Custard apples have been part of human diet for ages due to its nutritional and medicinal values. General practice of farmer for ripening of custard apple is keeping the fruit in crates or on floor covered with custard apple leaves or gunny bags. In this method all fruits cannot ripened and some of fruits becomes black and hard which becomes postharvest losses. Therefore, present study was undertaken to study the ripening of custard apple. Ripening of custard apple was carried out in crates covered with leaves, cartoon boxes and modified household refrigerator. Household refrigerator was modified to maintain uniform temperature and relative humidity by fitting air circulation tank and hanging wet cloth. Average weight of the fruit was found to be in the range of 105.67–164 g. Maximum physiological weight loss of custard apple fruit during ripening was fond to be 19.90 % in cartoon and minimum 15.49 % in refrigerator. Custard apple fruits were ripened in 3 to 4 days in crates as compare to 6 to 7 days in refrigerator. Ripening percentage of custard apple fruit was found to maximum in Crates followed by cartoon and lowest in refrigerator. Ripening of custard apple fruit at low temperature can delay the ripening of custard apple fruit though ripening percentage of fruit in modified refrigerator was less, it delay the ripening of fruit. Therefore, further study is needed for development of farm level ripening chamber for custard apple fruit which can ripen the fruit with good quality of pulp and also delay the ripening period.

India, the sixth largest producer of coffee in the world has reached stagnation in productivity resulting in area led growth of production. A structural shift in Indian coffee production from high quality and premium priced Arabica coffee to lower quality Robusta coffee is evident and attributed to the prevalence of high incidence of pest particularly white stem borer in Arabica. Growers of Arabica are at disadvantage; incurring higher expenditure in cultivation to control the borer infestation and heavy economic loss in production. This shift is happening despite higher net returns realized by Arabica growers as compared to Robusta growers. It is imperative for India to increase the yield; particularly of Arabica coffee to remain in the quality segment of world coffee market as our analysis indicates that India’s share has stagnated at around 4 percent. The paper also postulates that it is imperative to penetrate the niche market and in the process move from the conventional coffee production to a sustainable certification production systems in tune with the growing consumer recognition and demand for certified, organic and specialty coffee. The Coffee Board, the nodal agency for coffee research and development in India has to make concerted efforts in two direction;- (a) to break stagnation in productivity through technology and adopt strategies for arresting the decline in cultivation of Arabica coffee and; (b) focus on capturing niche markets by reorienting its efforts in the value chain.

The research on the effect of plant growth regulators on the plant growth and seed yield of F1 hybrid rice (KRH-4) was conducted at the Zonal Agricultural Research station, VC Farm, Mandya, Karnataka during growing season’s kharif-2012 and rabi /summer-2012. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with planting ratios 3: 8 (male to female ratio). The treatment viz., T1: GA3 @ 100ppm, T2: NAA @ 100ppm, T3: GA3 @ 50ppm + NAA @ 50ppm, T4: GA3 @ 100ppm + NAA @ 100ppm, T5: GA3 @ 25ppm and NAA @ 25ppm, T6: KNO3 @ 1.0 %, T7: Urea @ 2.0 % and T8: No foliar spray (Control) and two foliar sprays (first spray at 5 % flowering and 2nd spray one day after1st spray) were imposed only on female lines. The application of GA3@ 100ppm give better seed yield (1981 kg/ha and 3096 kg/ha) over control 1013kg and 1285 kg/ha during kharif and rabi /summer season.

Dairying in India is a female dominated enterprise. Training is viewed as an investment of human resource. This investment has the potentialities in transforming the group of dairy farm women to accomplish the common goal. Two batches of training programme organized at RBRU unit, AAU, Anand was selected for the study and the participants coming from different talukas of Gujarat state. The study conducted to find out the impact of training programme in terms of gain in knowledge and retention in knowledge. Study revealed that great majority of dairy farm women had medium to high level of knowledge gain and retention.

Black spot and powdery mildew are the two important rose diseases worldwide and affects nearly all existing cultivars. Black spot and powdery mildew resistance in the field was visually evaluated for a total of thirty six rose cultivars at SKUAST-K. Shalimar, Srinagar. Out of 36 cultivars screened for black spot, nineteen cultivars were tolerant in reaction. Remaining cultivars were highly susceptible in reaction. While in case of powdery mildew disease nineteen cultivars were found tolerant, two cultivars as moderately tolerant namely Chrysler imperial, Christian Dior and rest of the cultivars which include First red, Golden harvest, Golden gate, Himachal red, Konfitti, and cover girl were either susceptible or highly susceptible in reaction.