Advances in Agronomy, Volume 163, continues to be recognized as a leading reference and first-rate source for the latest research in agronomy. Each volume contains an eclectic group of reviews by leading scientists throughout the world. As always, the subjects covered are rich, varied and exemplary of the abundant subject matter addressed by this long-running serial.

The chapters of the book have been selected and arranged in such a manner as to lead the students through the entire gamut of rainfed agriculture supported by suitable examples and diagrams. The topics covered are most relevant in view of growing interests in rainfed agriculture technologies. The focus is on new concept and approaches in dryland and rainfed lands; rainfed farming-introduction, characteristics, distribution and problems; efficient management of rainfed crops; water harvesting and moisture conservation; study of mulches and antitranspirants; principles of intercropping; concept of watershed resource management; drought and its management; soil erosion-definition, nature and extent of erosion; stress physiology; scope of agro-horticultural, agro-forestry and silvi-pasture in dryland agriculture etc. Rainfed agriculture is practiced in most of the arid and semiarid areas of India. About 67 % of arable land in India (143.2 m ha) is rainfed. In terms of production rainfed agriculture accounts for production of more than 40 per cent of total food grains, nearly 75 per cent of oilseeds, 90 per cent of pulses and 70 per cent of cotton. Most of the rainfed lands are typified by highly fragile natural resource base; the rainfall is low; soils are often coarse textured, sandy, inherently low in fertility, organic matter and water holding capacity; and are easily susceptible to wind and water erosion. Deterioration of natural resources is the main issue threatening sustainable development of rainfed agriculture, more so in the Third World Countries. India will have to produce 300 million tonnes of food grains to feed 1.5 billion populations (approx.) in the coming years. This target cannot be realized from irrigated areas alone as we have irrigation potential for 178 million hectares only. Therefore, we will have to evolve an appropriate technology for dry land farming. On the other hand, we can say that second 'Green Revolution' in Indian agriculture can be in rainfed/dryland agriculture.

Education in agriculture is important as this sector caters not only to food security, but also human health. With a major focus on agriculture and to attract youth in agriculture, it is important that the education is made interesting, simple and purposeful. Textbooks are a medium of reaching out to the young minds who are in colleges and universities. The present attempt is a text book on the fundamentals of agriculture, entirely based on the syllabus for educating agricultural graduates and also based on the feedback from students. Chapter 1 describes the history and scope of agriculture, while chapter 2 covers classification of crops. Third chapter includes definitions of soil, soil composition, soil profile, soil development and different properties of soils, and the extent and distribution of the different soil classes of India is given in Chapter 4. The 5th Chapter is aboutclassification of Problem Soils and their distribution and reclamation method. Sixth chapter is on plant nutrition that includes all the functions and deficiency symptoms of plant nutrition and also the classification of nutrients. Fertilizers and manures, and its role in crop production have been dealt in Chapter 7.All aspects of irrigation and rainfed agriculture have been addressed in Chapters 8 and 9, respectively. The 10th Chapter is on Agricultural Engineering that includes implements, tillage, devices and power transmission in enhancement of agricultural productivity.

Nutrient use efficiency is a measure of how efficiently plants use the available mineral nutrients to produce economic produce. Improving nutrient use efficiency is very much essential under current scenario besides an understanding of the nutrient dynamics in soil-plant system."Enhancing nutrient use efficiency: Concepts, methods, and management interventions" is a comprehensive book which has a compilation of topics related to enhancement of nutrient use efficiency of various crops and cropping systems. Although it depends on the ability to plants to take up the nutrients from the soil, management practices have a key role to intervene the use efficiency. This book has 27 chapters written by eminent researchers in the field and addresses multifaceted approaches to enhance the nutrient use efficiency. Improving nutrient use efficiency is a prerequisite to reducing production costs in the wake of escalating cost of agricultural inputs in farming besides minimizing environmental contamination. Soil physical management is the foremost strategy to enhance the nutrient use efficiency. Hand held devices are popular among the farmers for nitrogen management in rice in several parts of the country, besides slow release nitrogenous fertilizers. Experiences from Long term fertilizer experiments and soil test crop response correlation are of immense use to understand the nutrient dynamics in soil and in turn designing practices for higher use efficiency. Besides describing the concepts and methods of nutrient use efficiency, management practices for dry land crops and cropping systems, cereal based cropping systems, rainfed pulses based cropping systems, soybean based cropping systems, sugarcane based cropping systems, cotton based cropping systems, tobacoo and oil seed based cropping systems, rapeseedmustard based cropping systems and spices based cropping systems are also dealt in this book and would serve as a resource guide for enhancing nutrient use efficiency in various crops and cropping systems

This book comprises 31 chapters on advances in soil-plant systems for improving nutrient use efficiency with four major themes viz. 1. Introduction and Fundamentals of Soil Plant Atmosphere Continuum and nutrient use efficiency 2. Soil physical, chemical, biological and agronomic management for improving NUE 3. Plant physiological, genetic & molecular biological basis for improving nutrient uptake & use efficiency 4. Climate change aspects related to soil and plant systems for improving NUE. Besides the book also include few chapters on analytical techniques and instrumentation for the study of nutrient use efficiency with respect to physico-chemical and biological parameters.

This book focuses on different practices of Integrated Farming System in and for scaling up the technology for community need. It provides a detailed account of principles, challenges and opportunities in simpler yet compact manner for better understanding of the researchers and policy makers.

The book converted its 23 chapters into four sections. The 1st Section deals with recent mitigation strategies developed by the scientists to reduce the effect of climate changes and promote the Sustainable Agriculture by different ways viz., Role of Marker in Development of Climate Resilient Varieties. Section 2 deals with the conservation agriculture and mitigation strategies, Biofertilizers helps in development of sustainable agricultural practices. Section 3 deals with impact of climate change on pest scenario across the crops and has given insight on possible avoidance of pests. Final sections deals with the agroforestry and how they can minimise their affect of climate change. Finally Section 4th deals with Impact of climate change crop and livestock sectors and strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Role of ICT and extension agencies on framing policies and effective dissemination of technologies were discussed.

The potential in the area to respond to consumer demands and address public health issues through diet, has brought about the impetus to do further research by government, industry and research institutes to substantiate the science behind the health benefits from plant constituents. Marker Assisted Selection hold great potential for plant breeding as it promises to expedite the time taken to produce crop varieties with desirable characters. Progress has been made in mapping and tagging many horticultural important genes with morphological, biochemical and molecular markers which form the foundation for marker assisted selection in crops plants. They offer great scope for improving the efficiency of conventional plant breeding by carrying out selection not directly on the trait of interest but on molecular markers linked on those traits. Plant cell and callus culture systems have been emerged most potential area of bio processing and production of useful metabolites of nutraceutical importance. These methods have been advanced through bioreactor technology. Research and development is critical to the rapidly developing field of functional foods and nutraceuticals. Producers want new opportunities that increase farm income; processors want value-added food products, health ingredients and new uses for agricultural production, by-products and new products for new and existing markets. Consumers (worldwide) want increased assurance of the safety and quality of the food system and enhanced environmental performance of the agriculture and agri-food sector. Provinces and communities are seeking economic development opportunities for horticulture. This book will be helpful in better understanding, utilization of crop diversity, underutilized crops, and their residues and improvement in PHT and development of new functional food with greater use of bioactive compounds and other quality traits.

Wheat - An Exceptional Crop: Botanical Features, Chemistry, Utilization, Nutritional and Health Aspects presents the exceptional position of wheat among food crops. The book demonstrates the benefits and drawbacks of wheat from a wheat science, nutrition and technology perspective. Organized into 13 chapters, chapters 1 - 3 present a basic overview of wheat; chapters 4 - 6 explore the overall benefits of wheat for the general population, and chapters 7 - 13 assess wheat-related disorders that affect a small portion of the population. Wheat - An Exceptional Crop: Botanical Features, Chemistry, Utilization, Nutritional and Health Aspects is an exceptional reference for those working in and researching the fields of agronomy, food chemistry, food technology, nutrition, allergology and gastroenterology.

The new hybrid breeding technology is capable of substantially increasing the productivity of pigeonpea and become a trigger for pulse revolution in the country. The development of CMS based hybrid-RVICPH 2671 has paved a new way for easy development and identification of high yielding hybrids. The book will encourage researchers in adoption of newer technologies to achieve food security through roductivity enhancement in Pigeonpea.