Bulletproof Flowers for the South illustrates how to plant, grow, and care for a large variety of hardy Southern flowers. Including an A-Z encyclopedia of Southern favorites and twenty comprehensive lists of favorite flowers from expert nurseries around the South, this beautifully illustrated book presents superior long-blooming, heat-resistant flowers.

This book discusses ways of increasing production/unit area by making full use of the soil and water under the harsh climatic conditions of semiarid areas. This leads to improved sustainability, increased availability of fresh produce, which is vital for human health and higher incomes for small and marginal farmers. Arid and semiarid areas account for almost 70 per cent of the total cropped area of India. In these areas physical constraints like low and erratic rainfall, high temperature, high wind velocity, low fertility, poor soil structure, salinity of soil and ground water all limit reliable crop production. In the absence of any type of aggregation, the soils are highly erodible, lack structure and have a very coarse in texture with low water holding capacity. Intensive agricultural practices, increasing population pressure, climatic changes, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, salinization and water depletion are all threatening the sustainability of agriculture. In view of the mounting demand for food, it is vital to link enhanced food production with nutritional security, conservation of natural resources, increasing farmers' incomes, employment generation through agricultural diversification. Horticulture, particularly of fruit trees, can play a major role in solving the problem of nutrition, as fruits are rich source of vitamins and minerals and have antioxidant properties. Fruit trees, which are mostly deciduous, add leaf litter to the soil, and this ultimately helps to improve the condition of the soil. In addition, fruit trees are known to reduce soil erosion and reduce run off. The trees also play a major role in purifying the environment as they are the known carbon sequesters. Fruit-tree cultivation is a profitable preposition. There is no scope to increase the land surface; all increase in productivity therefore has to be from the available land. This means introducing cropping systems that can meet the basic food, fodder and fuel requirement of farming families.

The major objective of this book is to highlight the significance of phytonematodes in horticulture. Detailed and latest information on major aspects of phytonematodes associated exclusively with horticultural crops, which is the need of the day, is lacking. Hence, the book has been written mainly with the objective of providing its readers, comprehensive information on the advanced aspects related to phytonematodes associated with horticultural crops. It also provides basic information on plant parasitic nematodes since it is required for a better understanding of advanced topics. Several popular topics, information on which is already available in plenty, have been avoided. Thus, book explicates both the essential fundamental and advanced aspects pertaining to nematodes associated with horticultural crops. The book is conveniently divided into 13 chapters, which cover latest information on the major fundamental and advanced aspects related to phytonematodes including the role of phytonematodes in horticultural industry, phylogenetic and evolutionary concepts in nematodes, major phytonematodes associated with horticultural crops and their diagnostic keys, symptoms caused by phytonematodes and disease diagnosis, nematode population threshold levels, crop loss assessment, nematode diseases of horticultural crops and their management, nematode disease complexes, genetics of nematode parasitism, important nematological techniques and nematodes of quarantine importance. An exclusive chapter on novel methods of nematode management has been included mainly to provide the information on the latest molecules and novel modes of managing nematodes attacking horticultural crops. Routine nematode management aspects, information on which is already available, have not been discussed; instead, this topic reflects the changing scenario of future nematode management. Hence, this book can serve as a friendly guide to meet the requirements of the students, teachers and researchers interested in these 'hidden enemies' of the grower, apart from the research and extension personnel working under Public organizations, officials of State departments of Horticulture, Forestry, field workers and all those concerned and working with plant parasitic nematodes. Appropriate diagrams, convincing tables and suitable graphs/illustrations have been furnished at right places. A complete bibliography has also been included.

As the demand for herbal medicines is increasing globally, the supply of medicinal plants is declining because most of this harvest is derived from wild and naturally growing resources. The genetic improvement of medicinal plants to produce higher yields and more active ingredients might help fulfil the increasing demand for medicinal plants. Medicinal plants are one of the most important sources of life-saving drugs for the world’s population. Increasing global demand for herbal medicines is accompanied by a dwindling supply of medicinal plants due to over-harvesting. Biotechnological interventions play a significant role in the improvement of crop yields and quality. Despite such progress in plant molecular biology, only limited biotechnology application has been seen in medicinal plants. Recent breakthroughs in high-throughput approaches have revolutionized this research area and shifted the focus towards omics approaches, such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. This book discusses these technologies. Currently, there is no existing publication that focuses on omics and medicinal plants.