A pot culture experiment was conducted to develop quality standards for the Arbuscular Mycorrhiza (AM) inoculum in terms of spore density in order to ensure the efficacy of the AM product when used for crop production as a P mobilizing biofertilizer. Plant growth parameters like root volume and total plant dry weight of maize (PEHM5) which was used as trap crop skyrocketed to its maximum when inoculated with 5-6 spores g-1 of AM inoculum. Effective root colonization of 100% was recorded in maize when 5-6 spores, was present. Total root length colonization of the maize variety PEHM5 was registered to be more than 90%, when treated with an AM inoculum containing 5-6 spores g-1. Moreover, a significant increase of the spore number was observed, when sterilized vermiculite + 10% soil was used as substrate for the AM inoculum production with increased spore density of 5-6 spores g-1. Thus, spore density of 5-6 spores was standardized to be one of the quality control parameter of AM inoculum which can be adopted to certify a high quality AM product for crop production.

An evaluation of 102 land races of forage sorghum for days to 50 % flowering, plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf length, leaf breadth and fodder yield per plant in augmented block design during 2009-10 and 2010-11 revealed highly significant differences among the accessions. High heritability accompanied with high GA as per cent of mean was observed for days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf length and fodder yield per plant suggested that these characters are under additive gene action and gives better scope for selection. Fodder yield was positively and significantly correlated with number of leaves per plant, leaf length, leaf width and panicle length. The characters leaf width, number of leaves per plant, days to 50% flowering and panicle length showed positive direct effect on fodder yield. Where as leaf length showed positive significant association with fodder yield but the direct effect of leaf length was negative with fodder yield, which may be a result of the indirect effect of this trait via other traits. Based on the results of the means of the two years considering together for the various traits, the accession E-143 and EJN-11 was found to be superior for earliness, EA-2 and GUB-50 for plant height, E-159 for leaf characters and E-203 and GGUB-39 for fodder yield. Therefore these accessions should be utilized in further breeding program for developing superior varieties.

As the largest private enterprise in India, agriculture contributes one forth of the national GDP. Agriculture has been and will continue to be the life line of India economy. However, agriculture productivity and development differ very much from region to region, which needs a detail investigation. The temperature and pedagogical conditions are favorable for growing valuable crops like jawar, sugarcane, oil seeds, bajara, wheat, etc. By contrast, very low level of agriculture productivity is confined to the tahsils belonging to drought prone areas having irregular rainfall, rugged topography and poor irrigation facilities. Inadequacy of water is main hurdle in agriculture productivity. For the present investigation tahsilwise secondary data has been collected from socio-economic review and District Statistical Abstract. The data collected has been processed and method of yield co-efficient method has been employed to find out the levels agriculture productivity. The result are shown in tabular and from and are also depicted by choropleth method on map. Hence, in present paper an attempt has been made to assess the regional disparities in levels of agriculture productivity in Solapur District of Maharashtra.

Crop yield map is a useful means to quantify yield variations within the fields and to provide a scientific basis for implementing site -specific crop management strategies. This research explores the feasibility of developing a new silage yield monitoring system by employing a new mass flow sensor based on using the momentum of chopped material impacting a pivoted plate loaded by a retractable spring installed at the end of a chopper discharge spout. A precise rotary potentiometer was used to measure the degree of pivoted plate rotation. To save and process the output voltage of the potentiometer, a programmable circuit comprising of AVR microcontroller ATMEGA series and MAX 232 microchip was used and the output data was sent to a portable computer for further processing. To calibrate the output signal of the sensor versus instantaneous chopped material flow rate, the chopper was fed artificially with predetermined mass flow rates of 6, 8 and 10 kg s-1 of silage corn at five replications for each feeding rate. The results of statistical analysis showed high correlation between degrees of the pivoted-plate rotation and instantaneous feed rates with adjusted R2 of 0.98. To evaluate the accuracy of mass flow rate estimation, a platform scale weighing system was used during the field tests. The statistical analysis did not show any significant difference between sensor mass flow rate estimation and platform scale weighing system output. By using the resulted calibration equation, yield map of a silage cornfield was generated.

Elicitors derived from yeast are shown to be active in eliciting resistance against disease in plants for wide range of pathogens. In the present study elicitor derived from yeast used in the form of seed treatment in pearl millet crop against an oomycetous downy mildew pathogen Sclerospora graminicola. The suspension at various concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0mg mL-1 for different time intervals of 3, 6, 9 and 12 h were tested. Among the concentrations tested 0.5mg mL-1 for a period of 6 h soaking offered 98% seed germination and seedling vigor index 1652. The seed germination and the seedling vigor were significantly greater than the untreated check. The optimum time interval required by the concentration of 0.5mg mL-1 was 3 days to offer 78% protection against downy mildew disease. Biochemical studies carried out showed that treated seedlings showed increased level of tyrosine ammonia lysase and poly phenol oxidase and reached a peak at 12 h after inoculation (h.a.i). which was 45% more than their respective uninoculated control. In non-denaturing gel stained for poly phenol oxidase revealed the presence of 3 isoform in elicitor treated seedlings.