eChapters

Introduction

Three hundred million poor people in Asia depend on livestock for their livelihoods and there are opportunities for improvement in livestock related livelihoods due to the rapid and dynamic changes that the livestock sector in Asia is undergoing (Njuki et al. 2010). Piggery farming has been recognized as one of the profitable venture among the rural masses. This venture has proved to be one of the most important livelihood option. Generally the pigs are reared for pork, considering the increasing trend of pork consumers in India; Piggery farming will certainly take a industrial form of livelihood in India in future. There are more than 12.8 million pigs in our country, out of which approximately 14.5% are graded and of exotic variety. There are 120 pig breeding farms in the country whereas pigs of exotic breeds are maintained. China ranks first in the world in pig rearing where number is around 300 million or 1/3 of the world pig population.Pig production is basically an enterprise which is able to convert inedible or inferior quality food into the food rich in animal protein. Pig is considered a machine because they convert grain, pasture and other low quality feed into Pork which is used as human food (Rahman, 2008) . Despite the fact that pig rearing is a profitable enterprise most of the progressive farmers even today hesitate to adopt it due to prejudice sentiments in our society against pig farming. For many others there is religious taboo against pig. A majority of meat eaters also and cheap source of protein. Pork as a source of animal protein is gaining popularity in India and pork products will be in greater demands in years to come. The high carcass yield attracts the farmers because of the better returns within the shortest possible time. High fertility in pigs assumes income to the rearer round the year. To bring about improvement in the productivity of pork and other piggery products extensive crossbreeding programme has been taken up to develop animals of large size, better feed conversion efficiency, high dressing percentage and better quality pork. Pig keeping also contributes to socio-cultural obligations and risk diversification and converts existing resources and low value waste products into high-value animal source food for home consumption and/or sale (NEPED, 2008).

A Hospital Management System not only provides an opportunity to the hospital to enhance their patient care but can also increase the profitability of the organization. These kinds of applications enable hospitals and doctors to serve their patients better. Computers are being extensively used for routine administrative purposes by health care professionals.

In veterinary medicine, hospital management software is designed for all types of practices, ranging from small, single-vet ones to large ones with multiple locations and vets, and covers a wide range of hospital administration and management processes. It is an integrated end–to-end management system that provides relevant information across the hospital to support effective decision making for patient care, administration & critical financial accounting in a seamless flow. Specific areas of application include scheduling of appointments, registration of cases including client and patient data, case history and electronic medical records, health care reports, reminders, inventory controls, reports and accounting.

1. INTRODUCTION

India is traditionally rich on agricultural knowledge. Presently modern farming is not sustainable in consonance with economics, ecology, equity, energy and socio–cultural dimensions. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to boost the yields have resulted in various environmental and health hazards along with socio–economic problems. The agricultural production has continued to increase, but the trend in productivity has started declining. The agricultural scientist’s and farming community whole heartedly aim at an alternative sustainable farming system which will be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially acceptable. The answer to the problem lies in refining our own traditional practices based on natural and organic farming methods offering several safe, feasible and cost effective solutions.

The term ‘Organic farming’, a system of farming is one which avoids synthetic fertilizers but rely upon crop rotation also using crop residues, animal manures, legumes, green manures, biofertilizers, organic wastes etc., to maintain the soil fertility and increase productivity. This system enables the nutrients leaching from perennial wood and vegetation and help to maintain organic matter and protect the soil from surface erosion. The world wide awareness for adopting organic farming has paved way for streamlining the production technology and certification by adopting the specified crop production practices. Organic farming practices in agriculture and animal husbandry are native to East Asian countries, like India and China. In China a strong national movement for animal waste recycling is in vogue, minimizing the use of inorganic fertilizers (Xu, 2000), while in our country specific crop production practices are developed in isolation and adopted locally.

The trend of use of chemicals and industrial inputs in intensive farming is increasing which resulted in soil health deterioration and increased environmental pollution which causes a great concern all over the world. Therefore an emphasis on the need to use the organics and other byproducts of agriculture and industry is emerging. Fortunately, the country is already rich with left over crop residues (185 million tonnes) but its use presently is limited. Apart from crop residues, there is an enormous quantity of cattle wastes out of which sixty per cent of the used for fuel purpose in rural areas.

1. INTRODUCTION

Plant diseases are major constraints to plant growth and development (from seed to maturity) resulting in crop losses. Plants are exposed to attack, by a wide variety of microbes like bacteria, virus, fungi, phytoplasma and as an abnormality they cause disease. To counter these threats, plants have evolved a series of defense systems in response to the pathogen challenge inhibiting natural resistance. Thus disease is an exception rather than rule. However on failure of the inbuilt resistance mechanism, outbreak of disease has led to the widespread use of chemicals that have deleterious environmental and human health consequences. To enable the development of more effective and durable resistance against pathogens, a detailed analysis is necessary to identify the genes and mechanisms involved in plant defense/resistance.

Recombinant DNA and gene transformation technologies have potential to augment traditional breeding efforts (limited by genetic variability) by circumventing taxonomic limitations to gene pool for pathogen resistance. Further manipulation of defense genes in transgenic plants provide novel approaches for engineering pathogen resistance. It becomes important to understand the different components of plant defense to exploit host plants for resistance Thus the review is focused on plant genes and proteins that are known to play a major role in plant resistant against pathogens.

Organic farming primarily aimed at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way so as to keep the soil alive and in good health by use of organic wastes and beneficial microbes. Organic farming is performed with an intension for maintaining diversity of crops, keeping soil healthy for future years, producing high quality products and recycling nutrients. Unlike modern agriculture, organic farming is not depended on synthetic chemicals. Instead, it depends on natural products to boost soil fertility through microbial activity. Organic farming uses a multiple cropping system, which benefits from growing several crops. This crop diversity supports a range of plants, insects, soil micro-organisms and animals that add to a healthy farming system. Organic farmings are of different types such as bio-farming, nature farming, eco-farming and biodynamic farming. Organic agriculture is developed with concented efforts by various people to create the symbiotic relationship between the nature and man. In the present day, organic agriculture has shown potentiality in commercial, social and environmental sector.

Organic farming is a production management system, which promotes agro-ecosystem and agrobiodiversity. The objective of organic farming is to generate all the required plant nutrients inside the farm and adopt crop protection using local resources. Organic farming emphasizes on the use of farm yard manure, crop residues, composts, vermi-compost and bio-fertilizers to enrich soil fertility and use of bio-control measures to manage insect and diseases. In particular, organic agriculture is intended to produce high quality, nutritious food which helps in preventive health care. Organic farming increases biodiversity at every level i.e. from micro-organism to mammals. It strengthens biodiversity by using bio-pesticides and inorganic fertilizers.

Introduction

It is obvious beyond doubt that the climate is changing. Climate has also been changing in the past, but its rate of change has been unprecedented in recent past years. It is true that no one could stop the climate from changing, but could do a lot for mitigating some of its effects and formulate adaptation mechanisms to it. Agriculture, especially the small holder producers have been at the receiving end of the climate change effects, resulting into not only in the fluctuating and unstable productivity, loss of natural resources and consequent livelihoods, but also to their survival.

Climate change and food insecurity are two most pressing challenges human beings are facing today and has emerged as the biggest twin challenge of this century. There are evidences that the increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activities is responsible for global warming and consequent climate change (FAO, 2007). Under the six emissions scenarios the global average surface temperatures are expected to increase by 1.1°C - 6.4°C this century [IPCC, 2007]. Climate change has its impact on almost everything on the earth and so on the food production. The agriculture plays a very important role in the economy of most of the nations of the developing world. For India, agriculture is the base of nation’s economy, largely rainfed and dominated by smallholders (Singh 2008 and 2010). As per reports from a number of governments, non-government and intergovernmental organizations, the countries and agriculture especially practiced by smallholders are particularly vulnerable to climatic changes and they have least capacity to adapt to these changes. In most of the developing countries of the world, the agriculture is not merely a matter of cultural practice but it is the source of livelihoods of millions of smallholders and their dependents. Changing climate as predicted will not only affect the agricultural productivity but also heavily hit the lives and livelihoods of the smallholder families and ultimately lead to food insecurity to the concerned nation and the world (Singh et al. 2012). Business-as-usual scenarios of population growth and food consumption patterns indicate that agricultural production will need to increase by 70 percent by 2050 to meet global demand for food. South-Asian countries made tremendous progress in food production in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. with an impressive growth of food production, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal transformed themselves from countries with a chronic food deficit to countries that were almost self sufficient in early 1990s. Except Afghanistan, all these countries had exported some quantities of food grain in late 1990s. The dynamic growth in the agriculture sector has, however, recently been lost. Productivity of major food grains has slowed and has been decline for some crops (Kumar et al. 2008) with food production failing to keep pace with population growth (G. Rasul and A. Schild 2009). As a result, South-Asian countries are now finding it difficult to meet their population most basic food and nutritional needs and remain vulnerable to food insecurity (Tab.1).

Introduction

The challenge of increased food production to meet food security needs still persists 50 years after the start of the Green Revolution as population growth continues to increase in many developing countries. There appears to be no alternative but to increase agricultural productivity and the associated individual factor productivities (such as water, labor, nutrients, energy and capital) to meet the food demand by 2050 and to alleviate poverty and hunger. Thus, needs technological initiatives for further agricultural intensification. But already happening negative effect of crop production intensification on essential natural resources such as soil, water, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services has forced agriculture stakeholders to search for novel initiatives that focus on sustainable production optimization rather than just intensification. Furthermore increased food supply is a necessity though not sufficient for eliminating hunger and poverty. What is important is who produces the food, has access to the technology and knowledge to produce it, and has the purchasing power to acquire it. Of the developing world’s 5.5 billion people, 3 billion live in rural areas – nearly half of humanity. Of these rural inhabitants, an estimated 2.5 billion are in households involved in agriculture, and 1.5 billion are in smallholder households (World Bank, 2008 and Herren, 2010). Poor farmers need low-cost and readily available technologies and practices to increase local food production and to raise their income. At the same time, land and water degradation is increasingly posing a threat to food security and the livelihoods of rural people who generally live on degradation-prone lands. There are several other key issues while relating the situation to Indian context.

Indian agriculture has the challenge of providing national as well as household food and nutritional security to its ever increasing population with the average size of land holdings shrinking due to increasing fragmentation. Modern agriculture is facing multiple challenges of plateauing genetic potential of major crops, declining productivity in vast tracts of rainfed/ dryland areas, ill-effects of green revolution technologies in all intensively cultivated areas, climatic aberrations etc., which is threatening the sustainability of the important agricultural production systems and national food security. The assets of a small and marginal farmer is of various kinds – a small piece of land, a homestead garden, few chickens and ducks, 1 or 2 cows/pig etc which has to be managed judiciously to sustain the production productivity and livelihood of the farmer. Farmers take decisions as to crop and livestock management given their access to knowledge and information, personal circumstances, and in the context of the broader socioeconomic, institutional and political environment. Under such conditions, some farmers are painstakingly trying to make a livelihood out of their small pieces of land. However, unable to produce sufficiently, some have sold off or leased out their land to big commercial farmers. Such farmers have become a daily labour or shared cropper in their own land, or even migrated to cities in search of livelihood.

To overcome the problems of small resource poor farmers under diverse and risk prone environments a more holistic, resource based, client oriented and interacting approach, popularly known as Integrated Farming System (IFS) has been developed. This system defines output as total biomass outcome of the system. Integrated farming system is a reliable way of obtaining high productivity with substantial nutrient economy in combination with maximum compatibility and replenishment of organic matter by way of effective recycling of organic residues/wastes etc. obtained through integration of various land- based enterprises.

Body needs oxygen to oxidise the food nutrients and derive energy. In this process carbon dioxide is produced in the body, which is toxic and must be removed quickly and efficiently. The oxygen utilization & carbon dioxide production takes place within the mitochondrion of cells of the various tissues. The transport of O2 and CO2 to and from the cells of various tissue is done by the blood. But the actual uptake of oxygen from the air and discharge of CO2 into the environment takes place at the level of lungs. This exchange of O2 and CO2 between the organism and the environment is defined as respiration. Air is moved in and out of the lungs by their bellows action (ventilation). It is then distributed within each lung, so that alveoli are adequately ventilated and also perfused by the blood.

Oxygen and carbon dioxide are then exchanged between the gas mixture in the alveoli and the blood in the pulmonary capillaries (gas transfer). The gases are then transported in the blood to the tissue.

Before the turn of present century, it was considered that carbohydrates, fats, proteins and minerals were sufficient for fulfilling the nutritional needs of animals. Later it was recognised that several other factors also need to be provided in the diet in small quantities, the absence of which resulted in diseases like beriberi, scurvy, pellagra and rickets. Funk in 1912 proposed the term vitamine for such factors, vita for being essential and amine because these factors were thought to be amines in chemical structure. Later it was discovered that not all such factors were amines, hence the last ‘e’ from the word vitamine was dropped.

The quantities of vitamins needed by the body are small, in the range of milligrams or micrograms. For this reason these compounds are also known as accessory foodstuffs. Thus vitamins came to be regarded as essential dietary factors which are required by an organism in small quantities and whose absence results in deficiency diseases. Many of these vitamins acts as coenzymes in important metabolic reactions of the body.

The vitamins have been broadly classified on the basis of their solubility. Fat soluble vitamins - A, D, E and K. Water soluble vitamins- B complex and C. This classification has proved useful from the functional point of view also for an extended period of time and is now an established classification scheme. The water soluble vitamins cannot be stored in the body over extended periods of time during periods of opulence and used during periods of scarcity.

Most vitamins cannot be synthesized by the body hence the need for dietary supplement. However, ruminants, have an advantage in that the rumen microorganisms can manufacture most of the B-complex vitamins which are utilized and required by the animal. Vitamin C is required only by human beings and guinea pig, hence is not of importance as a dietary ingredient for the domestic animals. Most other animals are able to synthesize adequate amounts of vitamin C required by them. The site of synthesis of vitamin C is not well established but it seems that the intestinal tract, liver and adrenal glands are actively involved.

At this stage it should be clarified about the dietary and physiological requirements. All vitamins are physiologically required by the domestic animals but only a few are required to be a essential dietary ingredient.

Planning is the beginning of all the other processes of management, namely, organizing, staffing, directing, communicating and controlling.

Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do, when to do and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap from ‘where we are’ to ‘where we want to go’ (Koontz and O’Donnell).

In the words of Theo Haimann, “Planning is the function that determines in advance what should be done". It consists of selecting the objectives, policies, programmes and procedures of the enterprise and also the means of achieving their objectives.

As a part of planning process, the manager has to ensure that his team members understand the purposes and objectives of his enterprise and also methods to achieve them.

There is a range of thermal conditions within which animals are able to maintain a relatively stable body temperature by means of behavioral and physiological means. Heat stress results from the animal?s inability to dissipate sufficient heat to maintain homeothermy. High ambient temperature, relative humidity and radiant energy compromise the ability of animals to dissipate heat. As a result, there is an increase in body temperature, which in turn initiates compensatory and adaptive mechanisms to re-establish homeothermy and homeostasis. These readjustments, generally referred to as adaptations, may be favorable or unfavorable to economic interests of humans, but are essential for survival of the animal. Thus, an increase in air temperature, such as that expected in different scenarios of climate change, would affect directly animal performance by affecting animal heat balance. Potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change on livestock production have not been thoroughly explored. Changes in crop availability and quality, which have been the primary focus of previous studies, affect animal production through changes in feed supplies. Analyses of direct impacts of climate change on livestock production are few. Changes in climate would directly lead to reductions in summer season milk production and conception rates in dairy cows. Because voluntary feed intake (VFI) is the primary factor influencing the production capacity of livestock, accurate prediction of the feed consumption of livestock under heat stress is a precursor to accurate assessment of changes in production resulting from changes to a warmer climate. Quantification of potential impacts of climate change on livestock production allows producers to gain a better understanding of the magnitude of the changes in production levels faced under climate change. Projected economic losses resulting from temperature-induced reductions in production may justify mitigation of these temperature increases through changes in management practices, such as installation of shades or sprinklers in feedlots or evaporative cooling of barns. With severe economic losses predicted in livestock as a result of climate change, it?s very essential to understand the different intricacies of climate and its impact on livestock production. This will help us to prepare ourselves better for ameliorating the adverse impact of weather parameters on animal production. This will intern prevent the severe economic losses incurred in livestock industry as a result of changing climate.

All animals have a range of ambient environmental temperatures termed as thermo-neutral zone. This is the range of temperatures that are conducive to health, performance and well-being. The upper critical temperature is the point at which heat stress begins to affect the animal adversely. There are a number of climatic factors like temperature, humidity, wind speed and radiant energy/sunlight that influence the degree of heat stress. Heat is also produced by metabolism within the body, which includes maintenance, growth and production. Heat production is affected by body weight, species and breed, level of production, level of feed intake, feed quality and, to a lesser extent, by the amount of activity and exercise. Excluding temperature of the air ventilating the house, heat is also added from the roof and walls. Heat stress can be defined as the point where the animal cannot dissipate adequate quantity of heat to maintain body thermal balance. During the periods of heat stress, most of the productive energy is diverted to thermoregulatory adaptations that results into decreased weight gain, poor immunity, oxidative stress predisposing animals to various infectious diseases and high mortality rates. In order to characterize and quantify thermal comfort zones according to animal species, several thermal comfort indices or heat stress indices were developed.

The primary focus for livestock and poultry has been on heat stress indices to provide guidelines for environmental management and risk assessment for losses through linkages with physiological responses (Eigenberg et al., 2005) or performance (Baccari, 2001). The linkage is based on observations of a selected performance criterion (e.g., growth, milk or egg production) made concurrently with measures of the warm environment. These serve as inputs for the selected heat stress index and thus an empirical relationship can be developed which is termed as ?biological response function?. These indices recognize the ability of the animal to cope with environmental stressors by adjusting physiologically, behaviourally and immunologically to minimize adverse effects or even compensate for reduced growth and production performance during moderate environmental challenges. When the intensity and duration of potential stressors exceed thresholds, coupled with limited opportunity for recovery, animals are unable to cope and therefore are affected adversely. Nevertheless, the heat stress indices have served as useful surrogates for the complex interactions between the physical and biological components (Hahn et al., 2003).

Livestock rearing is central to livelihoods and survival of millions of people of India. It is estimated that approximately 100 million people derive their livelihood from livestock rearing as primary or secondary source of income. Livestock related activities help to maintain regular in flow of income for these households. Small farmers in India generate nearly half of their income from livestock and the value of cattle represents a significant part of their wealth, so the death of cattle poses a significant risk and affects farmers? net worth and income.

Type of Risks to Livestock based Livelihoods

Large animals are expensive and thus carry higher risk exposure. These risks are in form of losses due to the disease, accident, theft, natural calamity which can cause significant losses to these households. Sometimes owners are forced to sell their animals due to incurable disease/ disorder/ fodder and water scarcity and later they are unable to rebuild their stock. Many times animal losses force them into poverty trap from where they are unable to recover.

Abstract

Landslides have become a recurring phenomenon in most of the mountainous regions of the world. In Indian peninsular, the landslides which were mostly confined to the tectonically active Himalayan Mountains once, have started spreading over to the other mountain belts of the Peninsula. The Tirumala – Tirupati hills, which is drawing millions of pilgrims from all over the world is facing landslides especially along the newly built southern uphill ghat road. The geology of the area, studied using Geomatics tools like Remote Sensing, SRTM based Digital Elevation Models, GPS Survey, etc., showed that Tirumala hills is under the grip of upward tectonic movements as evidenced from the N-S and E-W oriented Pleistocene faults, intensely dissected Plateau top Cuddapah Quartzites, retreating escarpments, exhaustive debris slope, extensive valley fills along the slopes, colluvial fills in lower slopes, palaeo debris flows along the southern and western obsequent slopes of the Tirumala hills etc. All these indicate the inherent landslide vulnerability of the slopes. The E-W trending dykes which are piercing the slopes and protruding as ridges add further landslide vulnerability to such fragile slopes. So, the new ghat road laid along such southern slope is obviously facing landslides. However, the detailed Geomatics based studies show that the dykes, valley fills and steep slopes are particularly more vulnerable to landslides. Though remedial measures have been broadly evolved, abandoning the southern uphill new ghat road and widening the older northern downhill ghat road seems to be the better and long term feasible alternative to prevent Landslides in the area.

Abstract

Northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent is seismically an active region, and is further prone to excessive rainfall and frequent landslides, which cause disruption of the road networks during the monsoonic months every year. The region owns a typical morphotectonic setup where many active thrusts and faults have carved out the landforms and physiography of the major part of the region. The creeping phenomenon of the N-S trending prominent strike-slip fault, namely the Churachandpur - Mao Fault (CMF), is one of the triggering factors for the frequent landslides and low magnitude earthquakes. The life line of Manipur, the national high way NH39, traverses along and in close proximity to this fault in Manipur, and hence the life is paralysed in the area during the monsoonic months. From the GPS campaign mode studies on the western and eastern sides of the CMF, it is observed that there is a change in the crustal velocities from 16 - 22 mm/yr in the east to 33 - 42 mm/yr in the west. Micro-deformations are also observed in the form of displacements respectively with the vertical, N-S and E-W components of–0.111 mm/yr (downward), 0.03 mm/yr (northward) and –0.011 mm/yr (westward). The net displacement is 0.126 mm/yr with an azimuth of N 85° and dipping of 13° towards west. Neotectonic movements along the CMF, as per the GPS measurements, suggest an aseismic nature of the fault with dextral component. Fault plane solutions of the earthquakes show northerly directed principal P-axis indicating the extension (T-axis) along east-west. The resultant creeping of micro-deformation towards the western slopes of the terrain is aligned with the principal T-axis. The creeping triggers the micro seismicity as well as the landslides along the CMF.

Abstract

Since the landslides have started spreading over to the most of the mountain provinces of all over the world, having developed expertise in Landslide vulnerability mapping, Factor of safety, Rock mechanic studies etc. the scientists and the technocrats have started focusing towards developing landslide early warning systems using instruments. As the instrumentation in such vast areas is not feasible satellite based monitoring of landslide movements is fast emerging. In this connection the paper discusses InSAR interferometry based landslide movements carried out in Nainital and Mansadevi areas, Uttrakhand Himalayas, India.

Keywords: SAR interferometry, Monitoring movements, Nainital & Mansadevi Landslides.

INTRODUCTION

Landslides pose greater threats to the population of India also, especially those living in mountainous regions, the top being the Himalayas. Many villages and vital transport routes are endangered by landslides and losses of lives and important infrastructure now become a routine phenomenon. Therefore, studies on surface displacements and landslide movements have become very important. However, due to the large aerial extent of the landslide prone provinces, this task may not be effectively carried out by ground based methods. In the recent years, the availability of interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data from a variety of satellite and airborne remote sensing sensors has emerged, as a potential tool that can yield accurate data on surface displacements. Although, monitoring of such low velocity deformations, as we observe in landslides, is only possible if considerably long time series images are available. InSAR derived displacement measurements are not only feasible but also moderate in their costs compared to many ground-based methods. This paper discusses Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) algorithm used to monitor landslide movements.

6.1 Introduction

Farm ponds used in farmers’ fields are generally square shaped or rectangular shaped pyramidal structures. It has a regular side slope, depth, and top and bottom dimensions. It may be excavated/dugout pond or embankment pond. In excavated pond, the pond is constructed below the ground level. Water is collected in the pond by gravity from the adjacent catchment. In embankment type, the pond is partly above the ground and partly below. This type of pond has higher storage capacity than the dugout type pond. This type of pond has a berm and dyke/embankment around the pond. The embankment has some side slope. The pond has bottom dimensions, dimensions at the ground level as well as some dimensions at the top above the embankment. In this chapter, various dimensions of pond like depth, side slope of the pond, as well as the various dimensions at bottom, ground and top level will be discussed.

Identification of enteric bacilli is of prime importance for controlling intestinal infections. This can be achieved by preventing contamination of food and water by a group of bacteria belonging to family – Enterobacteriaceae which are found in the intestinal tract of human beings and lower mammals. The microorganisms of this family are short, gram negative, non spore forming bacilli. Such common enteric bacteria are a) pathogens such as species of Salmonella and Shigella b) occasional pathogens like species of Proteus and Klebsiella and c) normal intestinal flora like species of Escherichia and Enterobactor.

Introduction

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions amongst organisms and between organisms and their environment. India exhibits a spread of landscape and climate that are mirrored within the evolution of various soils and vegetation. These also exists a significant relationship among the soils, land form climate and vegetation. These additionally exists a big relationship amongst the soils, land type climate and vegetation. Regions are diagrammatic such everyone is as uniform as potential with relevancy physiographic, climate, length of growing amount (LGP) and soils for macro level and land use designing and effective transfer of agro-technology varied Agro environmental condition Zones diagrammatic in line with the design commission which are explained together with the classification by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

State of Jammu and Kashmir is located almost in the middle of three climatic regimes of Asia. The chapter introduces the agro-climatic zones of Jammu and Kashmir based on physiography. Each province of the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been further delineated into micro agro-climatic zones.

Introduction

Rainfed agriculture plays and will continue to play a dominant role in providing food and livestock for an increasing world population. Rainfed agriculture practiced on 80% of the world’ agriculture land area and generates about 70% of the world’s staple food including most of the food in poor communities in developing and least favoured areas. The most recent estimates have put global rainfed croplands at 1.75 billion ha (Bha) at the end of the last millennium, or about 5.5 times the irrigated area in the world. India ranks 1^st amongst the countries that practice rainfed agriculture both in terms of extent 86 (mha) and value production. Agriculture water management deals with the administration of a key input to agricultural production and offers to hope that land and water use will be intensified. Scarcity of water resources and growing of competition for water many sectors reduces its availability for irrigation. Effective management of water for crop production in water scarce area requires efficient approaches for increasing crop productivity and drought tolerance by genetic improvement and physiological regulation may be the means to achieve efficient and effective use of water. A single approaches would not be able to tackle the forthcoming challenge of producing more food and measures with engineering solutions (water saving technologies, irrigation methods, deficit irrigations, proper deficit sequencing, modernization of irrigation system) and agronomic and soil manipulation (seed priming, seedling age manipulation, direct or wet seeded rice. proper crop choice, integrating agriculture and aquaculture, increasing soil fertility and addition of organic matter, tillage and soil mulching). The term enhancing water productivity implies how we can most efficiently improve the outcome or yield of a crop with water currently in use, the answer lies in three main pathways of increasing water productivity with multiple use of water. Transpire most of the supplied water (minimization of unwanted loss), exchanged water for carbon dioxide more effectively inproducing biomass, and convert most of the biomass into grin or other farm of harvestable product. Many technologies to improve water productivity and the management of scarce water resource are available, amongst the most promising and efficient proven technique are limited supplemental application of irrigation for optimize the use of limited water and water harvesting for improved farm income in drier environment.Improving (water productivity, however requires exploiting not only water management but also other input such as improved cultivars, fertility management and cultural practice which influence crop productivity and yield.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”, all of us must have heard this statement at some juncture in our lives. Most of us may even have even gone through the motion of inventing something when needed. However, more and more inventions happening today may not necessarily be necessities. These inventions definitely perform the task of improvingand making convenient our overall living environment. Past few years have seen an increasing awareness and understanding in the field of intellectual property. Among all aspects, one aspect of intellectual property that is gaining increasing attention of intellectual property owners is management of the intellectual property rights.

This brings to our minds one question, how was intellectual property management practised by early mankind? We all do know that early mankind has left no stone unturned to make theabove statement”Necessity is the mother of invention”, a reality. Mankind prospered by leaps and bounds on account of sharing their various discoveries and inventions. Way back then knowledge was meant to be shared, as aptly captured in the Sanskrit Sloka:

5.1 Descriptive Analysis for Marketing Decisions

Measures of Location

In the previous chapters it was discussed how to understand and reach customer. Now lets explore the numerical data through their properties to understand customers and markets. Descriptive statistics is analysis of data that helps describe, summarize data in a meaningful so that the business people get new and deeper insights into the problems and situations. For example a buying pattern for your products might emerge and there could be difference based on gender. This will help the business people to come out various strategies separately for each gender. Data can be easily handled with spreadsheets. One of the very widely used spreadsheets by many business organisations is Microsoft - Excel. MS-Excel is used for various purposes from just maintaining records to finding out relationships between databases. Some organisation use this spreadsheet software for generating memos, track sales trends and other business data. Lets in this chapter explore how excel sheet can be used to perform basic data analysis that can help us to get greater insights.

A metabolic cell contains about 75-95% water by weight. It is important for plants for proper growth and development. Any significant reduction in availability will affects metabolic activity and thus growth parameters which determine yield. The uptake of water by the plant (roots) from the soil is an osmotic phenomenon. The water potential represents the free energy per moles of water. It can be reduced by:

1. Decreasing temperature
2. Adding soluble pressure or
3. Decreasing pressure or
4. Providing additional absorptive surface

Much of the success on modern agriculture dependson the availability of high quality seeds with good genetic potential and proven performance in germination, emergence, and vigorous Vegetative growth.

Seed: Seed is a fertilized mature ovule containing an embryonic axis (embryo), stored food material (endosperm) and a protective covering (seed coat or testa).

Seed structures: Living embryo, the most important part of seed, consists of two structures (i) embryonic axis and ( ii ) cotyledon(s). Theembryonic axis is composed of three parts namely

(i)radical (embryonic root), the hypocotyls (point of attachment of cotyledons) and (iii) plumule (theshootapex with the first true leaves). Thethree parts of embryonic axis are easy to identify in dicots, but in monocots (especially in the family Gramineae) their identification is difficult. In monocots, there is only one cotyledon, which is reduced and modifiedto form the scutellum. The basalsheath of cotyledon is elongated to take the shape of coleoptile,while in somecases (e.g., maize), the hypocotyls is modified to form mesocotyl. The base of hypocotyls sheathing the radical is termed as coleorhiza.

Seed development: Thereare manyvariations in the pattern of seeddevelopment when the entire plant kingdom is considered. However, the general processof This includes seed development is almost similar.

ABSTRACT

Bioinformatics is a critical tool in designing the molecular biology experiments. The xeroxing of specific part of genome needs correct primer designing. Primer designing has central role in molecular biology right from cloning, sequencing, gene expression profiling by real time PCR, genotyping by RFLP, SNP analysis by real time PCR and auto sequencer. In this chapter we are describing how to proceed for experimental designing right from data mining from GENEBANK to designing of primers for various common molecular genetic analysis work. The write up also describes in silico evaluation of primers, various off line commercial and non-commercial software, on line free software and trouble shootings in primer designing, The different strategy described in context of primer designing would be of immense use of researchers.

ABSTRACT

54 foraminiferal species belonging to 29 genera, 23 families, 17 superfamilies and 5 suborders have been identified from Nagaland. Of the total species 16 are planktic and 38 are benthic forms. The age for the Upper Disang Group of Nagaland is assigned as Late Eocene, based on the presence of Late Eocene markers i.e. Globigerinatheka semiinvoluta, Cribrohantkenina inflata, Hantkenina alabamensis and Turborotalia cerroazulensis. As per the present study the Disang succession in Nagaland can be grouped into five biofacies. The Uvigerina dominated biofacies consisting Uvigerina cocoaensis, U. continuosa, U. eocaena, U. glabrans, U. jacksonensis and U. cf. steyeri. In some samples even up to 100 % Uvigerina were present. The localized occurrence of thick “Uvigerinids” in high percentage with pyritized test in this section indicates anoxic conditions, suggestive of possible source rock for oil.

ABSTRACT

Over the past four decades groundwater has become a topic of discussion and investigation and as a result the knowledge of understanding groundwater conditions has radically improved. For the past quarter century, remote sensing has played a vital role to target the groundwater resources for the essential survival of horticulture and agriculture crops in drought-prone areas. GIS technology has made a rapid stride for the past one decade to amalgamate the data generated from various space-born platforms and the ground based surveys to facilitate the generation and use of various thematic information for groundwater resources assessment. The present study aims for the demarcation of various groundwater prospective zones in the West Doon Valley and its environs, falling in the SOI toposheet 53 F/15. The role of various parameters namely, Geomorphology, Geology, Lineaments, Drainage, Land Use, Water table and Slope has been integrated for delineating groundwater prospective zones. IRS IC LISS-III geocoded satellite image on 1:50,000 scale was used. Index overlay model has been applied for GIS analysis. The resultant map indicates five prospective zones, such as poor, low, moderate, high and very high groundwater prospective zones in the study area.

Due to inadequate intakes of vitamins and minerals, half of the world's population suffers from micronutrient malnutrition. An adequate amount of wholesome as well as diverse foods are required for the proper growth and development. In addition to calories requirements, these foods should provide various nutrients. In India, ~70% of children do not get the required calories either due to lack of enough food or diverse food. This indicates that these children are also incapable of fulfilling their protein, minerals and vitamins requirements. Diets that lack diversity can be deficient in certain nutrients. Due to the micronutrient composition of the soil of a region, or because of the intrinsic insufficiency of the normal diet the staple foods of some region can lack particular nutrients. The individual plant foods are often deficient in certain nutrient components due to the varying level and composition of food nutrients in different food crops. Some crops are rich in one component but low in other. For example; legumes are usually high in protein, but deficient in essential amino acids like methionine whereas, wheat and rice are rich in carbohydrates but contain little essential amino acid such as lysine, iron, and lack provitamin A. Relying on a single food crop as major staple source of nutrients thus will not attain a nutritionally complete diet and result in malnutrition and deficiency diseases, which often occur in populations of developing countries, mainly due to poverty. Globally, over one billion people are undernourished and food security is a major issue with the world's population forecast reaching to nine billion by 2050.

Abstract

The increasing interest in polyphenolic compounds in industries has led to the exploration and exploitation of rich bio-compounds from natural sources, essentially plants and their by-products. Solid-liquid extraction is mostly applied for the recovery of these valuable compounds from plants. Since the extraction process is often difficult in a fresh matrix, a drying operation is needed to reduce the moisture content, and preserve the targeted valuable compounds. An uncontrolled drying operation will lead to product damage and hence, loss in quality, reason why, several studies have been carried out to understand and control the drying process. The present chapter aims to present some data on drying for bioactive compound recovery from plants and their by-products, mainly polyphenolic compounds. Our main interest is the mathematical tools used to model the drying process.

The dairy processing industry in India deals mainly with the fluid milk and/or short shelf life products, despite India being the largest producer of milk in the world, with an output bordering the 110 million ton mark. This feature offers immense potential in the area of R&D in dairy processing in terms of value addition. The potential gains are many, including higher returns for producers and advantages in terms of health, therapeutic, nutritional and/or gastronomy for the consumers. However, the Indian Dairy Industry can amass possible benefits by being a global contender in trade only when its products are at par with those available in the rest of the world in terms of price and quality. It is evident from the post-WTO scenario that for sustainability, Indian dairy industry will need to maintain wholehearted commitment to quality management right from the farm to the consumer, shedding its inhibitions and resistance to changes.

9.1. WTO Agreements and Food Industry

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was formed in 1947 and lasted until 1994, when it was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. The WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. It provides a forum for negotiating agreements aimed at reducing obstacles to international trade and ensuring fair deal for all, thus contributing to economic growth and development. Currently, there are 16 agreements to which all WTO members are parties and two agreements to which only some WTO members are parties. WTO currently has 153 members, of which 117 are developing countries or separate customs territories. The Head Quarters of WTO is at Geneva (Switzerland) and the official languages are English, French and Spanish.

Plant tissue culture is the cultivation of plant cells, tissues, or organs on specially formulated nutrients media under the right environmental conditions. A whole plant can be regenerated from a single cell. The history of plant tissue culture has been long and started with Haberlandt in 1902 when he proposed the culture of single plant cells, his experimentation never resulted in success. White (1943) became successful in culturing plant cells for the first time, however, Morel (1960) at the Institut National Recherche Agronomique in Versailles near Paris was first to demonstrate meristem culture technology. He successfully introduced tissue culture technology to the orchid industry and produced disease-free plants of grape. By the 1970s, plant tissue culture had become a formidable technology. Plant tissue culture technique has been around for more than 30 years and considered as an important straightforward technology for the production of disease-free high quality planting material and the rapid production of many uniform plants. Its application requires a sterile workplace, nursery, greenhouse and trained manpower.

Plant tissue culturing techniques have been especially important in the agricultural community over the past many years. During this time, plant tissue culture has effectively moved from the confines of small laboratories and has taken its place among broad scale techniques employed by agricultural industry.

Climate Change has emerged as one of the most serious environmental concerns of recent times. The most imminent climatic change is increase in atmospheric temperature due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and hydrochlorofluoro carbons (HCFCs). Because of increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in atmosphere, there is much concern about future changes in the climate system viz., Atmosphere, Lithosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere and Cryosphere. Direct or indirect effects on the society linked sectors like water, forestry, agriculture, animal agriculture, fisheries, land and marine biodiversity and health due to climate change/variability are many-fold and economic impact of climate change is enormous. The recurrent drought and desertification threaten seriously the livelihood of over 1.2 billion people who depend on land for most of their needs. The global economy has adversely been influenced due to droughts and floods, cold and heat waves, forest fires, landslips and mudslips, icestorms, duststorms, hailstorms, thunder clouds associated with lightning and cloudbursts, unusual rains and the sea level rise (Fig.1.1). Increase in aerosols (atmospheric pollutants) due to emission of greenhouse gases including black carbon and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Ozone depletion and UV-B filtered radiation, eruption of volcanoes, the “human hand” in deforestation in the form of forest fires and loss of wetlands in the process of imbalanced development are causal factors for climate variability and change. The carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration was in the steady state at 280 ppm till the pre industrial period (1850). It was rising since then at the alarming rate due to industrialization and burning of fossil fuels and the concentration of carbon dioxide is almost currently touching more than 400 ppm. Global increases in CO₂ concentrations are due primarily to fossil fuel use, with land-use change providing another significant but smaller contribution. The loss of forest cover and wetlands, which normally intercept rainfall and allow it to be absorbed by the soil, causes precipitation to reach across the land, eroding top soil, causing floods and droughts. Paradoxically, the lack of trees also exacerbates drought in dry years by attaining soil to dry out more quickly. For the first time the world over felt the effects of global warming and climate change during the year 1998 in the form of weather related disasters.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has confirmed that change in climate system is gradually leaving a strong impact. Observations undoubtedly show that there is increasein global temperatures, wide spread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level. Global climate has shown warming of 0.89 [0.69 to 1.08] °C over the period 1901–2012 which is mainly attributed to anthropogenic activities. Scientific findings indicate that warming is more pronounced than expected and the impact would be particularly severe in the tropical areas, which mainly consist of developing countries, including India (Shukla, 2016). Thus, climate change is a great challenge which is continuously being faced by the sustainable economic growth of the India. Climate sensitive sectors like agriculture, forestry, hydrology oriented sectors faces major threat due to projected changes in climate. India Meteorological Department (IMD) in 2012 reportedincreasing temperature trends during last 112 years and increase in heavy rainfall events and decrease in low and medium rainfall events over India. Changes inrainfall and temperatures have also been reported at various place by Dash et al., 2009, Arora et al., 2005, De et al., 2005, 2008, MoEF 2010, Jones and Briffa., 1992, Kothawaleet al., 2010, Tyagi and Goswami., 2009 and others. Agriculture is likely to be hit by climate change and the Indian economy mostly agrarian based will get worst impact.Several international and national level interventions have taken initiatives foranalyzing the behavioral pattern of climate change.However, it was felt that there is a need for the regional level analysisparticularly, within the state in order tofindtrends that depicts immediate attention at root level. Keeping this in view, many researchers carried out studies at regional level. Systematic collection of literature with reference to climate change in regional level over most of the states of India is being done. These assessments will help in finding relationship between climate change and the vulnerability to human life in long term.

Wheat (T. aestivum) is a staple food of the vast majority of the human population in most part of the world; Europe, West Asia, South East Asia, Americas and North Africa. It provides more nourishment than any other food crop and leads all other food crops-rice, maize and potato on a global basis. The wide varieties of food products prepared from it make the crop popular and also a reason for its expansion even to non-traditional wheat cultivated areas. As a leading cereal crop, it is cultivated widely under varied agro-ecological regions and cropping systems throughout the world. It is one of the first plants domesticated and cultivated by humans, which played a critical role in the transition from hunter–gatherer groups to stabilized societies with an agrarian foundation.

Lawn is an integral part of any garden and it gives pleasure while sitting during evening in summer and one can enjoy good sunshine during winter. Hence, it is often referred as “heart of the garden”. It is covered with perennial grass and provides open landscape to the house and adds aesthetic beauty to the surroundings. Good lawn is essential to have in a good garden. It is permanent feature, which occupies 60% share of total garden area. Here in this chapter lawn is divided into two parts. There are approximately 620 genera and 10,000 species of grasses worldwide. Grasses are used extensively used throughout the world for their beauty and utility. Grasses are found from temperate to tropical to arid semi arid regions and suits in most extreme climatic conditions and have adapted to a worldwide climate and zones. Grasses are used as fodder, food, medicinal and for aesthetics purpose and it belongs to family Gramineae.

The landscape gardening for aesthetic appreciation is an integral part of the progress achieved through the growing world floriculture business that has reached a $ 40 billion mark and valueless aesthetic emotional gains. The industry is continuously rising through transitional changes to have more accepted and unique applications as a wide and economic choice to the consumers with regards to the energy saving in the system. The use of energy for sustenance of the landscape plants before and after planting can be a benchmark in time to come as no one can believe that the plants instead can grow with still better traits either be it the foliage colour, variegation, shape, size and or form beside the fact that the consumption of such altered/compact plants has increased manifold in house, gardens, parks and indoors with a large number of products worldwide in a eco-friendly manner.

At the same time there is great environmental consciousness towards transforming landscape gardening with more natural and unspoiled system of growing plants and maintaining them in the landscape as perennial ones. The system being independent of distance of use or application offers an ease of transport into a mass for large-scale uniform planting. This is the fact that in the recent times, the commercial growers do not rely on the nature to introduce the genetic mutation that will make them millionaires but depends on the art and scientific knowhow to create a novelty in its own. This has resulted in the seriousness and painstaking effort of the growers to produce the plants round the year in new forms and shapes to put forward a new plant with extra-ordinary marketable characteristics every year, e.g. compact chrysanthemum, kalanchoe, bromeliads, orchids, etc are some of the common products with an unusual and eye-catching hue in the auction markets. Similarly, a large number of annual and perennial plants perfectly suited for various kind of landscaping, slope, soil types and moisture regimes under the specific and artificial environment created for a specific growth of the plant.

Whether you are an experienced gardener or a newcomer to the high desert, learning how to successfully garden the desert can be an exciting challenge. With minimal annual precipitation, a short growing season and fluctuating temperatures, maintaining an attractive, healthy landscape can keep you on your toes. Most gardeners value the natural beauty of our native landscapes, but are interested in enhancing it with additional plants to add more color and texture. Can a more beautiful landscape be created and still be water efficient and sustainable? The answer is YES.

The Meaning of Xeriscape

The word xeriscaping (pronounced zer-iskap- ing) is commonly referred to as water-wise or water-smart gardening. Xeros is derived from the Greek word meaningdry’. However, do not let the Greek derivative conjure up images of a dry, desert-like, “blandscape.” Xeriscaping and Xerogardening refer to landscape gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental irrigation. It is promoted in areas that do not have easily accessible supplies of fresh water and is gaining acceptance in other areas as climate pattern changes. Xeriscape is a proactive approach to curbing wasteful use of a valuable natural resource. Xeriscaping, is a seven step method that combines innovative water conservation techniques with sound horticultural practices. Not only it is possible to have a colorful and beautiful landscape while conserving water, but it can become more sustainable while saving you time, energy and money.

Often it is thought that a xeriscape means the use of all native or low water use plants, resulting in limited plant selection. However xeriscapes can incorporate hundreds of plant choices including trees, shrubs, evergreens, perennials and grasses. Plants whose natural requirements are appropriate to the local climate are emphasized, and care is taken to avoid losing water through evaporation and run off. The specific plants used in xeriscaping depend upon the climate. The concept originated in Denver, Colorado, in early 1980s. Because of severe drought conditions, Denver rationed water and prohibited irrigation of lawns and yards. As a result, vegetation in yards withered, and Denver landscapers began promoting what they called xeriscape, a landscaping approach that uses small amounts of water but maintains a traditional look. In some areas, terms likes water-conserving landscapes, drought tolerant landscaping, zeroscaping and smart scaping are used instead.

Flowers and plants are associated with mankind from the dawn of civilization. In the modern era these have become an integral part of human life, as love for flowers and ornamental plants is a common natural instinct in human beings. The catchy flowers glowing and glowing in all their grandeurs with simplicity always make them tempting to wish the season to continue for never ending, but it may be beyond reach of human beings. However, the answer for it could be by producing and preserving ever-lasting or long-lasting flowers and other attractive ornamental plant parts. These are now becoming favorites especially with the adventurous flower lovers across the globe. The beauty and fresh look of cut flowers and cut foliage is generally lost due to microbial activities and biochemical changes thus these are retained only for a few days even by using the best techniques of post harvest management (Datta, 1999). The charm of dried ornamental plant parts can be maintained from a few months to years with lesser cost if protected from the damage of high humidity as in dried flowers, the microbial activities in the aging process come to stand still.

The main characteristics of dried ornamentals are novelty, longevity, aesthetics, flexibility and year-round availability. The dehydrated or dried ornamentals are generally inexpensive and are sought for their everlasting and attractive appearance globally (Smith, 2000). Being largely focused on the qualities of attractive flowers, living plants and plant parts, floriculturists generally pay little attention to dried and preserved flowers and plants. Therefore, these products remained overlooked and underrated throughout the world. These are overlooked in the sense that their considerable economic importance is generally unrecognized and these are underrated in the sense that their aesthetic contribution is largely discounted. In contrast to other areas of floriculture including post-harvest management, relatively very little public funded research and development projects were undertaken on the dried flower industry across the globe (Joyce, 1998). This has slowed the pace in optimizing the dehydration technology and quality of the produces. Privately funded research and development work has sustained, but such findings are usually kept secret and limited information are available to the common man. Thus, this component of floriculture industry has remained ill defined with respect to the processes, products and organizations in the developed and developing countries. As we see in major cut flower crops, there are defined standards available for judging the quality, however these are lacking in dried ornamentals. There is an urgent need to start war- footing efforts and awareness on the dried ornamentals to attract greater public support to conduct concentrated research and development with more professionalism in the trade of these products.

Abstract

Ten GPS stations have been set up in campaign mode in North Bengal in the Himalayan foothills and frontal zone, of which 7 have been reoccupied. Data from these 7 GPS stations over the period December, 2005 – January, 2007 have been processed using GAMIT/GLOBK suite of software and the velocities of these stations have been estimated. Since the data obtained so far cover a span of one year only, the conclusions derived from them are to be considered as preliminary. The stations are found to be moving at the rate of ~ 40-55 mm/yr in ITRF05 reference frame towards NNE. The baseline between LHAS (Lhasa) and IISC (Bangalore) is estimated to be shortened by ~10.2 mm over the period of our measurement. The southernmost station in our study, NBUV, at Siliguri is more or less collinear with LHAS-IISC baseline. The shortening of NBUV-IISC line is estimated to be ~ 3.8 mm over this period and that of NBUV-LHAS line is ~ 6.4 mm for the same period. These GPS stations were set up across the parallel set of previously marked fault scarps named Matiali (MT), Chalsa (CL) and Baradighi (BD) faults in North Bengal between longitudes 88⁰ E and 89⁰ E. The results from the GPS measurements show that stations to the south of the BD fault are moving at a faster rate than those to the north of MT fault. The baseline between stations AMBK (Ambiok) and NBUV has shortened by ~3 mm over the period of our observation. These two are the northernmost and southernmost stations respectively with respect to the three E-W running parallel faults and thus the shortening of baseline AMBK-NBUV is due to movements on the set of three faults taken together. A N-S to NNE-SSW running line of discontinuity between 88.5⁰ E and 89⁰ E longitudes separates the velocity vectors of the set of stations SAMS, JITI, PMSM, BRDH to the east of the line and the set of stations NBUV, BGKT, AMBK to the west. The line of demarcation of the two blocks containing the two sets of stations appears to coincide with the Gish transverse zone (GTZ).

The food plants of world are damaged by more than 10,000 species of insects, 30,000 species of weeds, 1,00,000 diseases (caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms and 1000 species of nematodes (Hall, 1995). The global losses due to various categories of pests vary with the crop, geographic location and weather. Total yield losses from different pests to all the crops have been estimated to be US$ 500 billion worldwide (Oerke et al., 1994). In India, the current losses due to insect pests in principal field crops have been estimated to be Rs. 6, 89,400 million (Dhaliwal et al., 2004). In addition, there is loss of Rs. 60,000 million due to insect pests during storage. Thus, total losses to major crops and food grains in storage caused by insect pests are estimated to be Rs. 750 billion annually (Dhaliwal and Arora, 2006). Among regions, losses in Asia and Africa almost reaches 50 percent whereas in Europe (28.2%), North America (31.2%) and Oceania (36.2%) are below average. Losses due to animal pests in Asia (18.7%) are almost double those in developed countries and losses from weed competition in Africa and Asia are approximately double than those in Europe (Oerke et al., 1994). To combat such heavy losses mostly chemical pesticides are used by the farmers but indiscriminate use of pesticides has led to severe ecological consequences like destruction of natural enemy fauna, effect on non target organisms, residues in consumable products including packed pure and mineral water and ultimately resistance to the pesticides, to which we solely rely. Insecticides are always required to suppress rapidly expanding insect pest populations. Strategies should be employed to increase efficiency and accelerate insect mortality by combining microbials with sub lethal doses of chemical insecticides and botanicals. Biointensive pest management (BIPM) is the recent trend in Indian farming and attracting the farmers for higher income to their produce. This has resulted due to increased awareness among the end users and concerns about the deteriorating ecological situations among the eco-campaigners.

Microbial pesticides consist of disease causing microorganisms, which are disseminated in the pest populations in large quantities in a manner similar to application of chemical pesticides. It includes bacteria, viruses, fungi, nematodes and some protozoans. Pathogens may exert controlling effect by means of their invasive properties, toxins, enzymes and other substances (Lewis, 2006). The use of microbial insecticide has been proved to be a viable alternative to chemical insecticides, especially in management of forest insect pests. The combination of particular active ingredients and their ability of replication in host populations in the fields define the major differences between microbial insecticides and chemical insecticides. These differences have practical implications for their use in insect pest management programmes.

The increasing use of antibiotics in livestock and poultr y led to development of antibiotic resistant micro organisms and antibiotic residues in livestock products besides other side effects. These caused alarm bells ringing all over the world and by the end of June, 1999 majority of antibiotics as growth promoters in monogastric diets had been banned within the EU. The ban on use of antibiotic at sub therapeutic level in Europe and the potential for a ban in the United States have made scientists to seriously think of alternatives to antibiotics. In fact, the use of probiotics for farm animals was already stimulated by the findings of the Schwann Committee in 1969 which recommended that antibiotics in animal feeds should be restricted. However, the concept of probiotics gained momentum in later part of the last century. In recent years, with the public disapproval of using antibiotics in livestock and poultry production due to their residual effects in their products, there has been a greater emphasis on the use of probiotics in poultry.

Introduction

The seed industry has witnessed a substantial change in the 20th century, with farmers relying on purchasing seeds from market with better traits rather than relying on seeds from previous season’s harvest. Developments in seed technology have increased the momentum of the industry’s growth, and the introduction of genetically modified crops has further boosted the seed market. The value of global seed market has tripled since 2000 and reached US$ 54 billion in 2014 (Indian Seed Market (pdf), www.icfa.org.in).

Introduction

Seed vigour is an important quality parameter, which needs to be assessed to supplement germination and viability tests to gain insight into the performance of a seed lot in the field or in storage. Several definitions have been offered to explain seed vigour. Isley (1957) defined vigour as “the sum total of all seed attributes, which favour stand establishment under unfavourable field conditions”. While, AOSA (2005) defined seed vigour as the sum total of all those properties in seed, which upon planting, result in rapid and uniform production of healthy seedlings under a wide range of environments, including both favourable and stress conditions and ISTA (1985) stated that seed vigour is the sum total of those properties of the seed, which determine the potential level of performance and activity of a non-dormant seed or seed lot during germination and seedling emergence.

Introduction

Quality seed plays seminal role in augmenting agricultural production as well as productivity. Only by using good quality seeds, productivity can be enhanced up to the tune of 15-20 per cent alone, but under optimum management, the increment may touch upon up to 45 per cent depending upon the crops since the efficiency and efficacy of all other inputs in the production technology gamut are contingent upon the quality of seeds being used. Since antiquity the importance of quality seed to enhance agricultural productivity is well evident as mentioned in old testimonials, literatures, scriptures, treatises, epics, and many other ancient documents.

Seed quality is the major decisive factor governing stand establishment of any crop and thus having immense importance and bears utmost priority in case of high value, low volume crops like vegetables in particular and for high volume low value crops in general for enhanced productivity and production as well (Mandal et al., 2015). A number of diverse materials/ treatments at varying doses have been used to increase the rate and uniformity of seedling emergence in wheat and rice, which are generally categorized for seed enhancement, which is a kind of value addition.

Seed enhancement may be defined as post-harvest treatments that improve germination and seedling growth or facilitate the delivery of seeds and other inputs/materials required at the time of sowing smoothly. Seed enhancement technology predominantly possess a central objective to further improve seed performance by treating with specific additives/ chemical/ organics/ botanicals, etc. under very specific regimes and with the aid of certain planting equipments to grow uniform crop obviously to harness higher productivity and production (Halmer, 2006). Various techniques have been employed to assure superior performance of additives in different crops and most have been found to have immense commercial application (TeKrony, 2006). This includes three general areas of enhancement: pre sowing hydration treatment (priming), coating, pelleting technologies and seed conditioning.

Introduction

In India, around 70 per cent of cultivated land is under rainfed condition, but it accounts for about 42 per cent of the total quantity of produced food grains (Sujatha et al., 2013). It was estimated that using quality seeds, productivity can be enhanced up to the extent of 15-20 per cent and under optimum management, the increment may touch upon up to 45 per cent depending upon the crops. Quality seeds play a major role, along with improved package of practices leading to enhanced productivity. Crops propagated with seeds face many problems: Poor seed germination, poor seedling establishment under several abiotic stresses such as, drought, salinity and poor seedling vigour. The capacity of a crop propagated with seeds to grow depends on its genetic constituent and its interaction with the environmental biotic stresses. A number of diverse materials/ treatments at varying doses have been used to increase the rate and uniformity of seedling emergence in many field crops, which are generally categorized for seed enhancement. Seed enhancement may be defined as “post-harvest treatments that improve germination and seedling growth or facilitate the delivery of seeds and other inputs/materials required at the time of sowing smoothly”. Seed enhancement technology predominantly possess a central objective to further improve seed performance by treating with specific additives/chemical/organics/botanicals etc. under very specific regimes and with the aid of certain planting equipments to grow uniform crop obviously to harness higher productivity and production (Halmer, 2006). There are several ways and means to enhance vigour of germinating seedlings while emerging from the seed, which produce a uniform crop stand and finally substantially more yield is achieved by adopting simple techniques.

Introduction

Seed as an input is the precursor for agricultural development as it alone can guarantee 20-30 per cent share of crop productivity (Koudinya and Kumar, 2014). Rigveda, the world’s most ancient scripture available, prescribes the importance of seeds as “Subeejam Sukshetre Jayate Sampadyate” which literally means, “A good seed in a good field can lead to the prosperity and posterity of the entire human race”. Seed production is indeed important to take care of a country’s food and nutritional security needs. At the same time, seed export across countries is vital for ensuring competitiveness in the domestic seed industry besides generating employment and valuable foreign exchange which in turn can be used for scaling up the seed sector’s efficiency itself (Poonia, 2013). As a matter of fact, seed trade is one of the reasons for huge advances made in the Indian seed industry through development and exchange of genetic transformation, marker-assisted breeding and nanotechnology (Nandi et al., 2013). As of 2014-15, global seed industry has reached USD 45 billion in which international seed export alone was worth USD 10 billion. Further, with the estimated growth rate of 9.2 per cent during 2015-2020, the world seed business is expected to be over USD 92 billion. Presently, USA, China, France, Netherlands and Brazil are the top markets comprising more than 66 per cent of the global share in seed trade. Corn, soybean and vegetables account for more than 75 per cent of the total global seed market volume. As of 2014-15, the value of the Asian vegetable seed market was USD 6.75 billion in which China had a major share (41 per cent) and the Indian share was around 7 per cent. Moreover, the world vegetable seed market alone is expected to grow at the rate of 7 -8 per cent per annum and reach USD 8.8 billion by the year 2020 (Parashar and Kumar, 2016).

New Technique of Food Preservation

1. High Pressure Processing (HPP)

High Pressure Processing (HPP) is a method of food processing where food is subjected to elevated pressures (up to 87,000 pounds per square inch or approximately 6,000 atmospheres), with or without the addition of heat, to achieve microbial inactivation or to alter the food attributes in order to achieve consumer-desired qualities. Pressure inactivates most vegetative bacteria at pressures above 60,000 pounds per square inch. HPP retains food quality, maintains natural freshness, and extends microbiological shelf life. The process is also known as high hydrostatic pressure processing (HHP) and ultra high-pressure processing (UHP).

‘Prunes’ is prepared from peach.

Arrak” liquor is prepared from date palm.

Hayane” variety of date palm suitable for juice making.

Kanji” is made from black carrot.

Kirschwascer” a wine prepared from cherry.

Shahi” variety of Litchi suitable for canning.

1.1 Importance

Perfumes, essential oils and aroma are some of the products which indicate religious values, living standards, personality development for personal use and adornment from years back. The Vedic literatures also indicate the presence of perfumes and aromatics and were used for religious purposes as well as medicinal purposes. The word perfume has been used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word, “per fumum”, meaning through smoke. Perfumery has been one of the Indian arts and was a famous centre for perfume and perfume products. The essential oil means a class of volatile odoriferous oils, obtained from raw material of botanical source that impart the plant odour and other characteristic properties derived through distillation (usually with water or steam) or expression and obtained in the form of an oily liquid. The oils extracted through expression are some time called “Expression oils”. The aromatic substances being used from the Vedic period are defined as those plants which possess odoriferous steam volatile constituent’s (essential oil) in them.

Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and USA are the major producers of aromatic materials. China is becoming increasingly important as a primary source and a very large quantity of aromatics and flowers as raw material is available. European Union and Switzerland are the main world markets for aromatics and also has established as a largest consumer of essential oils. The world’s largest importer of aromatic materials is the USA followed by Japan. The latter accounts for about 10% of world demand especially for lemon, clove, orange, peppermint and cedar wood oil.

India exports essential oils of lemongrass, mint, sandalwood, palmarosa, cardamom, ginger and eucalyptus in adequate quantity under AGMARK certification. But, for a better export quality there is a need to study the customer requirements, quality assurance and standards to keep pace with International market, Total Quality Management (TQM) through adulteration detection and modern analysis techniques with economic marketing channels.

India possesses a number of resources as plant parts, ample land and varied climatic conditions with low production costs but the essential oil producers need to study the customer needs for a regular supply of best quality products at a competitive rates. Today, second important factor for successful competition is the quality assurance. The consumers, these days, are very much aware about the quality and safety of using perfumes, essential oils and other pharmaceutical products. The third most important point is the packaging which attracts the consumers most of the times. Proper packaging along with an attractive label is always a plus point for the marketing of any product. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and Good Manfacturing Practices (GMP’s) are the quality assurance systems which continuously controls and regulate the quality production of commodities, needs strict enforcement. ISO 9000, TQM and ISO 14000 series are the some of quality management organizations, working for the development of quality standards.