Editorial

Highly significant effects of environment (E), G×E interaction and genotypes (G) were observed by AMMI analysis during 2018-19 and 2019-20 study years for wheat genotypes evaluated at major locations of Peninsular zone of the country. WAASB measure observed suitability of HI 1605, HI 8805 & HI 8802 genotypes. Superiority index while weighting 0.65 and 0.35 for yield & stability found MACS 6695, HI 1605 & NIAW 3170 as of stable performance with high yield. PRVG and MHPRVG measures observed suitability of NIAW 3170, MACS 6695 & MACS 6696 wheat genotypes. Moreover, the average yield of genotypes ranked NIAW 3170, MACS 6695 & MACS 6696 as of order of choice. SI expressed only negative values of correlations most of other stability measures except of MHPRVG, PRVG, yield. WAASB measure exhibited direct relationships with other measures analogous of negative values with MASV, SI, MHPRVG, PRVG, yield. Analytic measures MHPRVG & PRVG had only positive values with SI, and yield remaining stability measures maintained negative values. MP1358, NIDW1149 & NIAW3170 would be suitable genotypes as per WAASB measure during second year of study. Superiority index found MP1358, NIAW3170 & MACS4087 as of stable performance with high yield. PRVG and MHPRVG measures observed suitability of MP1358, HI1605 & MACS4087 wheat genotypes. More over the average yield of genotypes ranked MP1358, MACS4087 & HI1605 as of order of choice. SI expressed mostly negative values other measures except of weak direct relation with MASV1, MASV along with strong with yield, MHPRVG & PRVG measures. WAASB measure exhibited direct relationships with other measures and indirect with only MASV1& SI.

Highlights

• Stability measure WAASB based on all significant interaction principal components observed suitability of wheat genotypes associated with lower values of measure.
• Superiority index provided variable weighting mechanism between stability and yield of genotypes under multi environment trials. Assigning 0.65 and 0.35 weights to yield & stability respectively selected wheat genotypes of stable performance with high yield.
• Recent analytic measures of stability PRVG and MHPRVG measures expressed strong association with superiority index.

• Five indica rice varieties were used for callus induction and regeneration
• MS +2.0 mgl-1 2,4-D + 0.5 mgl-1 kinetin + 30 gl-1 maltose gave enhanced callus induction.
• MS + 2.5 mgl-1 BAP + 0.5 mgl-1 NAA + 1.0 mgl-1 KN gave the highest regeneration

Covid-19 brought a paradigm shift on food consumption, purchase, and eating behavior of consumers significantly as concerns over safety, health, and financial worries increased. As the world was fighting the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, an online survey is conducted to understand its impact on food purchasing, eating behaviors, and perceptions of food safety among the middle class and upper-middle population in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh of India during April and May 2020. Many of the respondents were from Telangana (46.52%) and Andhra Pradesh (38.58%), respectively while few were from other states and countries. 60.7% of respondents who participated in the survey were from the urban areas, while 20.1% were from rural areas and 17% from semi-urban areas. A significant change is observed in consumers’ purchase behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic. People preferred to shop less frequently, and 62% of respondents managed with existing goods. 69% of people maintained social distancing and wearing masks while purchasing foods. 74.3% went to stores less often for groceries purchase. The amount of packaged food consumption increased by 28%. Consumers became more cautious about health and altered their eating habits. 60% of respondents have agreed that their food habits have changed, and 52% of respondents reportedly consumed healthier foods compared to pre-covid days. 90% of survey populations finished home-cooked meals. 96% of respondents were aware of the Covid-19 threat and were taking precautionary measures. 86% of respondents sanitized the food produce bought from outside. There was panic among 53% of respondents about the safety of food available. 34% of respondents did not want to go back to their old eating habits until they get vaccinated against covid-19.

Highlights

• Purchasing and eating habits have changed. People were shopping less in-person and consuming more home-cooked healthy meals while managing with existing stocks.
• Consumer behavior changed rapidly throughout, for the crisis. Food consumption, and eating habits, have been significantly impacted due to concerns about hygiene, personal safety, food purchases, and consumption.

• The beel has a rich fish biodiversity and important for fisheries resources in the middle-east part of Bangladesh. About 51 species of fish under 7 orders and 19 families were found. Fifteen fishing gears (8 major categories) are used for fishing by the fishermen.
• Now-a-days, biodiversity of fish was decreased due to over fishing, water pollution, heavy siltation, rapid urbanization and intervention of human.

• All the groups of consortia were effective in terms of degradation of MSW, improving the properties of soil and growth of the plants
• Also, when comparing with the control, the phosphorus, nitrogen content and plant growth showed great improvements

• Agricultural by-products can be used as feedstock materials to produce biochar.
• With pyrolysis, significant changes in chemical, physical, and structural can easily be revealed by FTIR spectra and SEM of biomass and biochar samples.
• The proposed image processing method can detect the cell walls of SEM images after efficiently removing the noise from the original gray-scale images

• Bioinoculant showed a positive effect due to their PGP characteristics on wheat shoot growth
• Promising bacterial strains of Nitrogen fixers have potential as inoculation agents in eco-friendly wheat crop production under abiotic stress contributing to environmental sustainability.

• This study conducted in Nahra Nala Watershed of Balaghat district, Madhya Pradesh, India, to make the land use / land cover classification map through Remote Sensing and GIS approach.
• SENTINEL-2B high-resolution imagery is used for achieving the higher accuracy in LU/LC classification.

Among various agricultural operations, irrigation is one of the highest energy consuming operations followed by tillage operation for seedbed preparation (sowing or transplanting). Studies suggested that for optimal crop yield realization tillage energy use would have to increase. As draught animal (bullocks/he-buffaloes) uses had been highest (114.8 to 207.3 h/ha) in animal farming and subsequently animal energy use for tillage operations may be decreased by adoption of improved energy efficient implements suiting to local size of draught animals. In the same way manual transplanting of rice consumes higher energy and remains same unless mechanized transplanting of rice is introduced using self-propelled rice transplanters. With this background a study on energy requirement for cultivation of mechanized rice was carried out during 2008 and 2009 with different level of tillage (puddling) under animal farming system. Five different animal drawn puddling equipments (lugged wheel puddler, zigzag puddler, rotary blade puddler, disc harrow cum puddler and indigenous plough) with two level of puddling intensity (two and three passes) were used for development of puddle bed and subsequently rice transplanting was done by using three methods of transplanting viz. transplanting by self-propelled rice transplanter, manually operated rice transplanter and random hand transplanting. Results revealed that input energy for puddling operation depends on the actual field capacity and weight of the puddling equipments. The energy required for puddling operation for each of the equipment increased with varying level of puddling from two passes to three passes. The energy input for puddling operation was highest (19302 MJ/ha) in indigenous plough with three passes and lowest (18270 MJ/ha) in zigzag puddler with two passes. Higher values of energy output-input ratio (7.88) and lower value of specific energy (3.80 MJ/kg) was obtained in rotary blade puddler (three passes). In case of transplanting methods, self-propelled rice transplanter gave significantly highest (7.48) energy output-input ratio and lowest specific energy (4.15 MJ/kg). The puddle bed developed by rotary blade puddler three passes and rice transplanting by self-propelled rice transplanter resulted in higher yield (53.18 q/ha) associated with higher energy output-input ratio (8.63) and lower specific energy (3.45 MJ/kg) compared to rest of the treatments.

Highlights

• Energy input and economics of different puddling and transplanting methods was worked out to find out the energy efficient and cost effective puddling equipment for development of puddle bed suited to the requirements of mechanical transplanters.
• Five different types of animal drawn puddling equipments and two types of mechanical transplanters are used in this study.
• Study indicated that rotary tools are energy efficient for puddling operations compared to linear tools.

This study has analyzed market integration across six major wholesale markets for groundnut, sunflower, and soybean. This paper investigates the market integration of selected oilseeds and respective oil markets in India by employing monthly wholesale prices from 2009 January to 2020 February. The stationarity property of the time series of prices was checked through the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test. To get the evidence in which direction the price transmission is occurring among the selected markets, Granger causality test has been used, which confirmed that some markets are influencing each other in a unidirectional way. Others have a bidirectional relationship at a five per cent level of importance, meaning that the chosen oilseed market prices have long-run association. In view of vertical integration Bellary pod market, Chennai oil and Ahmadabad oil markets are the key markets for groundnut, sunflower, and soybean, respectively. Thus, the study concluded that regional markets for selected oilseeds are strongly co-integrated. Furthermore, the study suggested that the Government can smoothen the price in most influencing markets and expect a similar result in other markets. Therefore, there is a need for faster market information movement by strengthening market intelligence by establishing an online marketing system through networking.

Highlights

• Market integration explains how distinct markets are related to one another.
• In India, selected regional markets for selected oilseeds are strongly co-integrated.
• Strengthening of market infrastructure including transportation, storage, and communication is the need of the hour to reap the benefits of market integration.

Agriculture plays an important role in the Indian economy. The agriculture sector has seen consistent and significant growth in terms of technology and innovation, which has helped India to become a food exporter. However, past initiatives focussed on improving production and environmental aspect were neglected. Now, government is formulating policies and initiatives that would help in increasing agriculture production along with sustainable development. Promotion of solar irrigation pump is among one of those policies. Provision of heavy subsidies and schemes (JNNSM, KUSUM, etc.) on the adoption of solar pumps have increased their affordability. Because of the increased affordability of solar pumps after subsidies, the popularity of solar pumps has increased in Rajasthan, which has resulted in an increased rate of adoption. Considering the role of solar pumps in current scenario and that of future, this study was conducted to analyze the economic viability and costs incurred in solar pump installation. Payback period, NPV, BCR, and IRR were used in the analysis.

• Following study tries to estimate the time it will take to recover the investment made on a 7.5 HP solar pump.
• Rate of growth of solar irrigation pump in the last eight years.
• Economic feasibility of installing solar irrigation pump.

• Savings on diesel fuel by replacing diesel irrigation pump by solar irrigation pump.
• Reduction in carbon dioxide and carbon emission by replacing diesel irrigation pump.
• Carbon credits generated by replacing diesel irrigation pump.

• Low fertility and pest damage leads to a poor yield of pigeonpea in NEHR.
• Management through micro-nutrient and plant protection chemicals.

• Farmyard manure is an effective and efficient source of nutrients to soil microorganisms as well as to plants comparative to all other manures.
• Farmyard manure plays an important role in the remediation of pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals along with increasing nutrient supply in the soil.
• Apart from improving nutrient content, farmyard manure also improves soil’s physical, chemical, and biological properties.

• Guanine nucleotide binding proteins (G- proteins) are cytosolic proteins that are present in trimeric complex with α, β & γ subunits in plants.
• They act as signal transducers that regulate multiple signaling pathways in eukaryotes.
• Heterotrimeric G- proteins play vital role in plant growth and development in many plant species.
• Besides roles in plant growth, they are also important for mitigation of abiotic (salt, drought, ozone, temperature) stresses and plant defense responses by inducing different mechanisms.

• Common protein, 14 kDa was found in all of the isolated mucus challenged.
• Protein profiling of mucus after 4 hours being challenged shows the best variations from the region 14-101 kDa.

• Twenty six bottle gourd varieties were evaluated for different quantitative characters using Randomized Block Design (RBD) with the aim to identify the most suitable variety.