eChapters

Animal’s response  to external stimuli is a behavior. Domestic animal behaviour and performance are correlated. Man’s intervention has led to huge modifications and modulations in animal behaviour patterns over ages but certain characters and normal behaviours of animals are needed to be expressed, otherwise may lead to abnormalities or performance loss. Animal freedoms also ensure certain basic freedoms to domesticated animals including freedom to express normal behaviour. With the developing concern over animal welfare among consumers, growers and animal activists, the need to ensure animal freedoms is call of the hour. Measuring animal welfare is a complex process which requires multidisciplinary approaches. There are four approaches to determine animal welfare viz, productivity, animal health and disease, physiology and behavior which are used individually or in combination.

8.1 Introduction

Nanotechnology is the manoeuvring or self-assembly of individual atoms, molecules, or molecular clusters into structures to craft materials with new properties. The definition of nanotechnology is based on the prefix “nano” which is from the Greek word meaning “dwarf”. In more technical terms, the word “nano” means 10^-9, or one billionth of something. The word nanotechnology is generally used when referring to materials with the size of 1 to 100 nanometres, which is true for metallic nano-material. In case of polymeric nano-material, size may reach 600 nm, as polymeric materials are larger in size compression to metallic material. Nano-materials have different properties from bulk materials as a result of their size. These differences include physical strength, chemical reactivity, electrical conductance, magnetism, and optical effects (Schmid, 2006).

17.1 Introduction

In industrialized nations the air is filled with numerous pollutants caused by human activity or industrial processes, such as carbon monoxide (CO), chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), heavy metals (arsenic, chromium, lead, cadmium, mercury, zinc), hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, organic chemicals (volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs, and dioxins), sulphur and other particulates. The presence of nitrogen and sulphur oxide in the air generates acid rain that infiltrates and contaminates the soil. The high levels of nitrogen and sulphur oxide in the atmosphere are mainly due to human activities, particularly burning of oil, coal and gas. Only a small portion comes from natural processes such as volcanic action and decay of soil bacteria. Water pollution is caused by numerous factors, including sewage, oil spills, leaking of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides from land, by-products from manufacturing and extracted or burned fossil fuels.

Microsatellites are highly polymorphic repetitive DNA sequences that are randomly distributed throughout eukaryotic genomes displaying high levels of variation and consequently, are ideal for deciphering genetic variability. They are having high mutation rates (1-4 per generation). Among the microsatellite, (CA) n repeats occurring about one in every 30 kb of mammalian genome constitute useful genetic markers, as their polymorphism is sufficiently stable and their mutation rate are low enough. Out of innumerable microsatellite, ZuBeCa3 microsatellite shows huge variability in the canine genome (Switonski and others 1998). This microsatellite is located in chromosome 9q21-q22 and vastly studied in different dog breeds depicting its heterogeneous distribution over the chromosome (Switonski and others 1998).

Mammary tumours are the most frequent neoplasia in female dogs; therefore, these tumours represent a serious problem in veterinary medicine. Many tumours presented activated genes which are not normally expressed in the tissue from which they originate. The proteins derived from the expression of these genes are called tumour markers. Detection and measurement of these proteins are used in medicine for diagnosis and assessing the evolution of the tumours.

Surgery stands as first choice for the treatment of canine mammary tumours. The simplest surgical procedure in the mammary gland should be performed (MacEwen, 1989) in the absence of metastatic disease and inflammatory carcinoma. Nevertheless the controversy for performing simple or radical technique still goes unabated, as the published data are to clear to prove the practical value of radical surgery compared to simple mastectomy. Brodey et al. (1983) is reported that six categories of surgical excision of mammary tumours can be performed.

1.1. Introduction

Dairy animal production in the last few decades witnessed tremendous growth throughout the world. The remarkable success of the dairy animal production can be attributed to the constant efforts of researcher, planner as well as producer. At present dairy farming is becoming a commercial activity. Hi-tech dairy farms produce high quality milk for making value added milk products for competitive markets around the world. The management of the dairy farming enterprises is crucial for the sustainability and profitability of it. The effective management of dairy animals essentially emphasizes the following areas:

4.1. Introduction

Heifers are young female cattle from 12 months of age to first calving. Heifer management is important as they are future cow of the herd. Proper growth and body condition of the heifers are associated with their early sexual maturity and age at first breeding, and their later productive and reproductive performances, when they become cow. Thus, proper care and management of the heifers is necessary to establish a good dairy herd.

5.1. Introduction

A dry cow is a cow that is not producing milk. Usually cow remains in-milk for about 305 days (average lactation length), after that it remains for a period of about 60 days in dry condition (not giving milk) called dry period. Dry period is critical for a cow for regeneration of her udder and reserve nutrients for the next lactation, otherwise, milk production will not be upto the mark and the cow may suffer from several metabolic diseases after parturition. A dry cow is just as valuable as a lactating cow, therefore should be not neglected. A dry cow management programme includes nutrition, general management and health control programme.

26.1 Introduction

The green revolution brought dramatic changes in productivity of rice and wheat and the production increased tremendously using high yielding wheat and rice varieties coupled with fertilizers and pesticide use to meet urgent demands of food. The world population is growing rapidly at an alarming rate. It has crossed 7 billion mark and is expected to become between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050 (United States Census Bureau (USCB). India is second largest populous country of the world with 17.4 % of world population. Such an enormous overpopulation will result in extreme pressure on environment, global food supplies and energy resources. The less arable land and fewer renewable and non-renewable resources, the food production has to come from increases in production rather than expansion of cultivable areas.

Vacreation : The pasteurization of the milk or cream under reduced pressure by direct steam is called vacreation.

Vacuum : The state of negative pressure. It is equal to atmospheric pressure minus absolute pressure.

Vacuum cooling : A technique of cooling vegetable (leafy vegetables, asparagus Brussels sprouts) having a high surface to volume ratio rapidly and uniformly by boiling off some of their water at 10C and at low pressure (5 mm of Hg) into a sealed container. The produce is cooled by evaporation of water from the tissue surface and is more rapid than hydro cooling.

Introduction

Beauty, purity, love and passion are some of the emotions symbolized by the flowers. The feelings of love, affection and joy are conveyed effectively with these non-speaking beauties of nature, for example a lotus conveys purity, rose love, pansy thoughts and narcissus egotism. Flowers have a definite role to play at almost all occasions of human affairs like birth, marriage, worship, adornments and death. Besides flowers, other ornamental plants also play an important role in environmental planning of urban and rural areas and from wasteland development to overcoming pollution. An important aspect of floriculture is that it is a good avenue to generate gainful employment for youth and women of peri-urban and rural areas.

Introduction

Production system under arid and semi-arid region faces several biophysical constraints (high solar radiation, low and erratic rainfall, high wind velocity, poor soil conditions, etc.). Availability of irrigation water and irrigation potential in these regions are meager. Nutrition, food security and sufficient livelihood options based on agriculture are the major challenges of the people living in these regions. Sustainable productivity in these regions cannot be achieved by monoculture of either seasonal or forage crops, and thus hinges the need for diversifying the cropping pattern through fruit based cropping system which has good potential particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions. Because hunger and malnutrition are often linked to poverty, providing economic opportunities through horticultural production not only helps family incomes, but also addresses food security and nutrition. Thus, cropping system approach for agricultural production has greater significance in these regions.

Weeds are unwanted and undesirable plants which interfere with the utilization of land and water resources and thus adversely affect human welfare. They can also be referred as plants out of place. Weeds rank first among different agricultural pests causing crop loss. About 30,000 species of weeds have been listed in the world, out of which 18,000 cause serious damage in different ways resulting in considerable loss to agricultural production.

With the advent of modernization and urbanization, people are shifting from rural to urban areas, thereby, urban population is increasing day by day resulting in congested cities and towns. All around the world, a huge number of buildings are being constructed adding many more in future. Throughout the years, replacement of vegetated surfaces with paved and impervious surfaces in the urban areas have increased the temperature as compared to rural areas, because the paved surfaces absorbs, retain and reradiate more solar energy than vegetation. The ambient temperature in urban area can be as much as 6oC higher than the air in rural areas.

In India farming was traditionally subsistence in nature but with the passage of time, the nature of farming has changed to commercialized system faming. With the commercialization of farming, price of the product along with its quality has become an important factor in marketing. Quality and safety issues have also gradually gained importance as people in general have become conscious and aware of the hygiene, health and safety issues related food and food products. Perishability of food items requires more emphasis on its quality and safety. The formal system of regulations in quality and safety standard has been mainly the contribution of the developed world. The International market has set a high standard of quality and safety of agriculture products. In the country the standardization of quality and safety of agricultural products has gained momentum in the last 10-15 years.

Introduction

Agriculture is an important sector for countries like India, who have majority of its population, directly or indirectly depend upon agriculture. The sector which feeds the majority of population of any country needs special attention for its all round development. Marketing is such a crucial aspect related to agriculture that is probably not developed in any of such countries which largely depends upon agriculture. Underdeveloped and lack of resources are the main reasons behind the underdeveloped nature of agricultural marketing. In simple terms, agricultural marketing means the buying and selling of agricultural produce. The Indian council of Agricultural Research defined involvement of three important functions, namely assembling, preparation for consumption and distribution.

Food, clothing and housing are the three basic needs of a man. After that the additional requirement of a man are personal health and happiness. These can be considered as human factors. The material factors are agriculture, industry, trade, water resources management, insurance.

The continuous increase in population made the planners, researchers and cultivators to increase the food production to feed all the people. So, the second green revolution has to follow. Due to increase in air temperature and climate change, the cultivation practices to change based on the changing climatic condition. The study of climate is not only necessary for food production, but also needed for transportation, storage, value addition and consumption.

The need of the cloth for man is not only for style. The basic need is to protecting the human body from the climatic factors like heat and cold. Clothing must provide to maintain the body heat at about 37^oC. Clothing must be made based on the local climatic condition. So, the traditional fiber for making the cloth is better for health.

Housing provides the internal controlled climate to the human being. It provides comfort to the inhabitants. Like clothing traditional styles, sites and methods of housing have to be followed based on the climatic condition. Though people are living in the multi-storied building, they have to concentrate on comfort in the case of sufficient aeration and ventilation. In India, the Vastu Sastrum is nothing, but it provides the needs of the human livings for their comfort with sufficient light and air.

The climatic factors for a particular day are not similar to previous day. Similarly, definitely the climate of one season is not similar to other season. Man needs some recreation in the comfort climatic areas. So, he/she needs cool climate for stay that necessitate to air conditioner particularly during summer.

Potato is a major food crop, grown in more than 100 countries in the world and it is one of the major commercial crops grown in India. India ranks third by contributing around 7.5% to the world’s production. During 2006-07, 27 million tonnes was produced in an area of about 1.5 million ha. However, potato consumption per capita in India (14.8 kg/head/year) is one of the lowest in the world and hardly one per cent of the potato is processed.

All over the world, when people get richer their life style change and they consume more animal protein, especially meat. We may add value by good genetics and know how in farm and feed management. There would be huge demand for poultry products and meat in coming years in India as per capita income of middle class people is gradually increasing and for that production of meat and meat products is required to be increased to meet the demand. Meat of goat, buffalo chicken are generally sold in India. Marketing of meat and meat products, chicken and poultry products such as eggs are the main challenges for the new farmers as there is no ready market in India. Recently there is huge demand of Chicken in Northern India. The initial problem faced by farmers is getting the special chicken feed for the different age groups. There is no well equipped dedicated slaughter house available in every city. New technology for animal slaughter is required so that all parts of animal are used properly without losing valuable protein. The idea should be to use innovated technology to optimize the profits in the chain.

Taxonomy is the science of identifying (discovering), describing, naming and classifying organisms. It is a complex summing up of knowledge starting with thorough analysis to base the synthesis that will end up in the name of a taxon. Correct identification of biological taxa is a necessary prerequisite to all other enquiries about the biological world. Taxonomists attempt to divide the world of living things (biodiversity) into distinguishable entities (taxa-such as species, genera, and families), develop tools (e.g., identification keys) to allow others to recognize and identify these taxa, and organize the described taxa within a hierarchical classification system that reflects evolutionary relationships. The outcomes of taxonomy are, therefore, very practical in terms of providing tools to facilitate identification, an infrastructure for organizing biological information, and a universal language for communicating information about the identity and classification of biological entities. Thus, naming and ordering of objects into groups is probably the most fundamental step in the development of scientific principles. Taxonomy identifies and enumerates the components of biological diversity providing basic knowledge underpinning pest management (Ramaraju and Pratheep, 2008). 

Botanical Name : Anacardium occidentale L.
Family : Anacardiaceae 
Origin : North East Brazil in Latin America. 
Chromosome No. : 2n=2x=42
Type of fruit : Droup. 
Type of Inflorescence : Panicles (Both male and  hermaphrodite flowers occur on the same inflorescence)

Botanical Name: Hevea brasiliensis
Family: Euphorbiacace
Origin: Brazil
Chromosome No.: 36
Useful Part: Latex 
Cera Rubber: Manihot glaziovii
Para Rubber: Hevea brasiliensis
Indian Rubber: Ficus elastic
Panama Rubber: Castiolla elastic
Guayul Rubber: Parthenium argentatum

Two species mostly grown worldwide

Grape cultivation is one of the most remunerative farming enterprises in India. Considered the “Food of Gods” by the ancients, the little juicy ball holds more mysteries than we can think of. Classified by biologists as a ‘true’ berry, it has fleshy insides all the way to the tiny seed, making it a strong powerhouse of nutrition and energy. As one of nature’s richest source of antioxidants, the grape is priceless in its nutritional value. In fact many dieticians believe that it helps lower the incidence of two of the deadliest diseases in the urban world- coronary disease and cancer. In its juice form, the grape is known to cleanse the liver and remove excess uric acid from the body. One interesting but little known fact is that grape seeds are healthier than the fruit itself. They contain powerful antioxidants serving to prevent premature ageing, disease and decay. Grapes, one of the most delicious fruits, are rich sources of vitamins A, C, and B6. In addition to this they contain essential minerals like potassium, calcium, iron, phosphorus and magnesium.

3.1. Growth Analysis

Growth and development analysis of plants provides information related to influence of various factors either negative or positive on plant growth. The basic idea of this analysis is the estimation of crop growth at various stages and finally towards the yield. It will help us to understand the performance of a genotype as well as impact of agronomic practices on the crop at any stage of growth and also on final yield. This would also identify the factors responsible for high yield and thereby provide the basis to tailor agronomic practices. The most common parameters used in growth analysis are leaf area index, crop growth rate, relative growth rate, net assimilation rate and leaf area duration.

Weed management practices are evaluated for its efficiency in terms of effective control of weeds and economics of control measures through various indices under sole crop situation as well as intercrop situation.

6.1. Indices for Sole Crop Situation

The absolute effect of particular method or a chemical in reducing the weed competitions and increasing the crop productivity are measured effectively by various indices. The comparisons of weed control methods are usually based on the yield, weed population and weed dry matter from the control as well as treated plots.

Herbicides are the chemical substances used to kill weeds, i.e., unwanted plants that compete with crop plants for soil nutrients. Chemical herbicides are the most effective immediate solution to most weed problems. Use of chemicals, however, can be harmful to wildlife, to the environment and to humans. Chemicals are also expensive, and weeds develop resistance to the chemicals. For these reasons, there is now a move toward alternative methods of controlling the weeds. One of the most promising is biological weed control, which involves using one living organism to control the activities of another organism.

1. Damping off
Pathogen
Pythium spp
Phytophthora spp
Fusarium spp
Sclerotium spp
Symptoms
It is a term used to describe the damage caused by various fungi to the seed and emerging seedling in the reduced plant stand and sometimes it is so serious that  resowing becomes inevitable. Major symptoms are the failure of the seedlings decay or sudden death of the emerged seedlings roots and lower stems of emerged seedlings become soft and watery and may be reddish brown in colour.

Introduction

The climatic elements such as solar radiation, temperature, precipitation, humidity, evaporation, evapotranspiration and wind velocity affect growth and development of saplings. These climatic factors are not favourable for successful propagation of various horticultural crops in arid region. The main climatic features of Indian hot arid agro-ecosystem is high wind speed, sand storm and high temperature during summers up to 48-50oC  and during winter season temperature falls to the 2-3^°C, low atmospheric humidity i.e. 20-30% during maximum period of the year. Moreover the relative humidity goes down to below 10 per cent during summer months.

Land, a non-renewable resource, is central to all primary production systems. Over the years, the country’s landmass has suffered from different types of degradations. Land degradation can be defined as lowering of land productivity due to the deterioration of land’s physical, chemical and biological condition. Physical land degradation is due to water erosion, wind erosion, compaction, crusting and water logging and chemical degradation is due to the processes of salinization, alkalization, acidification and nutrient depletion. Biological degradation is due to the reduction of soil biota and organic matter, degradation of vegetation and impairment of activities of microflora and fauna. Land degradation is steadily increasing due to the growing pressure on land and unsustainable land use. Land degradation and the associated loss of soil productivity and quality is of great concern both from food production and environmental conservation point of view. An ever-increasing population created enormous pressure on land resources.

Introduction

Canopy management is the manipulation of tree canopies to optimize the production of quality fruits. The canopy management, particularly its components like tree training and pruning, affects the quantity of sunlight intercepted by trees, as tree shape determines the presentation of leaf area to incoming radiation. An ideal training strategy centers around the arrangement of plant parts, especially, to develop a better plant architecture that optimizes the utilization of sunlight and promotes productivity. Light is critical to growth and development of trees and their fruits.

Introduction

In-spite of environmental, bio-physical and resource constraints in most parts of Rajasthan, the state can be classified into three distinct agro-climatic zones namely hot arid, semi-arid and sub-humid  from horticultural perspective. These diverse zones have excellent vegetable production potential with wide range of crops, varied opportunities and resource utilization. The extremes of high (March–October) and low (December–January) temperature conditions together with associated abiotic stresses in the hot arid and semi-arid regions limit the choice of crops and their genotypes, quality of produce and productivity. Vegetable exploitation with adaptive and native crop-plant species is generally found to be potential and stable under arid to semi-arid agro-climatic conditions of the state that receive 150–650 mm of rainfall and having abiotic stresses due to climatic variations, drought, frost, hot and cold winds, soil and water quality.

Continuous vegetable cultivation year round in the limited available land, without adopting crop rotation practices induces stress, which leads to low vegetable crop productivity. These conditions apart from building up soil-borne pathogens will also lead to other deleterious factors such as temperature extremes, flooding, drought, salinity, heavy metal contamination, insufficient nutrient uptake, soil pH stress, etc. causing severe crop loss. To overcome these abiotic stress conditions, grafting is an environmentally friendly technique for reducing losses in production in solanaceous and cucurbitaceous vegetable crops. The cultivated area of grafted Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae has increased tremendously in recent years because the objective of grafting has been greatly expanded (Lee et al., 2010) to reduce infections by soil-borne pathogens and to enhance the tolerance against abiotic stresses.

Introduction

The hot arid zones of the country are spread over 32 million ha in the state of Rajasthan (61%), Gujarat (20%), Andhra Pradesh (7%), Punjab (5%), Haryana (4%), Karnataka (3%) and Maharashtra (0.4%), in addition to the cold deserts in the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh which are characterized by hostile agro-climate and fragile eco-system. In Rajasthan, the hot arid zone covers 12 district of whole western Rajasthan. It covers the 61 % area of the Rajasthan State and characterized by an annual rainfall between 100 – 500 mm with a coefficient of variation (CV) varying from 40 – 70 per cent; low and erratic rainfall combined with extremes of temperature (450-500 cal/cm2/day); low relative humidity; high potential evapo-transpiration value ranging from 1600 mm in eastern part and 1800 mm in western part of the region.

Introduction

Under arid and semi-arid regions of the world, major problems are salinity, alkalinity and calcareousness, which seems to further aggravate with changing climate scenario. Besides, most of the developing countries lies in this zone with flanging population resulting from shrinking of land resource and good quality of irrigation water. Globally area under saline/sodic soils is about 953mha covering 8% of the land surface. Resent estimates indicate that 6.7 mha area in India is affected by soil salinity and alkalinity and about 25% of ground water are sodic and/or saline in the country. There are two important approaches for utilizing saline alkali or calcareous environment. The first one is to modify the environment so as to suit the plant or modifying the plant and the second one is to substitute the plant species so as to suit the environment. However, second option is cost effective and most sustainable.

Vegetable production in our country is significantly influenced by the seasonality and weather conditions. Extends of abundance and deficiency in production and availability cause considerable fluctuations in the prices and quality of vegetables. Vegetable production, at present, is also characterized by a strong dependence on chemical plant protection with its all inherent environment and health hazards, both for growers and the consumers. Strinking a balance between all-season availability of high quality vegetables with minimum environment impact, and still to remain economically competitive in this time of globalization, is a major challenge for the modern technology of crop production. The crop productivity is influenced by the genetic characteristics of the cultivar and the management practices including nutrients, water and microclimate. Under open field cultivation, while the other factors could be taken care of, it is not possible to effect control on the microclimate around the plant.

Introduction

Fast and efficient dissemination of suitable technological information from the Agricultural Research System to the Farmers in the field and reporting of farmers’ feedback to the research system is one of the critical inputs in Transfer of Technology. Today India is at the verge of technology revolution with immense number of agriculture, home science and livestock technologies developed by the research institutes to enhance the agriculture and livestock production. These technologies have changed the total production of agricultural commodities in the country.

Apple codling moth: Cydia (Carpocapsa) pomonella: Tortricidae 

This is an international pest and is now seen in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. This is a fruit borer whose moth is silvery white with a dark band on the margin of the forewing and light brownish hind wings with a fringed margin. The moths hold their wings roof-like over the body while at rest.

Citrus butterfly: Papilio demoleus, P. polytes : Papilionidae

The pest is distributed all over the world and has a host range that includes citrus and other rutaceae plants like Aegle marmelos. Adult has the head and thorax black with a creamy-yellow coloration on the underside of the abdomen. Wings are dull black, orna-mented with yellow markings and a distinct red patch on the hind wing. The underside is orange and yellow coloured and can be seen when it flirts for honey collection or just before egg laying. The Antenna is black and clubbed.

Mango Fruit fly : Bactrocera dorsalis : Tephritidae

This is probably the most economically important pest of mango. It can attack many crops like mango, guava, peach, apricot, cherry, pear, ber, citrus, banana, papaya, avocado, passion fruit, coffee, melons, jack fruit and strawberry. There are also related species that may cross infect. The adults are light brown small flies with a single pair of membranous transparent wings. The other pair is modified into halteres. Eggs are thrust into the skin of the mangoes when they are semi ripe. A drop of resin comes out of the ovipunctures and can be seen as a black mark. While purchasing mango, this can be used as an indication of the presence of the fruit fly eggs.

Spindle bug: Carvalhoia arecae :Miridae

Spindle bug is a serious pest multiplying rapidly with the close of monsoon. The adults are red and black and nymphs are greenish in colour with reddish brown patches. Both these stages colonize the top-most leaf axils at the base of the spindle. Adults and nymphs suck the sap from emerging spindle, tender leaves and other tender parts. For feeding they move out and later return to the axils again. At the site of feeding a longitudinal narrow, decolourised zone develops rapidly on either side of the puncture, along the length of the leaf blade. The decolourised patch gradually turns yellowish, then brownish, become stunted, twisted and malformed in a few days and dries up. In this way the tissues may break away and drop off in the wind leaving shot holes on the leaves. In cases of severe infestation the leaves get shred, stand erect and the palms become stunted.

Tea tortrix/flushworm: Homona coffearia:Tortricidae

The tortrix is  an important pest of tea leaves. The larvae make leaf nests by webbing the leaves using silken threads and feed from inside. A single caterpillar makes several cases. Young larvae prefer tender leaves, while the older larvae are seen in mature leaves. The economic produce being the leaves, and since chemical control is not advised, especially during the picking phase, the pest becomes a management problem.

Aphids: Myzus persicae, Lipaphis erysimi and Brevicoryne brassicae Aphididae
 
Aphids suck the sap from potato foliage, causing wrinkling, cupping and downward curling of young leaves. The older leaves will become yellow, wilt and fall off.  They also excrete honeydew on which sooty mould develops covering affected parts with a thin superficial black coating that hinders photosynthetic activity of leaves resulting in stunted growth of plants. In addition, they also act as vectors, for transmitting potato leaf roll virus. Major damage by M.persicae and A. gossypii is through transmission of potato leaf roll virus.

Fruit flies: Bactrocera cucurbitae:Tephritidae

This pest is more serious in bitter gourd, snake gourd and to a certain extent on ridge gourd. Other cucurbits are attacked to a lesser level. Damage by this pest causes losing the fruit quality, rotting and fruit drop. The adults lay many eggs inside the fruit sing their big ovipositor that hatch out into worm like apodous maggots. Feeding by the maggots on the pulp of fruits result in rotting, yellowing and fruit drop. The dropped fruits allow pupation by the maggots in the soil from where they emerge out as adults and start egg laying on fresh frits.

Fruit borer: Helicoverpa armigera: Noctuidae

This is a medium sized moth yellowish brown in colour with a wing

span of about 3 cm and a body length up to 1.4 cm. There is a dark speck and a dark area on the outer margin of each forewing. The forewings also have greyish wavy lines and black spots of different sizes on the upper side.

11.1 Introduction

The analysis of variance is a powerful statistical tool for tests of significance.  The test of significance based on t-distribution is an adequate procedure only for testing the significance of the difference between two sample means. In a situation when we have three or more samples to consider at a time an alternative procedure is needed for testing the hypothesis that all the samples are drawn from the same population, i.e., they have the same mean. For example five fertilizers are applied of four plots each of wheat and yield of wheat on each of the plot is given we may be interested in finding out whether the effect of these fertilizers on the yields is significantly different or in other words, whether the samples have come from the same normal population. The answer to this problem is provided by the technique of analysis of variance. Thus basic purpose of the analysis of variance is to test the homogeneity of several means.

Introduction

Data are the most critical element of a GIS. It is reported that more than two thirds of the time and expenditure to develop a GIS is spent on data collection and organization. Understanding and appreciating the criticality of data is of paramount significance to practice GIS. This chapter is complementary to database concepts chapter discussed in Level II and deals with the fundamentals to start with and the concepts of building an information organization.

Data - A Definition and Certain Points to Ponder

“Data” are defined as a body of facts or figures, which have been gathered systematically for one or more specific purposes.”

Introduction

Data input or capture is the operation of encoding the data and incorporating in the database. The creation of a clean error free digital database is a complex and critical task determining the very usefulness of a GIS. GIS data represent not only where the graphic or cartographic features occur, but also the associated attributes of them.

Data input to a geographical information system involves

(a) Entering the spatial data (digitizing);

(b) Entering the non-spatial, associated attributes and

(c) Linking the spatial to the non-spatial data.

At each stage necessary verification and checking procedures shall be deployed to ensure an error free database.

Introduction

The term geographic information systems (GIS) has come to mean, variously, an industry, a product, a technology, and a science. As such, the term invokes different perceptions dependent on whether the viewpoint is that of the software developer, the system marketer, the data provider, the application specialist, or the academic researcher, among others. A newcomer to the field is likely to be bewildered by the multiple uses of the same term, or, seen alternatively, different definitions of the same term. For instance some find it distasteful to use of the conventional acronym GIS and prefer Geospatial Technology. With all the variety of perceptions predicting the future of GIS is a cumbersome business. The most certain inference we can gain from the available trends is, it is growing and is poised for further growth. Geotechnology along with Nanotechnology and Biotechnology is considered as of the three most promising growth industries for the near future.