eChapters

15.1 Introduction

It is an important vegetable grown since long and used as fresh vegetable. It is an important legume vegetable rich in proteins. The crop is usually grown for its green pods which contains immature seed and are cooked as vegetable, alone or mixed with others. It prefers cool weather and it does not grow well during intense heat of the summer season, especially the wrinkled seeded cultivars which are tender, sweet and of much better quality than the smooth cultivars. 

17.1 Introduction

Lettuce is one of the most important vegetable crops in temperate countries. However, it occupies an important position for its cultivation in tropical and subtropical countries also. In the world, the largest consumer and producer is USA. Lettuce is also grown on large areas in South Eastern Australia, Japan, China, Israel, Northern Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Probable ancestor of lettuce is Lactuca serriola L. The crop was spread throughout the 

20.1 Introduction

Asparagus is a herbaceous perennial plant with an erect branched stem growing to 1-3 m height and is grown in large areas in countries like USA, Germany, Spain and France, while India’s contribution is meagre. The tender shoots called ‘spears’ are used as vegetable and in preparation of soup. It is also eaten as salad. The canned and frozen spears are also used as processed foods. Once asparagus starts producing, it continues to give economic yield for 10-15 years. The tender shoots contain a white crystalline substance, asparagine, which is used in medicine as diuretic in cardiac dropsy and chronic gout. It has good potential as fresh vegetable.

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.    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

Abstract

Vegetable cultivation has been threatened due to limited availability of arable land and frequent vagaries of environment and incidence of soil borne pests and diseases. Development of stress tolerant or climate smart cultivars through conventional breeding methods or dependence upon agrochemicals for mitigation of pest and disease problems for vegetable crops have been practised since time immemorial. Salinity in coastal belts, high or low temperature injury, bacterial wilt in solanaceous vegetables, Fusarium wilt and nematode infestation in cucurbits are common of the many maladies which have caused tremendous loss in productivity and quality of vegetable crops throughout the globe. 

Introduction

India is gifted with varied agro-climatic conditions for growing an array of vegetable crops to combat the present ill-balanced diet. The brinjal belongs to the family Solanaceous and to the genus Solanum, species melongena. The egg plant, Guinea squash are some synonyms to brinjal. It is a hardy crop and does best in worm and moist climate. The crop is generally grown twice or thrice in a year. The edible part, fruit is of high nutritive value and can well be compared with tomatoes. Insect pest constitute the major limiting factors in the successful production of brinjal. Pest comples of brinjal is very high and aphid (Aphis gossypii) causes heavy damage to the crop. Aphis gossypii (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is a tiny insect or greenfly in the superfamily Aphidoidea in the order Hemiptera. It is a true bug and sucks sap from plants. It is a widely distributed pest of a variety of agricultural crops in the families Cucurbitaceae, Rutaceae and Malvaceae.

INTRODUCTION

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) belonging to Family Anacardiaceae is the most important commercially grown evergreen tree of tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Due to its wide range of adaptability, high nutritive value, colorful fruits, richness in variety, delicious juicy taste and excellent flavor, it possesses high commercial value. It is sometimes also called ‘apple of the tropics’. It is believed that cultivation of mango originally started in South East Asia where it is being cultivated for last four to six thousand years. Now, it is cultivated in 112 countries of the world. India has the richest collection of mango cultivars.

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).

Abstract

We studied the mathematic model of “predator-prey” and„ pest-parasite”. Under the circumstances when these two specious coexist in particular conditions. In that case the components of the system continuously change. We describe the system by two differential equations which conclude into numeral equation by integrators and variables. According these equations we calculate some numeral formulations essential to these changeable populations.
  
We produce the prevalence of predator-prey systems by using analytic and quantitatic methods for massive rage of data. This process as usual is described by the differential equation consisting assembling point. The constructed phase portrait which we need to solve the problem is found by Runge-Kuta method. So the article speaks about the conformity with a law which we receive by permanent change of parameters’ menaings and temporal changes of biological systems’ conditions.

When there is no positive steady state both prey and predator can become extinct. In one particular case both species become extinct regardless on the initial data. In the second, both species will die out only if initial prey/predator ratio is too low. Otherwise, only the predator goes extinct, while prey tends to carrying capacity.

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).

Abstract

On the basis of symptoms, samples from seven localities within Solan district (H.P.) at varying altitudes ranging from 600-1650mts comprising Nalagarh (600-750m), Badghal (850m), Dilchab (950-1000m), Shaya (1200m), Solan (1300-1450m), Bajhyana (1520m) and Tikari Pajahali (1650m), were collected and used for serological detection by DAS ELISA. It was found that all the isolates except Nalagarh, reacted positively with the antisera to ToLCV, thus substantiating the results on the identity of the present isolates. Out of the seven isolates under study, Dilchab and Shaya isolates did not show any PCR amplification for Rep gene indicating the variability in the regions flanking the Rep gene. Likewise, no amplification result in case of Nalagarh sample proposes the attack of some other pathogen producing similar symptoms.

Abstract

Apple productivity is declining gradually. It is the high time to find out new rootstock for apple improvement. The crab apples can play a pivotal role for the improvement of apple through proper utilization of their potentiality. A number of crab apples have been found growing wild in the Himalayas. Apple accessions collected from Shillong (Meghalaya) i.e. Malus baccata (Shillong), was found completely resistant to woolly aphid (Eriosoma lanigerum) and the development of root rot (c.o. Dematophora necatrix) and powdery mildew (Podosphora leuchotricha) was significantly delayed as compared to well known source of resistance, Malus zumi.  It has shown field resistance to apple scab (c.o. Venturia inaequalis) also.  It has a very good propagation potential.

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus Moench), known in many English-speaking countries as lady’s finger or gumbo, belongs to family Malvaceae. The geographical origin of okra is disputed and supposed to be South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins (Anonymous, 20013a). Its proposed parents are reported to be in South Asian; therefore, it is believed that perhaps it is of South Asian origin. However, because of greater diversity in okra in West African region, it is considered to be originated in West Africa. Masters (1875) proposed that it originated in India.
Okra is cultivated in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions, including the Middle East, Africa, Brazil, Turkey and southern states of USA (IBPGR, 1990; Jideani and Adetula, 1993; Acquistucci and Francisci, 2002). In tropics it is cultivated during summer and in the warmer parts of the temperate regions. It is an annual or perennial plant, growing up to 2 m height. The leaves are 10–20 cm long and broad, palmately lobed with 5-7 lobes. The flowers are 4–8 cm in diameter, with five petals which are generally yellow, but often white with a red or purple spot at the base of each petal. The fruit is a capsule which may attain length up to 18 cm containing numerous round seeds. Okra is an allopolyploid of uncertain parentage (proposed parents include Abelmoschus ficulneus, A. tuberculatus and a reported “diploid” form of okra).

Stress is usually defined as an external factor that exerts a disadvantageous influence on the plant. Under both natural and agricultural conditions, plants are exposed to unfavourable environments that result in some degree of stress. Water deficit, chilling and freezing, heat stress and heat shock, salinity, oxygen deficiency and air pollution are major stress factors restricting plant growth. Stress is measured in relation to plant survival, plant processes, growth and crop yield. An environment, which is stressful for one plant, may not be stressful for another, e.g., pea and soybean that grow best at 20 and 30°C, respectively. As the temperature increases, the pea shows sign of heat stress much sooner than soybean, thus, soybean has greater heat stress tolerance.

To the farmers, the plants those survive in an adverse environment are called hardy plants and those, which do not survive under a particular adverse environment, are called susceptible or tender plants. So based on reactions of several plants to the environment, particular plants are selected for a region and also the farmers to suit the nature of a crop adopt different seasons of planting. Biologists have adopted the term stress for any environmental factor potentially unfavourable to a living organism. The ability of the plant to survive the unfavourable factor is due to its stress resistance. There is an equal and opposite reactions for every action. Stress is the action, whereas, strain is the reaction. A body of a plant subjected to stress is in a state of strain. External force of a particular stress causes disturbances in the body of the plant leading to a change in either shape or size and also may lead to internal disturbances, which affect physiological processes. Up to a point, a strain may be completely reversible. When the stress is released at this stage, the plant becomes normal without exhibiting any strain, which is known as elastic strain. Beyond this point, the strain will be partially elastic and irreversible partially, and then we say, it reaches permanent set and it is known as plastic strain.

Basic concepts of plant stress, acclimation and adaptation
Energy is the absolute requirement for the maintenance of structural organization over the lifetime of the organism. Maintenance of such complex structural organization over time requires a constant flow of energy through all biological organisms, which provides the dynamic driving force for the performance of important maintenance processes (the processes which are essential for an organism to remain alive and continue as the species) such as respiration, assimilation, nutrition, cellular biosyntheses and transport to maintain its characteristic structure and organization as well as the capacity to replicate and grow. Maintenance of such steady-state results in a meta-stable condition called homeostasis. Thus, “Homeostasis” is defined as a selfregulating process by which a living organism can maintain internal stability while adjusting to changing external conditions. It is the state of balance among all the living systems needed for the organism to survive and function properly.
Plant stress
Any change in the surrounding environment may disrupt homeostasis. Environmental modulation of homeostasis may be defined as biological stress. Thus, plant stress implies some adverse effect on the physiology of a plant induced upon a sudden transition from some optimal environmental condition where homeostasis is maintained to some suboptimal condition which disrupts this initial homeostatic state.