Describes modern management practices with regard to all of the major crops in India comprising cereals, millets, pulses, oilseeds, fibre crops, forage and sugar crops. The book contains the latest, authoritative and readily-usable information on the improved farming techniques for stepping up crop productivity. Information gathered is for use by students, teachers, extension workers and others interested in the agricultural prosperity of the nation.
Advancement in Crop Improvement Techniques presents updates on biotechnology and molecular biological approaches which have contributed significantly to crop improvement. The book discusses the emerging importance of bioinformatics in analyzing the vast resources of information regarding crop improvement and its practical application and utilization. Throughout this comprehensive resource, emphasis is placed on various techniques used to improve agricultural crops, providing a common platform for the utility of these techniques and their combinations. Written by an international team of contributors, this book provides an in-depth analysis of existing tools and a framework for new research. - Reviews techniques used for crop improvement, from selection and crossing over, to microorganismal approaches - Explores the role of conventional biotechnology in crop improvement - Summarizes the combined approaches of cytogenetics and biotechnology for crop improvement, including the importance of molecular techniques in this process - Focuses on the emerging role of bioinformatics for crop improvement
The book is divided into two parts, kharif crops and rabi crops, covering as many as 48 crops. It contains the latest, authoritative and readily usable information about the cultivation techniques, varieties, nutrient/water/weed management along with specific climatic/soil requirements of all the crops. It is essentially a teaching and study material as it is written conforming to ICAR syllabus, strictly considering the limitations of the students and the teachers. Information on each crop is chosen in such a way that it is readily understandable by the undergraduate students and can be explained by the teachers in 22 weeks of a semester. Unnecessary detailing and research information has been avoided. Photographic illustrations of the crops are given to enable the students to understand the morphology of the crop clearly. Related terms, concepts or recent advancements in each crop are highlighted in the box. For a group of related crops, model questions are also given to visualise the probable questions on each crop. An attempt has been made to include the latest statistics from FAO and other global and Indian sources. Points to remember given at the end of each chapter enable the students to have a quick recap of the topic before examination. Further, many general topics, related to field crops, have been covered in eight separate brief chapters, to ensure that the students understand crop-related topics.
Agronomy deals with the principles and practices of crop production and soil management. In its broader sense, it includes crop ecology, crop production, crop nutrition, soil fertility, water management, weed control, seed technology etc. To be a good agronomist, one needs to have a sound knowledge of all these agronomic aspects as also some related aspects from other sciences. The task of selecting the terms to be included in any branch of science offers many difficulties particularly in Agronomy, which draws upon from several diverse fields of agriculture. How far, it is advisable to include terms from those over lapping science which lie on the borderland is a question on which no two people might think alike. A compilation of available information has been a felt need of students, teachers, research workers and administrators in Agronomy. This book makes an attempt to present the available information on Agronomy in an easily understandable manner. It would be useful not only to graduate and post graduate students and those appearing in the competitive examinations, but also to the teachers and researchers of the Agricultural Universities / research organizations.
The book offers a rich toolkit of relevant, adoptable ecosystem-based practices that can help the world's 500 million smallholder farm families achieve higher productivity, profitability and resource-use efficiency while enhancing natural capital.
The improvement of crop species has been a basic pursuit since cultivation began thousands of years ago. To feed an ever increasing world population will require a great increase in food production. Wheat, corn, rice, potato and few others are expected to lead as the most important crops in the world. Enormous efforts are made all over the world to document as well as use these resources. Everybody knows that the introgression of genes in wheat provided the foundation for the “Green Revolution”. Later also demonstrated the great impact that genetic resources have on production. Several factors are contributing to high plant performance under different environmental conditions, therefore an effective and complementary use of all available technological tools and resources is needed to meet the challenge.
Sucking pests are most notorious group of pests for agricultural crops. Unlike most pests with chewing mouth parts, sucking pests cause more severe damage to the crops and are complex to get identified until advanced stages of infection. Not only is this late detection detrimental to their effective control, sucking pests also often cause fungal growth and virus transmission. The book emphasizes on sucking pests of most major crops of India. It aims to reflect Indian scenario before the international readership. This book complies comprehensive information on sucking pests of crops and brings the attention of the readers to this multiple damage causing insect complex. The chapters are contributed by highly experienced Indigenous experts from Universities & ICAR institutes, and book collates useful content for students and young researchers in plant pathology, entomology and agriculture.
The earliest land-plants evolved around 450 million years ago from aquatic plants devoid of vascular systems. The diversification of flowering plants (angiosperms) during the Cretaceous period is associated with speciation in insects. Early insect herbivores were mandibulate, but the evolution of vascular plants led to the co-evolution of other forms of herbivory, such as leaf feeding, sap-sucking, leaf mining, tissue borer, gall forming and nectar-feeding. Plant defense against biotic stress is an adaptive evolution by plants to increase their fitness. Plants use a variety of strategies to defend against damage caused by herbivores. Plant defense mechanisms are either inbuilt or induced. Inbuilt mechanisms are always present within the plant, while induced defenses are produced or mobilized to the site where a plant is injured. Induced defense mechanisms include morphological, physiological changes and production of secondary metabolites. Host plant resistance (HPR) is one of the eco-friendly methods of pest management. It protects the crop by making it less suitable or tolerant to the pest. While books on theoretical aspects of HPR are available, an exclusive book on the practical aspects is lacking. There is a wide gap between the theory and the experimental procedures required for conducting studies on plant resistance for the post graduate students and young researchers. A dire need for a book on practical aspects was strongly felt. Initially a practical manual was prepared which eventually evolved into the present book. We hope this book provides information on major aspects of screening crop germplasm, sampling techniques, genetic and biochemical basis of HPR, behavioural studies on pheromone and plant volatiles, and some of the recent approaches in HPR. Further, the references provide the scientific articles and books as additional information to readers and workers alike.
