The Alfalfa Management Guide is designed especially for busy growers, with to-the-point recommendations, useful images of diseased plants and pests, and quick-reference tables and charts. Revised in 2011, this edition of Alfalfa Management Guide covers the latest strategies for alfalfa establishment, production, and harvest-soil testing, fertilizing, integrated pest management, rotation, and more.
Forage crops are important for the economy of our country as these crops provide major nutritional base in the livestock ration. The National Commission on Agriculture has also emphasized in its report that in order to achieve the so-called ‘White Revolution’ it will be necessary to provide required emphasis on research relating to the improvement and management of forages. India’s average availability of milk per head per day comes to only 100 ml as against our requirement of 220 ml per day. With the increase in world human population and economic growth, the demand for animal products such as milk, meat and eggs in the human diet is bound to increase. The success of dairy and poultry programmes will largely depend on the availability of required forages and feeds since almost 60-65% investment is invariably on these essential requirements. A recent estimate indicates that the deficiency in total forage need is about 40% of dry forage and about 24% of green fodder. This deficit is likely to increase further as (i) the area under forage crop is declining because of the pressing problems of growing cereals and other cash crops to meet the increasing pressure of population growth, (ii) the animal population is increasing every year by almost 2% (iii) cultivable land is decreasing due to urbanization and industrial growth and (iv) forages in future are going to have competition from liquid fuel shortage. Recent interests in the development of technology for the economic conversion of cellulosic material to liquid fuels, however, have given rise to estimates of several hundred million metric tons of lignocellulosic material being used annually for their new developments. With the development of these technologies, the impact on ruminants production would be substantial, so there is going to be a vital challenge to meet the requirement of forages in the near future.
The global population is increasing at a much faster pace than an increase in the genetic gain for food production by plant breeding. Therefore, we must find ways or methods to improve our food production if we are to ensure food security for all. This special edition is about the novel ways or methodologies that crop or plant scientists are working on to improve crop yield. This could fall under the physiological, biochemical, molecular, or even any novel technological approaches such as phenotyping to rapidly select or find traits that are vital for the improvement of current germplasm to make them resilient to an ever-changing environment. Crop yield, especially grain yield, is a very complex trait to deconvolute and understand as it is influenced by so many factors. With the recent unprecedented weather events where plants are subjected to extreme temperatures (low and high), it is imperative to find ways quickly to screen for varieties that can withstand these changes. Novel ways or methods in the various disciplines (physiology, molecular, phenotyping, biochemical) that can help to identify rapidly the traits related to yield in crops that can lead to an increase in productivity will be informative and help the scientific community to be up to date with recent progress.
An introduction to fodder tree legumes. Using case studies, the book describes the main genera and species concerned, discusses the production and management of tree legumes, and examines animal production, including topics such asutritive value
