The trial was carried out through on-farm testing during sali (kharif) season of 2017 in two villages of Dibrugarh district of Assam with an objective to evaluate the performance of two newly released medium duration rice varieties, CR-909 and Tripura Chikan Dhan with the recommended variety, Basundhara (check) of same duration. Results revealed that the variety, Basundhara performed similarly with that of variety CR-909 but slightly higher than Tripura Chikan Dhan in respect of yield attributes, yield and economic point of view. Both the newly introduced rice varieties may be substituted with the recommended, Basundhara variety.

The present investigation was under taken on garlic (Allium sativum L.) cv. Phule Nilima to study the effect of silicon, at “All India Coordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops”, Department of Horticulture, MPKV, Rahuri, Dist. Ahmednagar in rabi season of 2017-18, by using different sources and levels of silicon on chemical properties of soil and nutrient availability in the soil related to growth, yield and quality characters in garlic. Fifteen treatment combinations formed by three sources of silicon (viz., diatomaceous earth, calcium silicate and bagasse ash) with five levels of silicon (viz., 0,100,150, 200 and 250 kg ha-1) and one absolute control, were tried and each replicated three times. The source A2 (CS) with Si @ 250 kg ha-1 (B5) was recorded significantly the highest number of cloves per bulb, highest average weight of 10 cloves, highest average weight of individual bulb, highest yield of bulbs per plot and highest yield of bulbs per ha. over all other sources. The interaction effect of sources and levels of silicon was non-significant for all the characters except for weight of 10 cloves under study. There was significant increase in number of clove per bulb, weight of ten cloves, weight single bulb , yield of bulb plot-1 and yield of bulbs ha-1 over control.

Simulation model developed in this study is based on Soil Water Balance Crop Yield and Net Benefits (SWAB-CRYB) model. The simulation model considers the heterogeneity with respect to crop, soil, climate and irrigation strategies and found useful for evaluation of net benefits. The simulation model provides the detailed output of daily values of reference crop evapotranspiration, maximum crop evapotranspiration, actual crop evapotranspiration, crop coefficient, root zone depth, moisture content in soil root zone by simulating the different processes responsible for soil water balance in the root zone. After application of developed simulation model, it was observed that the soil moisture content in the root zone always remains above the allowable soil moisture content for all the combinations of deficit factors when irrigation interval was small. There was no stress and no reduction in yields. Therefore, the developed model enables the user to take decisions on selecting suitable irrigation strategy for maximum yield and net benefits by screening several irrigation strategies.

Field experiment was conducted during Kharif season of two consecutive years at Instructional Dairy Farm of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar to evaluate the nodulation pattern and growth parameters of phillipesara under intercropping with sweet sorghum and different nitrogen sources. The growth parameters viz. plant height, leaf: stem ratio, dry matter accumulation, nodules per plant, and nodule fresh weight of phillipesara increased in both sole and intercropping systems due to application of all integrated sources of nutrients, significantly, higher being with application of nitrogen 50 percent through inorganic source +50 perent through vermicompost. However, all growth parameters except plant height of phillipesara was significantly higher under sole crop compared to its intercropping with sweet sorghum. Intercropping and integrated use of nitrogen produced significantly more nodules count per plant and nodule fresh weight (mg/plant) which results in higher panchang yield of better quality and profitability of farmers.

Rice is one of the most significant and largest growing crops all through the nation as a nourishment grain. In Madhya Pradesh State, rice is the staple food and it is grown in an area of 248.3 hectare with a production of 489.2 (1000 Tonnes) and productivity of 2970 kg per hectare during 2013 -14. This study was conducted during 2015-16 in the Balaghat block of Balaghat District of M.P. to find out the Production level of paddy cultivation. A total of 120 paddy growers were selected with proportional allocation method. Results showed that out of total paddy growers, 51.67 percent had medium production level, while 31.66 percent low, whereas only 16.67 percent high production level of paddy

Cauliflower, Brassica oleracea var. Botrytis L. is one of the important cruciferous vegetable crops grown in India. It is grown more or less in all the states and used as salad, boiled vegetable, in curries, pickling as well as dehydrated vegetable. The nutritional value/ 100 g of Cauliflower, consists of carbohydrates 5.3 g, fat 0.2 g, protein 2.4 g, vitamins (thiamine or vitamin B10.1 mg, riboflavin or B2 0.1 mg, niacin or vitamin B3 0.5 mg, pantothenic acid or vitamin B5 0.7 mg, folate or vitamin B9 57.0 mg, vitamin C 46.4 mg, and vitamin K 16.0 mg), minerals (Ca 22.0 mg, Fe 0.4 mg, Mg 15.0 mg, Mn 0.2 mg, P 44.0 mg, K 303 mg, Na 30.0 mg, Zn 0.3 mg) (Copyright 2017 Nutrition Value org.). The total area under cultivation of Cauliflower, in India is 372 thousand hectares with an annual production to the tune of 8534 thousand tonnes with productivity of 18.3 metric tonnes. The total area under cultivation of Cauliflower, in Rajasthan is 346 hectares with an annual production to the tune of 7588 tonnes. China is major Cauliflower, producing country with 47 per cent of world followed by India with 12 per cent of world production.

Guava decline is caused by a disease complex involving a root knot nematode which predisposes fungi. An attempt was made to identify the species of root knot nematode through morphological characters and molecular characterization using universal primer 18s rRNA which confirmed the species as Meloidogyne enterolobii. PCR amplification of 18s rRNA intervening sequence produced an amplicon of 1 kp. Similarly, F. oxysporum f sp. psidii specific primers amplified to a size of 280 bp confirmed the identity of the pathogen as Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. psidii. E-SEM results revealed that pathogen was encoiled by antagonist and the conidia of T. asperellum emerges from the hyphae of Fusarium spp. To manage this disease complex, crude metabolites of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Trichoderma asperellum were used and were found to have antifungal and antinemic properties. Field studies using bioagents proved that soil application of 20g each of Trichoderma asperellum + Bacillus amyloliquefaciens + Purpureocillium lilacinum per plant resulted in significant reduction of disease incidence.

The losses in rice crop yield caused by weeds range between 9-51% in varying agro climatic conditions. Butachlor herbicidal application was observed very common amongst farmers during participatory rural appraisal survey (PRA) of KVK adopted villages in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh. Butachlor was reported less effective by the farmers during the participatory survey of the villages. Therefore fifteen front live demonstrations on chemical weed control practices with newer broad spectrum herbicides were laid down in 05 villages of Bhitarwar and Dabra blocks of district Gwalior in transplanted rice during three consecutive kharif seasons of the year 2012-13 to 2014-15 to demonstrate the performance and profitability of new herbicides viz. chloromuron -ethyl + metsulfuron-methyl and bispyribac sodium at 0.020 and 0.025 kg/ha, respectively. The farmers’ fields were observed infested with mixed flora of grasses, sedges and broad leaf weeds. The herbicides used for demonstrations were found to be very effective in controlling weeds and thereby increasing grain yield of rice by 12-17.5 percent over farmers practice and gave higher weed control efficiency of 75.25 to 93.23 percent over the farmers practice. The herbicidal weed control demonstration also proved economically superior over F.P. by recording higher net income ranging from 1,06,255 to 1,20,345 per ha and B:C ratio from 4.70-6.08 during three years of study.