The experiment was conducted to determine the degree of zinc (Zn) solubilization using different microbial isolates in lab experiment and their effect on growth and yield of Bt cotton in pot culture experiment. Zinc solubilizing ability of seven microbial strains were determined using zinc oxide, zinc carbonate and zinc phosphate in both plate and broth media assays. Results of plate assay indicated that the microbial strain Burkholderia cenocepacia produced the highest clearing zone in zinc oxide containing medium. Whereas, Pseudomonas striata, Bacillus megaterium and Trichoderma viride formed the highest clearing zone with zinc carbonate containing medium as compared to other microbial isolates. Results of broth assay revealed that the microbial strain Bacillus megaterium showed significantly highest Zn solubilization followed by Trichoderma viride and Pseudomonas striata in ZnCO3 amended media. Whereas, lowest Zn solubilization was observed in control with ZnO amendment. The maximum reduction in pH was also observed in different inoculated medium. Pot culture experiment indicated that inoculation of zinc solubilizing microbial isolates considerably enhanced the growth parameters, chlorophyll content and zinc in Bt cotton when compared to uninoculated control. The highest improvement in growth characters, chlorophyll content and zinc was noted in Trichoderma viride, Pseudomonas striata and Bacillus megaterium treated pots.

The awareness for vermicompost production was created among the rural people of eastern zone of India by Cooch Behar Krishi Vigyan Kendra, West Bengal by conducting residential and non-residential training programme on successful vermicompost production. Vermicompost contain huge amount of plant nutrients and it’s environmentally sustainable. The training was conducted during January 2015 to December 2015. The study was conducted on the respondents of Coochbehar district, West Bengal during January 2016 to February, 2016. The purpose of this study was to identify the adoption of vermicompost production with respect some socio-economic variable of the trainees. The research design was followed in this study was survey research method. The sample size of the study was 100. The dependent variable of this study was adoption and independent variables were age, gender, education, annual income, land holding and caste. The descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage and range were used for the investigation. This study had shown the relation of the adoption of the vermicompost production with the different independent variable.

The present study was conducted in Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, by personally interviewing the randomly selected 100 internet-utilizing students from Chimanbhai Patel College of Agriculture and 100 internet-utilizing students from College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry. For measuring the effect of internet utilization on overall performance of the SDAU students, an interview schedule was developed by the investigator in light of the expert’s suggestion. The finding reveal that among the different academic performances the boys SDAU students (MPS 96.29) perceived the most important effect on their academic performance by the attribute ‘Internet facilitates saving in terms of time and energy looking for information’ at top priority whereas the girls SDAU students (MPS 95.00) perceived the most important effect on their academic performance by the attribute ‘Internet facilities to retrieve latest information through number of sources found’ at top priority. There is no significant difference between the internet-utilizing boys and girls SDAU students in perceiving the effect of different attributes of internet on their academic performances. It was further found that among the different non academic performances the ‘Internet use has increased the dependency on internet’ was perceived as the most important effect non-academic performance at top priority by both boys (MPS 81.43) and girls SDAU students (MPS 81.00). There is no significant difference between the internet-utilizing boys and girls SDAU students in perceiving the effect of different attributes of internet on their non-academic performances.

Vegetative growth along with fruit characters of Olinda orange (Citrus sinensis) budded with three different trifoliate rootstocks were studied at Punjab Agricultural University’s–Fruit Research Station, Jallowal. Tallest Olinda plants were recorded on C-32 citrange while Swingle citrumelo contributed for highest dwarfing effect. This rootstock also registered for lowest North-South and East-West spread among all the rootstocks under study. The stock circumference recorded in Rubidoux trifoliate was found to be highest while Swingle citrumelo registered lowest level of this parameter. Heaviest fruits among all the combinations were observed in plants budded on C-32 citrange, though its variation with the other two rootstocks was non-significant. Larger fruits in term of diameter and length were recorded in case of C-32 citrange, while smallest were in Swingle citrumelo. C-32 citrange rootstock also contributed for higher percent juice recovery. Swingle citrumelo contributed for highest TSS and lowest acidity in Olinda fruits but all the three rootstocks lacked significant variation in both these biochemical parameters.

Conceiving the distress situation of rural women, the edulcorative phase can be overcome by providing social, political and economic justice to the rural women with the help of cooperative Self Help Group approach. Under this research climate, the research work was conducted to analyse the status of economic empowerment of women after joining Self Help Group (SHG) and thereby, exploring different factors associated with their economic empowerment. The study was conducted in four villages of the Coochbehar-I block in Coochbehar district of West Bengal. Purposive as well as multistage sampling and random sampling procedures were followed in selecting the respondents. The economic empowerment of the women SHG members was conceptualised as the predicted variable and the sixteen other factors of the women respondents were delineated as the predictor variables in the present research work. The structured interview schedule was used to collect the information with the face to face interview method. The statistical tools like co-efficient of correlation and multiple regressions were the key analysers for drawing a definite conclusion from the collected data. Results showed that variables like education level, extension contact and mass media exposure are positively and significantly correlated with the economic empowerment of the women and the variable family size has negative and significant correlation with the economic empowerment of women. 47.90% variations within the predicted variable, economic empowerment of women after joining SHGs was explained with the help of sixteen antecedent variables’ influence which was reflected with the help of R2 value (0.479).