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Seed Germination Test

Germination is the process of emergence and development of seed embryo into a plant under favourable environmental conditions of water, soil, sunlight and temperature. The best example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm plant. It reflects the ability of seed to produce a normal plant under favourable environmental conditions. The germination rate of a particular seed lot is a key indicator of its performance in the field.

ABSTRACT

Brinjal is an important solanaceous vegetable, which holds coveted position among the different vegetables. Developing hybrids with high yield and resistance to borer would be highly beneficial. The biochemical parameters are used to study the mechanism of resistance to pests and diseases. With this aim, the biochemical constituents were estimated in five intervarietal hybrids and their parents with susceptible variety. The study on biochemical basis of resistance to shoot and fruit borer showed that among the parents of intervarietal crosses, EP 65 had the highest level of peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase and total phenol content in both shoot and fruit and it also recorded high content of solasodine next to APAU Bagmathi. Among the hybrids, the cross EP 65 x Pusa Uttam had the highest level of peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase activity in both shoot and fruit and high level of total phenols and solasodine content next to EP 104 x APAU Bagmathi . The susceptible check (CO 2) registered the lowest value for all the biochemical constituents .The study revealed that the genotypes with high or moderate level of these biochemical constituents suffered less for shoot and fruit borer infestation.

The native gel electrophoretic study showed that for peroxidase enzyme, the intervarietal hybrids EP 65 x Pusa Uttam, EP 12 x MDU 1 and EP 104 x APAU Bagmathi and the susceptible variety CO 2 did not show difference in the induction of isoform (PO-1) and all were single and thick. For polyphenol oxidase (PPO), the intervarietal hybrids and the variety CO 2 showed single and strong band induction

The evaluation of genotypes based on biochemical constituents and isozyme studies revealed the superiority of the parents EP 65, APAU Bagmathi and MDU 1and the hybrids EP 65 x Pusa Uttam, EP 12 x MDU 1 and EP 104 x APAU Bagmathi. The identified hybrids with high yield and resistance to shoot and fruit borer could be exploited for commercial cultivation.

Introduction
Food preservation refers to an art or science which deals with the process of prevention of decay, deterioration or spoilage of food commodity to allow it to be stored in a safe condition for future use. All foods gradually undergo deterioration or spoilage from the time immediately they are harvested or manufactured. Some commodities spoil rapidly, while others can keep longer but for limited periods. The basic purposes of food preservation are:
1. Extension of shelf life of foods thus increasing the supply
2. Ensuring the availability of seasonal foods throughout the year
3. Adding variety to the diet
4. Saving time by reducing preparation time and energy
5. Stabilizing farm prices and prices of food
6. Improving the nutritional qualities The food spoilage can be caused due to growth and activity of micro-organisms, insects or rodents, action of enzymes, chemical reactions and physical changes that takes place during processing, drying, or freezing etc. Classification of Food Depending upon the type of spoilage and level of perishability, the foods are classified into three broad categories:

Introduction: Food processing involves different steps from receiving raw material, preparing for product manufacture, and packaging to storage. All these steps are called unit operations. They are broadly categorized as raw
material preparation (receiving, sorting, grading, washing, peeling, blanching, slicing, cutting, dicing etc), processing (canning, drying, pulping, juicing, product manufacture like jam, jelly, preserves, candies, pickling, sauce making, etc.) and post-production handling including packaging and storage. A brief detail about each unit operation is discussed as under:
1. Raw Material Handling
Material handling includes varied operations such as hand or mechanical harvesting on the farm, transportation in trucks or refrigerated vehicles of perishable produce to the market or to the processing plant or to store/godowns. For conveying, a wide variety of mechanical conveyors is used depending on the type of material. Common conveyors used in the processing plant include screw conveyors, bucket conveyors, belt conveyors and vibratory conveyors. Throughout these operations, care is taken to maintain sanitary conditions, minimize bruises and product loss, maintain raw material quality like physical appearance, and vitamin contents, minimize microbial growth and minimize other detrimental changes to the product quality during handling etc. It also includes other unit operations like receiving, cleaning/washing, sorting, grading, peeling, halving, slicing, blanching etc for preparation of fruit and vegetables for processing.

Introduction

Plant needs nutrients for their growth and development. In a systemic agriculture, nutrients are supplied to the plant in different amount, form and time for the economic and optimum crop production. Green revolution realized in the late sixties of the last century is an outcome of efficient use of improved varieties and nutrient management. Success of the green revolution has increased use of chemical fertilizers in the post green revolution era. Soon the chemical fertilizers become indispensible from all the crops including vegetable and plantation crops. Non judicious use of chemicals in the agriculture has lead to the serious health, soil and environmental hazards. Biofertilizers are considered to be the most safe, promising and economic component of sustainable agriculture. Biofertilizer is a substance which contains living or latent microorganisms which, when applied to seed, plant root or soil, colonizes the rhizosphere or the interior of the plant and promotes growth by providing and essential nutrients or increasing the supply or availability of primary nutrients to the host plant. They can applied in all the agronomic, horticultural and plantation crops.

In modern agriculture, use of synthetic chemical fertilizers are essential in agriculture for sustainable yield but, these have resulted in environmental pollution. The use of synthetic fertilizer could result in serious human health issues and also affects the soil microflora, besides being costly due to high production cost. Further, excess use affects soil processes and result in nutrient imbalances in plants with increased susceptibility to pests and diseases and also affects the symbiotic associations. Under these circumstances, biofertilizers could be an alternative for integrated nutrient management system in horticulture. The entire crop production system depends on soil beneficial microflora and their activities, which makes them highly potential alternatives to synthetic chemical fertilizers.

Biofertilizers or microbial fertilizers are essential for eco-friendly and sustainable cultural practices. The term “biofertiliser” has been defined in several ways due to its unique relationships between the plant and rhizosphere microflora. Biofertilizers mainly include nitrogen fixing bacteria, phosphate solublizing and potash solubiling bacteria.

Fruits and vegetables are important part of our dietary, which are rich source of nutrient (carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber). Carbohydrates, protein and fat are macronutrients, considered as energy sources. Vitamins and minerals are micro nutrient, play important role in body building. Fibers have several direct and indirect advantages. ICMR, New Delhi recommends 125g of leafy vegetables, 100g of root and tuber vegetables and 75g of other vegetables (total 300g/day) and 85g of fruits per capita every day for balance diet.

Agriculture is under increasing pressure to produce more food, feed, and biofuel from limited land resources. The current over-reliance on a few key staple crops causes a variety of agronomic, ecological, nutritional, and economic issues and is likely unsustainable in the long run.

Vegetables have a high commercial value in general and hence contribute significantly to household income. Significant research, breeding, and development initiatives are necessary for a number of promising crops to transform existing local landraces into competitive cultivars with broad adaptability and high commercial prospects. India has a good genetic wealth of domesticated crops, and 600 plant species represent the diversity in vegetable crops out of 20,000 angiosperm plants; however, only one-fourth of these are used as major vegetable crops, with the rest classified as minor, underutilized/neglected, rare vegetables, lesser-known vegetables, wild edible vegetables, and so on. Access to the genetic diversity of these selected crops is required for success

Maturity

It is derived from Latin word ‘Maturus’ which means ripen. It is that stage of fruit development, which ensures attainment of maximum edible quality at the completion of ripening process.

Maturation

It is the developmental process by which the fruit attains maturity. It is the transient phase of development from near completion of physical growth to attainment of physiological maturity. There are different stages of maturation e.g. immature, mature, optimally mature, over mature.

Maturity Indices

The factors for determining the harvesting of horticulture commodities according to consumer purpose and type of commodity.

Maturity Indices is two type

Fruits and vegetables are living tissues subject to continuous change after harvest. Some changes are desirable from consumer point of view but most are not. Post-harvest changes in fresh fruit cannot be stopped, but these can be slowed down within certain limits to enhance the shelf life of fruits. The post-harvest handling plays an important role in extending the storage and marketable life of horticultural perishables.

Post Harvest Treat ment of Fruits and Vegetables Washing

It is useful in removing surface adhering material water. Mechanically, it is also accomplished by passing the fruits/vegetables through machine arranged with water tank equipped with rotating brush. In some produce washing improves appeal by facilitating removal of sap as case in mango, papaya, jackfruit, kronda, dirt in case of carrot, reddish, turnip, sugar beet, sweet potato, etc. and for removal of debris in case of banana. The water use for the purpose should be cleaned otherwise fungal and bacterial levels may build up. Disinfected treatment using ultraviolet light, ozone, chlorine (100 ppm), calcium hydroxide, etc. help to clean water for washing purpose.

ABSTRACT

Black pepper (Piper nigrum L.), known as the ‘King of Spices’ is an important export- oriented spice crop, valued for its medicinal and condimental properties. A perfect protocol for the rapid in vitro multiplication of this plant is available. However, systemic bacterial contamination is the single major constraint in the large scale in vitro production of plantlets. Based on morphological and biochemical characters, this bacterium was identified as Beijerinckia indica It grows profusely on nitrogen-free Jensen’s agar and solubilizes CaCO in the medium by acid production. It is resistant to a range of antibiotics and produces indole acetic acid. The bacterium is slow growing and has pH optima of 5.5 and temperature optima of 27oC. It has both endophytic as well as epiphytic association with the plant, the colonization being more in the stem and petiole. A single plasmid of 4.0 kb size was isolated from the bacterium and characterized. Competent cells of E. coli DH5a, transformed with this plasmid survived on Jensen’s nitrogen free agar, indicating its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. We stipulate that the nif genes are located on the plasmid of the bacterium. Since endophytic bacteria are known to stimulate plant growth through antagonistic activity against pathogens, production of growth promoting substances and inducing systemic resistance in several other agricultural crop species, the symbiotic association between Bejerinckia indica and black pepper could be further exploited through integrated nutrient management for improved growth and yield of this spice crop.

ABSTRACT

Atotal of 45 Gram positive, spore forming and rod shaped bacteria identified as Bacillus species were isolated from the rhizosphere of Chickpea plants. They were studied for their interaction with root borne fungal pathogens was studied using spot test method. Isolates CBS 29, CBS 113, CBS 123, CBS 132, CBS 153 and CBS 155 inhibited the growth of four or more fungi with inhibition zones varied from 1-5 mm. Two isolates CBS 153 and CBS 155 produced siderophores on CAS supplemented agar medium. Further inoculation of these Bacilli on seeds of Chickpea cultivar C235 and H8618 showed inhibitory, stunting or stimulatory effects on plumule and radicle growth depending upon cultivar, bacterium used and stage of seedling growth. Studies on co-inoculation of these isolates with Mesorhizobium and their plant growth promoting activity are being carried out. These co-inoculation studies are important areas of exploitation to improve crop productivity.

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).

The Indian arid and semi-arid regions are characterized by immature, structure less, coarse textured soils with low water holding capacity and poor nutrient status. The moisture deficit conditions dominate for a long time throughout the year, which acts as the major limiting factor for establishment and growth of woody plant. Due to harsh edapho-climatic conditions, arable crop production is risky in arid and semi arid regions and threatening the agriculture, under such situation, horticulture based cropping system is considered effective strategy for improving productivity, employment oppornitues and nutritional security. Most of the cropping systems operating in the limited irrigated    area of arid ecosystems have very high water requirement and are highly unsustainable, hence location specific models have to be developed involving fruit crops, multipurpose tree species and arable crops in an agri-silvi-horti production system for increasing irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE), productivity, profitability and sustainability of the system. An attempt has been made to present the status of available research data on some of horticulture based farming systems for arid and semi arid regions

Even since, the man adopted plant cultivation; he attempted various methods of propagation. In ancient time, the only source of plant multiplication was by seeds. Hence, techniques for higher seed germination, improved seed vigour were developed by giving pre-treatment. However, as the knowledge advanced and demands for having true to type plants was realized to man shifted his cultivation practices for some plants from seed to vegetative propagation such as cutting, layering and grafting. The use of cuttings, corm, bulbs, tubers  for multiplication were known to ancient peoples as mentioned in old literature. This method also gave an edge to conserve the genetic gain once developed in a cultivar, since all vegetatively multiplied plants will have some genome and will produce true to type plants. Thus, the development of vegetative propagation method because it is easy method to multiply plants on large scale and develop uniform quality produce.

Genetic diversity is one of the fundamental character present in any population or species. It is the total variation either phenotypic or genotypic which have occured in a population through due course of evolution. Variation in any species depends on mutation, substitution (insertion/deletion) and response to selection. However, comprehensive studies on theoretical and empirical perspectives for diversity analysis may be found by evolutionary biologists to understand the factor that influences levels of genetic diversity in natural population (Lewontin, 1974). In brief, nucleotides/ protein codes are the basic unit to quantify total amount of variation. Bioinformatic tools and techniques help us to measure inferring relationships between genes, proteins or organisms through use of these DNA/protein sequences by integration of mathematical algorithms, statistical and computer databases.

Diversity analysis is popularly known as phylogenetic analysis in bioinformatic terms. The basic principle of phylogeny is analysis/alignment of characters; whether it is morphological or molecular data. For instance, in case of morphological data of a crop species, the leaf colour/stem colour/fruit colour/grain size etc. may be compared however sequence data is problem of interest for molecular phylogeny. The evolutionary history of any crop species/ organisms inferred from phylogeny analysis mostly depicted through treelike diagrams/ dendrograms. In this chapter, phylogenetic analysis based on only nucleotide/protein sequences are discussed. For analysis of phylogenetics, default assumptions (Baxevanis and Ouellette, 2006) are:

Introduction

Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) are uniquely placed within the overall ambit of biodiversity and play an important role in providing food, fuel, clothing, medicine and shelter for the whole mankind. The value of plant genetic resources or the plant germplasm can be visualized from the fact that Sir Joseph Banks, the Director of Kew Botanical Gardens accompanied Captain Cook on a plant collecting voyage. Plant genetic resources are going to occupy the centre stage in plant breeding and seed industry development in India as will be the case with other countries. However, despite the great importance of plant genetic resources in crop improvement programmes, there is ever increasing threat to the PGR due to degradation of their habitats, changes in ecology, cropping systems, modernization of agriculture, rapid replacement of locally adapted indigenous cultivars by modern high yielding varieties and the effect of massive urbanization. This calls for a sustained and scientific management of plant genetic resources. The issue of PGR management remains basically the same whether we are dealing with field crops, vegetable crops or perennials with slight changes in specific cases. For an effective management of PGR, all the CGIAR funded international agricultural research centres have independent units/divisions on PGR management. IPGRI is coordinating and strengthening the PGR management programmes at the international level. In India, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi is the nodal organization on PGR management. This article shall deal with the core components of PGR management in vegetable crops.

Introduction

Agriculture in general and horticulture in particular are highly vulnerable to year-to-year climatic variability. Farmers and other decision makers in agriculture make decisions based on their understanding of general climatic patterns for their regions. Crops are constantly threatened by pests such as insects and nematodes, as well as diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms. However, depending on weather conditions, the severity is very variable from year to year and often control strategies are applied without considering the climatic variability. Moreover, following the global climate change predictions, meteorological conditions triggering pest population/disease infection cycles are destined to increase, leading to consequent increase of the pests/diseases pressure. Sustainable plant protection strategies rely on weather and climate related pest and disease forecasting models in order to:

Grouping plants in different categories on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities is referred to as classification, which helps for study of these crops in various perspectives. India is endowed with a rich diversity of horticultural plant wealth due to varied agro-climatic conditions. Number of fruits, vegetables, ornamental crops, spices, condiments, plantation crops, etc. is under commercial cultivation in different parts of the country under different sets of growing conditions.

The systematic study of all these crops becomes a difficult and more repetitive part. To avoid it; classification of horticultural crops on different aspects has been made to deal with all these plants separately. Classification of horticultural crops has been made in different groups on similarity or dissimilarity of attributes. Plants having similarity in either of the traits are placed under one group. The overall objective of the classification is to categorize the horticultural plants and make the recollections very easy and convenient.

The soil fertility is depleting in the current scenario of gap between nutrient removal from soil and supplies. Moreover, increase in the fertilizer prices has become unaffordable to small and marginal farmers. There is also a growing concern about the environmental hazards and its threat to sustainable crop production. Indiscriminate use of synthetic fertilizers for intensive crop production has resulted in large quantity of nutrient (particularly P) accumulation in soils which has resulted in generating a dead soil. In this context, the long term use of biofertilizers are considered to be economical, eco-friendly, more efficient, productive and accessible to marginal and small farmers over chemical fertilizers (Subba Rao, 2001). Biofertilizers mainly consists of specific living cells which supplies nutrients to plants through their root system. Microbes in these fertilizers provide nutrients to the plants by nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization, phosphate mobilization, and promotion of beneficial rhizobacteria (Bhat et al., 2010). Biofertilizer application improves the supply of nutrients, organic carbon, accumulation of soil enzymes, productivity, soil fertility index, economy of farmers, and maintenance of sustainability in natural soil ecosystem and horticultural crops. The production of efficient and sustainable biofertilizers for crop plants needs to be undertaken to make the biofertilizers popular and efficient. The important and specific research in future may be focused on the following aspects.