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Books > Professional & Technical > Agriculture & farming
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.
Seed is the primary input for productive forestry and for any
afforestation program. In propagation and conservation of a
species, seeds play a vital role. In recent years owing to greater
emphasis on community forestry, wasteland development and to
support the National, Mission for a Green India as a part of the
"National Action Plan on Climate Change" the requirement of seed
has multiplied manifold. Large quantities of seed are needed every
year to raise the nursery stock for propagating the desired plant
species. A plentiful supply of quality seed i.e., high in viability
and vigour, is therefore one of the prerequisites to make such
activities successful. Presently requirement of forest seeds has
not been properly documented though some estimation has been
arrived at quantifying the seed demand of various forestry species
based on utilization of seed in the past. Seeds are the most
suitable form to conserve and also a means to distribute the plant
germplasm. The quality of seed depends on choice of seed collection
stand, seed crop abundance, time of collection, handling and
storage. The duration of the viability of the seeds in nature vary
widely among species due to their varied maturation time and
storage physiology. In view of the increasing importance of seed
quality in forestry and the numerous challenges in handling,
testing and storage of forest seed, present book is very important
for the benefit of forest seed industry. In the significant
advances that India made in forest science in the last four
decades, the role of the seed sector has been substantial. The
present volume 'Forest Seed Science and Management' deals with
various aspects of seeds and is comprised of 14 chapters
highlighting aspects on historical perspective, recent research
trends, insect, pest and disease management, physiological,
biotechnological and molecular aspects, collection to processing
and storage, testing, industrial approach, seed policy &
legislation, IPRs and rural extension.
The book has been divided into six chapters. The first chapter
"Introduction to remote sensing" in this chapter we have given
basics knowledge of remote sensing, it include the definition,
history of the satellite systems, electromagnetic spectrum and
resolutions etc. The second chapter of "Aerial Remote Sensing"
deals with elements, interpretation, types of photo and
measurements. The third chapter represents the "Satellite remote
sensing". The fourth chapter analysed "Global Positioning System",
it include the GPS procedure, types and developments. The fifth
chapter is "Introduction to Geographical Information System" and
covered basics information about GIS. The sixth chapter included
applications of remote sensing, geographical information system and
Global positioning systems. This book is very useful to bachelor,
post graduates' degree of geography and research scholars can get
the some ideas and knowledge about the Geospatial Technologies.
This book is prepared with very basic and common information.
Geographic knowledge of these technologies will provide students
with the skills needed to meet the demands of their diverse careers
in the global workplace.
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