGY

Greenhouse technology permits the management of both biotic and abiotic stresses related to plant growth to maximize the productivity and quality. Resultantly, profitability per unit area per unit time increases by two to three orders of magnitude as compared to open field cultivation. Introduction of greenhouse technology in India for commercial production is only about three decades old, whereas it is more than two centuries old in USA, UK, Holland, France, Italy, etc.

A greenhouse is a framed or inflated structure covered with a transparent or translucent material where plant environment could be, at least partially controlled and which is large enough to permit a person to enter and carry out cultural operations. A greenhouse is called a glasshouse, when covered with glass, and plastic house when plastic is the glazing material. Materials of construction and cropping activities are also used to identify greenhouses. In addition to the growing facility, a commercial greenhouse complex has a head house, an input storage and a sales area. All these components are so arranged that unwanted movements of man and material are obviated.The greenhouse complex should have adequate wind breaks on the upstream side of the wind direction to provide protection against heavy winds.

Estimation of organic carbon in soil (Walkley and Black, 1934)

Principle: Soil organic carbon is oxidized to CO₂ by heat of dilution obtained when a known amount of soil is treated with excess of standard K₂Cr₂O₇ in the presence of concentrated H₂SO₄. The excess of K₂Cr₂O₇ not reduced by the organic matter is back titrated with standard ferrous ammonium sulphate in the presence of phosphoric acid or sodium fluoride using diphenyl indicator. At the point colour changes from violet to blue or bright green.

Apparatus: 500 ml conical flasks, Pipettes of 10 and 20 ml, Burette, Balance, Measuring cylinder, Asbestos sheet.

Euphorbiaceae is a large family that includes 310-320 genera and 7500 species (Walters and Keil, 1996). Two centers of distribution for this family are tropical America and tropical Africa. The family has an extremely variable life span and habits are found as annual and perennial herbs, vines, succulents, shrubs and tall trees. Members of the Euphorbiaceæ are found in many habitats, from deserts to rain forests. Euphorbiaceae family has genera used as unconventional foods

In Mexico, 826 species under Euphorbiaceae family are found with 50 genera including those introduced from elsewhere and cultivated. A subfamily with a larger number of genera is Acalyphoieae (16), while Euphorbioideae has more species (306), and Crotonoideae has more specific endemism (Martinez-Gordillo et al, 2002). Some of these plants are used in traditional medicine, in oil industry, as ornamental plants, and as food additive. A few examples of its uses include edible wax from Euphorbia antisyphilitica (candelilla) that coats fruits and vegetables to retard water evaporation. Jatropha dioica is a small shrub that is used in traditional medicine and Euphorbia pulcherrima (Poisenetta) an ornamental plant.

Fusarium wilt of carnation caused by Fusarium oxysporum f.spp dianthi causes severe yield losses under protected cultivation. For the management of Fusarium wilt, 27 isolates of Bacillus strains were isolated from the rhizosphere of different crops including carnation. Among various species of Bacillus, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (BSC7) was identified as a most virulent antagonistic bacterial isolate. Studies on antagonism under Environmentally Controlled Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM), depicted the presence of rod shaped bacterial cells with biofilm formation at 44847x. Detection for the presence of antibiotic biosynthetic genes reflected the presence of surfactin, iturin, bacillomycin and fengycin genes. The 24 isolates of Bacillus spp. showed positive reaction for surfactin gene. Nineteen isolates were amplified for Iturin A gene except BS5, BS9, BSC1, BSC2, BSC11, BSD1 and BSD2. Strains of B. subtilis BS1, BS2, BS5, BS6 and BS8 expressed Bacillomycin D gene. The genomic DNA of strains BS1, BS2, BS4, BS6, BS7 BS8, BS11 and BS14 showed positive for Fengycin D gene. The isolate of B. subtilis BS2 showed positive reaction for four genes namely surfactin, iturin, bacillomycin and fengycin.

In vitro screening of Bacillus, B. amyloliquefaciens (BSC7), P. aeruginosa (P1) and T. viride (TV1) showed highest inhibition against F.oxysporum f.sp.dianthi to an extent of 55.95, 55.29 and 81.61 per cent over the control respectively. The antifungal activity of antagonistic B. amyloliquefaciens BSC7 and T. viride TV1 against F.oxysporum f.sp. dianthi was confirmed under ESEM by observing disintegration, lysis and structural abnormalities of the hyphae of the pathogen at the zone of interaction.

Backcross breeding is defined as system of breeding whereby recurrent backcrosses are made to one of the parents of a hybrid, accompanied by selection for a specific character or characters. It is basically applicable to self-pollinated crops and is precise way improving varieties that excel in large number of desirable attributes but lack in a few characteristics. This method makes use of a series of backcrosses to the variety to be improved during which character for which improvement is sought is maintained by selection. At the end of the backcrossing, the gene to be transferred remains in heterozygous condition and selfing after the last backcross produces homozygosity for the gene under transfer. As a result, the improved variety will remain like recurrent variety in terms of yield, adaptability, quality features, etc. will be superior for the character which was planned to be transferred from the donor parent.

The application of backcross breeding in plants was first proposed by H.V. Harlan and M.N. Pope in 1922. In principle, backcross breeding does not improve the genotype of the product, except for the substituted gene(s).

Globalization of economies and liberalization of trade has led an urgent need for prioritizing the potential areas for investment in order to earn handsome amount of income. Even the entrepreneurs, small as well as marginal farmers aspire to take advantage of global opportunity. Diversification to horticultural crops has been found to be best option as they make more profit, generate additional employment for rural masses and conserve natural resources. Agriculture plays a vital role in the Indian economy. Over 52 per cent of the rural households depend on agriculture as their principal means of livelihood. But unfortunately Indian farmers in general are small and marginal land holders with poor resources and realizing income mainly from cereal based production system, which is insufficient to improve their living standards. Agriculture, along with fisheries and forestry, accounts for one-third of the nation’s GDP and is its single largest contributor (www.indianbusiness.nic.in). GVA at Basic Prices for 2019-20 from ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing’ sector is estimated to grow by 2.8 per cent as compared to growth of 2.9 per cent in 2018-19. The GVA estimates of this sector are based on 1^st advance estimates of agricultural production during Kharif season of 2019-20 obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer Welfare. For Livestock sector, estimates of production of major livestock products (i.e. Milk, Egg, Meat and Wool) obtained from the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying and Fish production data obtained from Department of Fisheries have been used. The crops including fruits and vegetables account for about 56 per cent, the livestock products 30 per cent and forestry & fisheries 14 per cent share of GVA in total GVA of ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing’ sector [As per the estimates released by National Statistics Office, Ministry of Statistics and programme Implementation, GoI, 2020]. Agricultural exports constitute a fifth of the total exports of the country. In view of the predominant position of the Agricultural Sector, collection and maintenance of Agricultural Statistics assume great importance. In 2018-19, India achieved a record food grain production of 285.17 million tonnes beating the previous year’s (2017-18) 285.01 million tonnes, according to data provided by Department of Economics and Statistics (DES). Also, agricultural profitability has increased over the last decade with record increases in MSPs (minimum support prices) for agricultural produce for all covered crops.

Bael is one of the oldest and useful trees of India. The bael fruit, (Aegle marmelos Correa) is also called Bengal quince (John and Stevenson, 1979), Indian quince, golden apple, holy fruit, stone apple, bel, belwa, sriphal and maredoo in India. Among the indigenous fruits of India, Bael occupies an important place. All the parts of bael tree have their own importance. It is a medicinally and economically important fruit crop with immense potential for extending its cultivation in semi-arid degraded land. Mention of bael cultivation in Indian literature dates back to 800 B.C.  Bael fruit is available in almost all states of India but most abundantly available in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

The Bael fruit is one of the most nutritious fruits. It contains 61.5 g water, 1.8 g protein, 0.39 g fat, 1.7 g mineral, 31.8 g carbohydrate, 55 mg carotene, 0.13 mg thiamin, 1.19 mg riboflavin, 1.1 mg niacin and 8 mg vitamin C / 100 gm of edible portion (Gopalan et al., 1971). It contains the highest riboflavin content among fruits. Marmelosin is, most probably, the therapeutically active principle of bael fruit. It is isolated as a colorless crystaline compound (Dixit and Dutt., 1932).The astringent taste of bael fruit is due to phenolic compounds. The medicinal properties of bael have been dealt with in Charaka Samhita (Aiyar, 1956). Bael fruit has curative, pesticidal and nutritive properties. The leaves of bael are used for worship of Lord Shiva. Green bael fruits are used for preparing Murabba (preserve) generally taken for stomach ailments. Bael fruits have an immense potential for processing into products like squash, jam, toffee, candy and syrups for internal and foreign market.

Bael (Aegle marmelos Correa.) also known as Shri Phal, Baelpatra, Bengal quince, Beel, Bel is a nutritious and medicinal fruit plant, which is most suitable for water scarce areas of the country. It is indigenous tree to India and known since ancient time. Bael fruit is mentioned in ancient literature viz., Vedas, Ramayana, Upavan Vinod,  Brihat Samhita (Singh and Roy, 1984). Methods of ripening of the bael fruit are also given in Buddhist and Jain literature 800 BC – 325 BC.  During the Ramayana period, it has been mentioned that bael trees were found growing in the Chitrakut hills and Panchvati. The bael is grown throughout the country and main bael growing states are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Rajasthan. It is found growing in neighboring countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and most of the Southeast Asian countries. Besides systematic orchard, bael can also be grown in parks, temple gardens, roadsides etc. The bael plant is sacred to the Hindus and is of common occurrence in temples of ‘Lord Shiva’ because of its mythological significance.

1. Downy Mildew (Green Ear)
Sclerospora graminicola
Diagnostic Symptoms
• Characteristic symptoms of the disease are pale, chlorotic, broad streaks extending from base to tip of leaves.
• At the advancement of disease, the leaf streaks turn brown and the leaves become shredded longitudinally.
• In severe infection, the downy fungal growth can be seen on the upper as well as lower surface of the leaves.
• Infected plants fail to form ear but if formed, they are malformed to green leafy structures.
• Complete ear can be transformed into leafy structure.
• Pathogen transformed all floral parts such as glumes, palea, stamens and pistils into green linear leafy structures of variable lengths and no grains are produced.
• Partial infection of ear head is observed in which some grains are produced and rest of the ear head is converted in to a green ear(Fig-1).

In the world of greenhouse cultivation, achieving optimal plant growth, maintaining robust health, and effectively managing pests is crucial for successful crop production. It requires a comprehensive approach to balance various factors, including chemical growth regulation, disease control, and pest management. Greenhouse technology plays a vital role in providing a controlled environment to fine-tune these variables. As we dive into the details of this delicate balance, it becomes clear how important it is to combine science and technology to find innovative solutions to ensure thriving crops while minimizing environmental impact.