Agriculture

Influence of Selenium (Se) concentration in the nutrient solution on yield, quality, and Se status of Brussels sprout plants (Brassica oleracea, varGemmifera) was evaluated.The Brussels sprout plants were treated with six concentration of Se asselenate sodium (Na2 SeO4., 0, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 mg L-1).Treatments were arranged in a completely randomize design with four replicates. The highest concentration of Se in the leaves, buds and stem was observed at the 32mg L-1 Se concentration. The total Se accumulation in percentage differed among different parts of plants. Total Se for the differ parts of plants ranged from 2.44 to 65.93% and old leaves accounted for the greatest proportion of total Se, followed by stem, young leaves, roots and buds in descending order. Increasing Se concentration increased Se allocation to the roots, while reduced the Se allocation to the buds. The size of buds increased by increasing Se concentration from 0 to 8 mg L-1. However it was reduced in 16 and 32mg L-1 Se concentration. It can be concluded that Se supplements (8mg L-1) improve yield, and Se concentration in the bud.

A Hanslope Soil health was investigated from context of enzyme activities namely: cellulose, phosphomonoesterase and urease to enhance the understanding of the following land management practices: grassland under permanent pasture on 5 y ley to stocking, another sown with red clover a y before stocking, the other fertilized with N-fertilizer a y to stocking; the last on barley; with pristine deciduous woodland as control. The highest cellulose activity was detected in deciduous woodland, 172.3 ± 106 µg glucose g-1 d-1 over the summer. Cellulase activity was positively dependent on soil microbial C (R2 = 0.64). Grassland under permanent pasture treated with N-fertilizer a y before stocking had the highest urease activity, 77 ± 57.8 µg NH4-N g-1 h-1 over winter in both buffered and non buffered measurement techniques. There was no significant differences in phosphomonoesterase activity between land management. Soil enzyme measurements is a major component of soil health. It defines biological productivity, promote environmental quality and maintains plant and animal health. Soil health is fundamental for agricultural sustainability. Amongst the soil biological properties, enzymes show extraordinary specificity in catalyzing biological reactions as revealed in this study. Regional information are solicited for global network.

Plants often experience both drought and salinity stress in arid environment. Various mathematical water uptake models exist for plants response to combined drought and salinity stress. The reduction functions are classified as additive, multiplicative and conceptual models. In this study six different macroscopic reduction functions, namely; Van Genuchten (additive and multiplicative), Dirksen et al., Van Dam et al, Skaggs et al and Homaee were evaluated. The experiment was carried out on Ghods variety of wheat crop in a factorial split plot design with 3 replicates in the Research Field of university Birjand. The treatments consisted of four levels of irrigation (50, 75, 100 and 120%of crop water requirement), and three water qualities (1.4, 4.5, 9.6 dS/m). The results of this study indicated that the additive model estimates relative yield less than actual amount. In other word, the effect of combined stresses on wheat yield was less compared to sum of the separate effects due to salinity and water stress. The effect of drought stress on reduction of yield was more than salinity stress. The results also revealed that reduction function of Skaggs et al and Homaee were better fitness to measured data than the other functions.

A field experiment was conducted at KVK, Srinagar during two consecutive Kharif seasons to study the “Effect of integrated nutrient management for Soybean (Glycine max L.) under temperate conditions”. The experiment was laid out with 18 treatment combinations viz., three levels of each of recommended doses of inorganic fertilizers (50, 75 and 100% RD) and organic manures (control, FYM 10 t ha-1 and Dalweed 10 t ha-1) and two levels of biofertilizers (control and dual inoculation with Rhizobium + PSB) in randomised complete block design with three replications. The results revealed that grain and straw yield increased significantly with increase in the recommended inorganic levels. Application of FYM @ 10 t ha-1 showed significantly superior results over other organic treatments. Dual inoculation with Rhizobium and PSB showed significantly superior results over no inoculation. Yield attributing characters viz. 100-seed weight and number of nodules showed significant increase with increasing levels of recommended inorganic fertilizers. Application of 75% recommended inorganic fertilizer level showed highest 100-seed weight over other levels. Among organics, FYM (10 t ha-1) was found superior over Dalweed (10 t ha-1) for yield attributes. Oil and lysine content was found superior with application of 75% recommended inorganic fertilizers over other levels, Protien content increased with increasing levels of recommended inorganic fertilizers. Among organics FYM (10 t ha-1) yielded significantly superior results for seed quality than dalweed (10 t ha-1).

Good agricultural practices (GAP) are Practices that address environmental, economic and social sustainability for on-farm processes and result in safe and quality food and non-food agricultural products. In simple language, GAP stands on four pillars (economic viability, environmental sustainability, social acceptability and food safety and quality). In recent years, the concept of GAP has evolved to address the concerns of different stakeholders about food production and security, food safety and quality, and the environmental sustainability of agriculture. These stakeholders include governments, food retailing industries, farmers and consumers who seek to meet specific objectives of food safety, food production, production efficiency, livelihood and environmental benefits. Adoption of a sustainable practice means that the farmer has accepted the idea as good and that he intends to include it in the ongoing program of land preparation, planting, and harvesting. In other words, adoption is the implementation and continued use of an agriculture practice. This is an important difference from trial or experimentation, because a farmer might try a sustainable practice and abandon that practice. Adoption of sustainable practices by farmers is the key to transforming agriculture into a long-term, sustainable system. How far sustainability can be achieved in a democracy depends greatly on farmers’ voluntary acceptance of sound land use practices. Individual decisions are shaped by the availability of technical information and the appropriate machinery, seeds, and other inputs necessary to implement sustainable agricultural practices. This paper reviews literature on the good agricultural practices that promote sustainable food security.

A field trial was carried out for two years to ascertain performance of marigold (var. Pusa Narangi) planted at three spacings and on six different dates at bimonthly interval i.e. on first day of March, May, July, September, November and January. The crop planted on 1st March showed early flowering compared to other planting dates. The best performance with respect to flower size, weight and number of flowers per plant was recorded with 1st September planting. The highest number of branches and plant canopy spread were attained with May and July plantings. In both the years wider spacing of 40 cm x 40 cm produced best results with respect to maximum flower diameter, weight of individual flower, and number of flower per plant. However, the total best yield per unit area was higher when the crop was planted on 1st September at 40cm x 20 cm spacing.

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer management is a challenge in potato production. Therefore, a study was carried out to known the impact of varieties and nitrogen levels on leaf chlorophyll content and tuber size of potato. All possible combination of two varieties of potato viz. Kufri Sadabahar (V1) and Kufri Surya (V2) and five nitrogen levels (0, 75, 150, 225 and 300 kg N/ha) were replicated thrice in factorial randomize block design. Two year pooled data shows that vareties did not varies significantly for chlorophyll content ‘a’ and ‘b’ of potato leaves but the it was affected significantly by nitrogen levels and recorded highest with treatment N3 (0.74 and 0.90 mg/ g leaves, chlorophyll ‘a’ and ‘b’, respectively). Interaction effect of treatment V1N4 gave maximum chlorophyll ‘a’ content but variation among treatments interaction were non significant for chlorophyll ‘b’ content. 0-25 g and >75 g tuber number recorded higher in Kufri Surya (V2) having 255.91 and 275.70 thousand/ha, respectively, while, yield of 0-25 g tubers higher in Kufri Sadabahar (V1) i.e. 1.58 t/ha, other grade tuber yield showed non significant variation for varieties. The size of tuber was increased with increase in nitrogen levels. The number and weight of smaller size tuber observed higher with lower lever levels of nitrogen, while, number and weight of larger size tubers observed higher with higher level nitrogen. Interaction of varieties and nitrogen levels affect significantly to number and weight of different size tubers.

Using hardwood cuttings is the most common method for propagation of pomegranate. Due to the high demand for raw materials in pomegranate production nurseries, and to reduce raw material consumption, comparison of different cutting methods as single-node, two-nodes and four-nodes with smaller and larger than 8 mm diameters, was investigated in greenhouse condition, and on a mixture of sand and perlite bed in the ratio of 2 to 1. Also effects of two levels of IBA hormone treatment with concentrations of 1500 ppm and 3000 ppm and 2N sulfuric acid on increasing of pomegranate single-node cuttings rooting were tested. Cultivars used in this study were Shirin-e-Saveh and Malas-e-Torsh planted on March 2010 and January 2011, and statistically analyzed as factorial in a completely randomized design. According to the obtained results single-node cuttings with diameters smaller than 8 mm had better rooting. Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar showed better rooting compared to Malas-e-Torsh cultivar and also IBA hormone treatment with concentrations of 1500 ppm and 3000 ppm did not show significant effect on increasing of single-node cuttings rooting. Whereas acid treatment in Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar caused facilitation in rooting,best average for some of roots (11 roots) were found in single-node cuttings of Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar treated with sulfuric acid.

In this study a mathematical Analysis is used to estimate the energy efficiencies of cucumber producers based on eight energy inputs including human labor, diesel fuel, machinery, fertilizers, chemicals, water for irrigation, electricity and seed energy and single output of cucumber production. Data were collected using face-to-face surveys from 20 greenhouses in Isfahan province of Iran. Energy indices, technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies were calculated by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach for 20 cucumber greenhouses. Total energy input and output were calculated as 163994 MJha-1 and 62496 MJha-1, respectively, whereas diesel fuel consumption with 45.15% was the highestlevel between energy inputs. Energy output-input ratio, energy productivity and net energy gain were 0.38, 0.47 kg MJ?1, -101498MJ ha?1, respectively. Results showed that DEA approach was a very useful tool for benchmarking and improving the energy efficiency in agricultural production. The use of this methodology provides an important knowledge about the wasteful uses of energy.

A well sorted municipal solid waste which was composted and co-composted with other materials such as dewatered faecal sludge and ammonium sulphate as enrichment were used in the amendment of a 15 kg soil contained in 147 (43.2 x 35.6 cm) polythene bags for two cropping seasons. Impact of the dewatered faecal sludge on the speciation of heavy metals, Cu, Zn, Pb and Cd in the co-compost (Co), enriched co-compost (Eco) and garden soils (S) were evaluated. The results of the analysis reveal Co and Eco have about 50 % of Cu, 75 – 80 % of Zn and 80 – 85 % Cd highly bound organically. Lead was 60 % bound to organic fraction in Co and Eco, same as the other composts. The amended soils had 30 – 50 % Cu and 30 % Zn organically bound as the dominant fraction. Lead shifted and was 55 – 65 % dominant in the residual fraction whiles Cd was below detection.