The Nadia district is known for its rice cultivation. Either less land must be used for boro agriculture, or artificial ground water replenishment must be encouraged. Using the annual net groundwater draught and the annual utilisable groundwater resources, the stage of groundwater development for the block was determined. The total groundwater recharge, which accounts for two major sources of groundwater recharge, namely rainfall and irrigation return flow, was estimated to be 873.79 MCM. The net annual groundwater draught of the study region was calculated to be 1265.76 million cubic metres (MCM). The projected groundwater development stage for the block was 144.90%, which is greater than 100%, and denotes an overexploited area.

Cucumis melo L. is a widely cultivated horticultural crop for its delicious fruits. Melon crop is highly susceptible to various fungal diseases. Powdery mildew is one of the common fungal diseases that severely affects the plant growth thereby compromises the fruit yield and quality. Currently applying chemical fungicides by farmers poses serious threat to human health in the long-term use and also impacts the soil quality as well as leads to adaptation of the causative agent, Podosphaera xanthii into fungicide resistant variants. Therefore, at present, numerous studies are being conducted worldwide to develop the melon cultivars resistant to fungal diseases by the use of various resistance breeding approaches as well as stimulating the plant innate immune response pathways. In order to target the plant’s innate immunity, prior knowledge on functions of such disease resistance proteins is paramount. Therefore, in this study, here we analyzed the known powdery mildew resistance protein sequence from wheat in order to predict the putative disease resistance candidate protein encoded by C. melo genome. We predicted a putative disease resistance protein available in NCBI GenBank database as a putative powdery mildew disease resistance protein based on its sequence similarity to the characterized powdery mildew resistance protein from wheat. We performed its phylogenetic and sequence analysis in relation to the homologous disease resistance proteins from other members of the Cucurbitaceae family and found its evolutionary relationship and high conservation. In addition, its homology model built with the SWISSMODEL program revealed the presence of a protein fold called Leucine-Rich Repeat (LRR), which is a signature property of proteins conferring innate immunity in plants. Altogether, this study provides valuable insights into the understanding of the conservation of powdery mildew resistance proteins in

melon and would help future studies aimed at exploration of the powdery mildew disease resistance mechanisms in melon.

The present study was conducted to evaluate seed vigour tests to predict the field emergence potential of finger millet and barnyard millet varieties. The three varieties each of finger millet and barnyard millet were evaluated in laboratory by different physical, physiological and biochemical vigour tests. The laboratory experiments were laid out in complete randomized design and the field emergence evaluation was carried out in randomized block design with four replications. The variety PRM-2 of finger millet and PRB-903 of barnyard millet were assessed as more vigorous than other varieties. PRM-2 of finger millet and PRB-903 of barnyard millet recorded significantly higher field emergence than other varieties. The correlation coefficient of test weight, final count, standard germination, seedling vigour index I and relative growth index were found significantly correlated with field emergence in both finger millet and barnyard millet. The correlation coefficient of test weight (r = 0.859** in finger millet and r = 0.807** in barnyard millet) and seedling vigour index I (r = 0.990** in finger millet and r = 0.999** in barnyard millet) were recorded highly significant with field emergence. Therefore, test weight and seedling vigour index I were able to predict field emergence potential of finger millet and barnyard millet.

The field experiment was conducted at Department of Agronomy, V.N.M.K.V. Parbhani (MS) India during 2017-18 to study the effect of tillage and weed management practices of soybean-chickpea cropping system in vertisol”. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with fifteen treatment combinations replicated threes. The result of the study revealed that CT-CT recorded significantly highest seed yield, straw yield and economic yield of soybean-chickpea cropping system compared to other treatments. But at par with CT-ROT practices. Among the weed management practices weed free recorded significantly highest GMR, NMR and B:C ratio but it was at par with adoption pre and post emergence herbicide.

Ten cent fodder plot, an effective fodder cultivation technique of Tami Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) was demonstrated in the farmer’s field at Tiruchirappalli district. Farmers adopted this technique to cultivate fodder in Ten cent fodder plot method and the average yield of Co - 5, Fodder sorghum, cow pea, stylosanthes, Agathi and fodder maize were observed as 1053, 227.45, 159.8, 66.2, 83 and 151.4 kg respectively. Farmers in the field realised their returns get increased by reducing the feed cost. It is observed that the cost of production per litre was about to ` 4 to ` 6. It is concluded that, small to medium farmers could adopt this ten cent fodder plot method to get maximum fodder production in minimal land resource. This method is not only improves the farmers’ return, it also improves the animal health, reproduction and milk production by supplying green fodder to animal.

In the wake of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), many plant material such as artemisia (Artemisia vulgaris L) have received renewed attention as cheap, easy-to-make treatment for many infections. However, the proliferation of artemisia from seeds is often a lengthy process. Here we investigated the role of commercial (Indol-3-butyric acid - IBA, Natural Rooting Hormone Powder - NRHP, Apple Cider Vinegar – ACV) and cottage-made (coconut water - CW and aloe vera gel - AVG) rooting hormone, and water as control (CONT) on the proliferation of artemisia cuttings in a greenhouse experiment in 2021. The survival of artemisia cuttings did not differ significantly (P > .05) across the treatments. The highest number of stems (19) and plant height (138.0 cm) was observed from CW + AVG, and the differed significantly from the others (P < .05) from the others. AVG produced the highest number of leaves per plant (1466), followed by CW (1317), CW + AVG (1278), and IBA (1241). The leaf dry weight was highest in CW + AVG, followed by those of CW and IBA. A similar pettern was observed for the root dry weight. The findings from this study showed that cottage-made plant based (coconut water and aloe vera gel) growth hormone has comparable effect to commercially available IBA on overall performance of artemisia cuttings. This study has great implications for low-tech proliferation of artemisia.

Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most productive crops in the world. Corn seeds, in particular, are attractive for a variety of reasons, including ease of storage and transportation, and the ability to store proteins stably for a long time and are easy to process (Howard and Hood, 2005). Maize is also a common food source for humans and animals, making it a convenient container for biopharmaceuticals that contain orally administered products. The growing prevalence of transgenes in crop improvement and biopharmaceuticals requires the exploration of ways to regulate transgene expression. Regulation can occur indifferent stages of gene expression and may be particularly important during transcription. Promoters that drive transgene expression provide this control. Promoters are regions of DNA upstream of the coding region of the gene which contains specific sequences recognized by proteins involved in transcription initiation. Transcription initiation for most protein-coding genes involves the binding and activation of RNA polymerase II. Variation in gene expression occur when other distinct, semi-conserved sequence elements are present in the regulatory regions of the gene, usually upstream or 5’ of the RNA polymerase binding site. These elements bind to protein factors involved in controlling the level and pattern of gene expression. The availability of a wide range of promoters that differ in their ability to regulate the temporal and spatial patterns of transgene expression could significant increase in the success of the application of transgenic technology. Studies on the regulatory elements of genes encoding key regulatory enzymes in the starch biosynthetic pathway and genes encoding storage proteins will be useful to find promoters and highly expressed compounds.

The North Western Himalayan frontier encompasses a rich flora and fauna biodiversity. It is considered as hub of numerous medicinal and aromatic plants which are of prime importance for the local peoples and industries. The Garhwal region of this frontier particularly consists of numerous agroforestry systems. Systems like agri-silviculture, silvi-pastoral, horti-silvi systems are prominently followed in this region. Temperate fruit crops like citrus, apple, peach and plum are major crops with forest crops. The crop productivity is reported to be higher in different agroforestry systems as soil nutrients get enriched at regular intervals in comparison to monoculture. The average land holding of farmers is though less (0.5 ha) but productivity is supplemented by other forest tree species in this region. The multipurpose tree species grown on boundaries not only enriches biodiversity but also enhances farmer’s income of the region. The recognition of various agroforestry systems in recent times have increased worldwide as it paves way for efficient land use planning and sustainability of food security.