Weed is inevitable part of farming but these become threat to crops by augmenting unfavorable condition to main crop. Weeds, instead of harbouring insects, compete with the crop for water, light, plant nutrients and adversely affect the microclimate around the plant. Weeding is an important but equally labour intensive agricultural unit operation. Weeding accounts for about 25 per cent of the total labour requirement during a cultivation season. The major weeds of paddy crop identified in the paddy field were Echinochloa colona (Jungle rice), Echinochloa crus-galli (Common barnyardgrass), Chloris barbata (swollen windmill grass), Cynodon dactylon (Bermuda Grass), Centella asiatica (Gotu kola) and Cyperus difformis (Sedge). The agronomical, soil and machine parameters were analysed for development of paddy weeder. The average soil moisture was observed 44.89 per cent and varied from 30 to 56.34 per cent. The bulk density of upper soil (20 mm to 50 mm) layer was always found to be lesser than the soil at lower layer (50 mm to 100 mm). The bulk density of upper layer showed variation this was 1.30 to 1.50 g cm-3, where as in lower layer varied from 1.50 to 1.72 g cm-3. The average cone index was 0.172 kg cm-2 up to 20 mm depth and 1.44 kg cm-2 from 20 to 50 mm depth and 0.75 to 1.69 kg cm-2 for 50 mm depth varied. The increase in cone index with increase in soil depth was found from study. The study conducted in research plots of Tamilanadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.

Sowing is the most basic operation for the cultivation of the crop. Sowing at different depth and time is essential which will affect the yield of the crop. Sowing in late season will decrease yield about 35%. Due to the small land holding of Indian farmers and less tractor availability per 1000 ha, mechanization is not possible. Manual method of seed planting, results in low seed placement, spacing efficiencies and serious back ache for the farmer which limits the size of field that can be planted. The basic requirements for small scale cropping machines are they should be suitable for small farms, simple in design and technology and versatile for use in different farm operations. A manually operated planter was developed aiming at small and marginal farmers with a fabrication cost of Rs. 4500 and a draft of 143 N. Cone mechanism was developed to suit different crops without changing metering mechanism. The weight of the planter is found to be 18 kg with a hopper capacity of 2 kg. The planter is useful equipment for the marginal farmers who cannot purchase heavy machinery.

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus L.) is a species of tree in the mulberry and fig family and it is native to parts of south and Southeast Asia. The jackfruit belongs to an important underutilized tropical fruit and bulbs are rich in energy, dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins, which can be processed into several types of value added products. Chips, also known as crisps, are one of the popular and relished savory items that are prepared by deep fat frying technique. The quality of the chips mainly crispiness depends on frying temperature and time. A study was conducted in the Postharvest Engineering and Technology Scheme under University of Agricultural Sciences, Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra Bangalore, to find out a suitable packaging material of jackfruit chips and their storage period. Among three packages - polyethylene, polypropylene and aluminium laminate pouches tested for storing jackfruit chips at ambient conditions for two months, aluminium laminate was found to be best since the chips in this package had least moisture content, free fatty acids, peroxide value and thiobarbituric acids value. Hence, this chips indicating that the product was acceptable as snack food.

The field experiment was conducted during rabi 2014-2015 with CSH-16 sorghum hybrid at Water Technology Center, College farm, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad to study the effect of different drip irrigation levels i.e. drip irrigation at estimated 0.6 ETc throughout the life (I1), 0.8 ETc throughout the life (I2), 1.0 ETc throughout the life (I3), 1.2 ETc throughout the life (I4), 0.6 ETc up to flowering 0.8 ETc later on (I5), 0.6 ETc up to flowering 1.0 ETc later on (I6), 0.6 ETc up to flowering 1.2 ETc later on (I7), 0.8 ETc up to flowering 1.0 ETc later on (I8), 0.8 ETc up to flowering 1.2 ETc later on (I9) and in addition to surface furrow irrigation at 0.8 IW/CPE ratio (I10) on yield attributes and yield of rabi sorghum. The results indicated that drip irrigation at estimated 1.2 ETc throughout the life recorded higher yield and yield attributes compared to the drip irrigation treatments and surface furrow irrigation at 0.8 IW/CPE ratio. Under deficit irrigation conditions, drip irrigation at 0.8 ETc up to flowering and 1.0 or 1.2 ETc later on can be recommended over the drip irrigation 1.0 to 1.2 ETc throughout the life with minimum reduction in yield.

Water conservation by innovative techniques is essential to prevent salinity and land degradation in agricultural production. Therefore, evaluation of water conservation technique of laser land levelling in groundnut production in Karnataka is an important task as it falls under major groundnut growing regions of India. With this in mind the investigations were conducted for 2 years i.e. 2013 and 2014 on the impacts of the laser guided land levelling on water saving in groundnut production at Main Agricultural Research Station of the University of Agricultural Sciences Raichur. The results showed that laser land levelling could reduce the water application rates considerably when compared to traditional and no levelling. The highest per cent water saving was observed in laser levelled fields with 0.4 % slope (28.03 and 40.50%) followed by laser levelled fields with 0.2 % slope (23.61 and 36.89%) over traditional and unlevelled fields respectively. Mean of both the laser levelling cases registered 63.68 per cent more water productivity over traditional levelling, indicating more production with less irrigation water. It was established that laser land levelling technique saves precious water with the highest water productivity in groundnut production.