The study demonstrate the effects of split application of fertilizers on soil nutrient transport (i.e. Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) at different slopes under simulated rainfall conditions and subsequent impact of nutrient transport on runoff water quality parameters were also assessed. The study was conducted on experimental plots under laboratory conditions by using a rainfall simulator to produce the desired range of rainfall intensities of 9.00 cm/h, 13.20 cm/h and 17.00 cm/h at two selected land slopes of 2.00% and 4.00%.The soil nutrients transport due to surface runoff were found higher on one-step application of fertilizer, followed by two step applications and three step application of fertilizer respectively under 9.00 cm/h, 13.20 cm/h and 17.00 cm/h rainfall intensities for selected land slopes. The rainfall intensity was found to have a principal factor affecting nutrient transport as compared to steepness of land for all selected split application of fertilizer. The observed values of electrical conductivity (EC) and pH of runoff water indicated a negative correlation with increase in steps of fertilizer applications. The scenario of three-step split application of fertilizers was found the most efficient method for Nutrient loss management.

The characteristic proximate analysis of the paddy straw, sugarcane bagasse, sorghum bagasse and pearl millet straw was carried out in this paper. The properties of biomass like moisture content, ash content, volatile matter, bulk density, lignin, hemicelluloses, cellulose, sugars, and fixed carbon were determined as per standard ASTM methods. Cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin are the three primary components in biomass. For the analysis of cellulose, hemicelluloses lignin and sugars extractives were prepared with finely powdered biomass sample with particle size of 600µm and below with moisture below 10%. The other properties were analyzed using dried and powered biomass samples. The biomass characterization is a mandate for the selection of the most viable biomass for bioconversion processes and biofuels. The calorific value and energy densities of biomass were found in which sugarcane bagasse had maximum calorific value of 18.3MJ/kg

Lignin presence in the fermentation substrate make it hard to breakdown by microbial activity since it is made of complex polymers, like phenolic propane units which are linked to one another by ether/carbon-carbon bonds. Dilute acid hydrolysis of paddy straw biomass was carried out for the depolymerization of hemicelluloses into xylose and other forms of sugars; this pretreatment was aimed in the intention of removal of lignin, improving the formation of fermentable sugars, degradation of carbohydrates. The acid employed in the dilute acid hydrolysis was orthophosphoric acid (H3PO4). The acid hydrolysis of paddy straw was employed in breaking down the hemicelluloses into pentose and hexose sugars for its utilization by microbial culture for more easier and simple bioconversion of sugars to solvents. The maximum sugars released were observed for 5% orthophosphoric acid concentration, the concentration of sugars in the acidified hydrolysate was 35mg/g.

Present study on effect of T. putrescentiae on chemical composition of wheat showed losses in total soluble sugars contents [1.98, 5.71 and 9.76 % in wheat grains after 30, 90 and 180 days of infestation), significant increase in Reducing sugars [24.10 to 27.65 mg/1g in 0 to 180 days of infestation), a marked decrease in non reducing sugars [from 43.06 mg/1g in the control to 40.45, 36.91 mg/1g and 32.95 mg/ g at 30, 90 and 180 days of infestation), decrease in starch content [from 444.18 to 367.35 mg/1g from 0 to 180 days) and protein content [initially decreased to 12.16 from 12.56 mg/1 g after 90 days, thereafter slight increase was recorded). Mite number was found to be negatively correlated with total soluble sugar [r= - 0.95), starch content [r= -0.98) whereas positively correlated with reducing sugars [r= 0.91).

Vermicomposting is basically a managed process of worms digesting organic matter to transform the material into a beneficial soil amendment. It is best source of generating additional source of income, economic empowerment along with the already known environmental and agricultural benefits, has been found successful model for the rural or economically resourceful communities. This paper examines the knowledge and impact of entrepreneurship development on vermicomposting in operational area of Dewas District of M.P. i.e., village Narana, Nanadharakhedi and Banger. A total of 40 demonstrations (ten demonstrations in each year) were laid down with the objective to access knowledge and entrepreneurship development of farm women through vermicomposting. The results depicted from the above study that most of the farm women have superficial knowledge of vermicomposting. Highest knowledge were observed in location of vermicompost under the knowledge section of benefits of vermicompost. In case of material required for vermicompost, hundred percent knowledge were found in animal waste, earth worms, soil, grain Straw, green neem leaves, gunny bags. In case of process of preparing vermicompost same result were found in selection of place, collection of animal waste and layer of earth worms. As assessment on economic parameter average gross return, net return and B:C ratio found Rs. 36575, Rs. 28158 and 4.34 respectively in vermicompost as compare to deshi compost were obtained Rs. 23800, Rs. 3550 and 1.18 respectively.

Traditional knowledge and life style of the indigenous people have close link with nature. The traditional farming systems are being practiced by indigenous Garo communities of Meghalaya. The study was carried out in four Garo tribe inhabited villages namely Marapara, Sananggre, Romngbokgre and Kamagre of West Garo Hills district of Meghalaya. The method applied for the study was ethnographic approach, an important research tool. A schedule was prepared for collection of data on general information at the household level. Information on traditional farming of Garo tribe was also collected from the secondary source like books, article, research paper etc. Average family size of Garo tribe in the study area was 4-6. Ginger and paddy are the main crops in the study area. It is found that majority of the respondents has annual income in between Rs. 50, 000/- to 1,00,000/- and have primary level of education. The study also reveals that 44.91 ha of area under low land and 265.87 ha of area under up land. The villagers of the area are mainly depending on perennial stream as a source of water for their daily uses. The study showed that Garo tribe practiced traditional farming and applied their indigenous knowledge on plain land, homestead garden, jhum management and social forestry. They mainly adopted agro-forestry farming technique for their early income generation activity and livelihoods. Considering the present findings it can be concluded that the indigenous knowledge of Garo tribes is helpful for the conservation of natural resources.

Rapeseed-Mustard is the second most important edible oil seed crop in India after groundnut and occupies country’s oilseed production nearly 30%. The present investigation aimed to estimation of predictive models for the Rapeseed-Mustard of Chhattisgarh plain and its constituent districts have been made. Models have been fitted for the area productivity and production of the crop separately for above region. Based on these models prediction of area productivity and production of Rapeseed-mustard have been made year wise between 1998-99 to 2013-14. The productivity of Rapeseed-mustard in Chhattisgarh plain is expected to decrease from 396 to 334 kg/ha by the turns of one decades, if it presents growth trends is decreased than it reveals that the major projected implementation should be adopted for increase the yield of oilseed crops in this state. The partial compound growth rates of the area production and productivity of the crop have been also estimated and discussed. Periodic effect of five years as well as annual effects was found to be working in most of the districts/region. Based on a postulated and estimated production function of area and productivity. It was found that in Dhamtari, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur and Janjgir district’s area influences the production of Rapeseed-Mustard by more than 42 percent. For the district, Mahasamund and Korba production was influenced by the productivity and only a little contribution is made by the area.

An experiment entitled “Sulphur status of soil series of Western Maharashtra region” was conducted during the year 2011-2012. For the present investigation total 208 soil samples were collected from 208 soil series of Western Maharashtra on the basis of technical bulletin of Soil series of Maharashtra published by National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning. All the 208 soil samples were analyzed for physical properties viz., bulk density, hydraulic conductivity and chemical properties viz., pH, EC, organic carbon, calcium carbonate. These soil samples were also analyzed for available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and different forms of sulphur viz., total sulphur, organic sulphur, water soluble (1% NaCl extractable) sulphur, sulphate sulphur (0.15% CaCl2 extractable) and non-sulphate sulphur by using standard method. The average different forms of sulphur in the different soil series of Western Maharashtra were in the order of total sulphur (481 mg kg-1)> non sulphate sulphur (292 mg kg-1)> organic sulphur (218 mg kg-1)> water soluble sulphur (20.27 mg kg-1)> available sulphur (18.43 mg kg-1). All the soil samples collected from different soil series of Western Maharashtra were 22 per cent deficient and 78 per cent sufficient in available sulphur. The highest available sulphur deficiency (31 per cent) was noticed in Kolhapur district of Sangmeswar, Rajapur, Ratnagiri, Nandgaon, Amboli, Chandgad, Malegaon and Wadkudi soil series. In Western Maharashtra number of soil series categorized in available sulphur was high (88) followed by medium (74) and low (46).

The influence of stem cell factor on in-vitro culture of preantral follicles (PFs) isolated from goat ovaries was investigated. Preantral follicles were isolated from the cortex of goat ovaries and individually cultured for 10 days in different concentrations (25 ng/ml, 50 ng/ml, 100 ng/ml) of stem cell factor (SCF).The proportion of PFs exhibiting growth, increase in diameter and antrum formation was assessed to determine the in vitro development. The oocytes isolated from cultured PFs were kept in-vitro maturation medium for 27 h, to assess the nuclear maturation to the metaphase II (M II) stage. The proportion of PFs exhibiting growth, average increase in diameter, antrum formation, extrusion of oocytes and meiotic resumption of oocytes were highest when the culture medium was supplemented with 50 ng/ml of SCF individually. Based on the best concentration from the above results, the preantral follicles were cultured with thyroxin (T4), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), stem cell factor (SCF) and leptin in various combinations. It is concluded that in vitro culture of goat PFs in combination of stem cell factor and leptin i.e SCF + leptin (31.25 ± 1.15) did not improve the frequency of oocyte maturation to metaphase II stage when compared with SCF alone.

Plant growth regulators (PGRS) are known to improve physiological efficiency including photosynthetic ability of plants and offer significant role in realizing higher crop yields. In present study, field experiments were conducted at the Research Farm Dusty Acre, Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, JNKVV, Jabalpur during kharif 2013. The experiment was laid out in RBD with three replications. The experiment consisted of 7 treatments comprised to different concentration of plant growth retardants viz., paclobutrazol (40SC 60ml, 75ml, 90ml and 23SC 105.6ml, 132ml) and Chlormequat chloride (50%SL 500ml). Observation on various growth, yield and yield attributing parameters in soybean were recorded. The leaf area index significantly increased up to 75 DAS and declined steadily towards maturity. The LAI (Leaf Area Index) and LAD (Leaf Area Duration) were found to be maximum in Cycocel (CCC) and were recorded to be lower in PBZ. Among the most important major yield attributing traits viz; number of flowers per plant, number of pods per plant, pod length, pod width, pod weight, 100 seed weight, seed yield, biological yield and harvest index were influenced by the foliar application of plant growth retardants

A field experiment was conducted during the rabi season of 2010 and 2011 at Central Agricultural University, COA, Imphal to evaluate the “Effect of different doses of vermicompost on soil quality, yield and uptake of nutrient by cabbage var. Rareball. The treatments consisted of application of organic fertilizer (vermicompost) at different doses viz. (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 10) t/ha with a control for each replication. Significant influenced of vermicompost application were observed. The highest and lowest yield (21.11 and 12.42 t/ha), soil organic carbon content (2.56 and 2.11 %), WHC (68.22 and 61.53 %), available NPK (348.84 and 253.08 Kg/ha N, 26.59 and 20.04 Kg/ha P and 355.47 and 314.13 Kg/ha K), DTPA extractable Fe (159.73 and 151.63 mg/Kg) and DTPA extractable Zn (0.58 and 0.46 mg/Kg) was observed under T9 and T10, respectively. However, the pH of the soil was not influenced by the different treatments in both the first and second year of experimentation which ranged from 4.88 to 5.55. Analysis of dry leaf sample of the plants gave significant difference in nutrient uptake between the control plots and treatments. In the pooled mean data analysis of both the years, total NPK ranged from (2.94 and 2.22 % N, 0.66 and 0.46 % P and 1.39 and 1.37 % K), total Fe (77.17 and 70.90 mg/Kg) and total Zn (30.13 and 20.13 mg/Kg) under treatment of vermicompost 10 t/ha and without vermicompost respectively.

The main aim of this study is to investigate the impact of bitter gourd on long term pre-diabetic induced retinal abnormalities caused by neonatal streptozotocin (nSTZ). Male Sprague Dawley (SD) rat pups (n=35) of two-day old were taken and injected with STZ (90 mg/kg body weight) dissolved in 0.1M citrate buffer, pH 4.5. Control pups (n=10) received only vehicle. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was conducted at 2nd and 10th month. All rats were maintained on AIN-93G/M diet in individual cages and a sub set of pre-diabetic animals received 5% bitter gourd in the diet. Functional abnormalities of retina were studied by electroretinogram (ERG) and other biochemical alterations by histology, immunoblotting and gene expression. Majority of nSTZ rats exhibited impaired glucose tolerance (2h glucose>140mg/dl) or pre-diabetes by 2 months and maintained up to 11th month. ERG data showed a decrease in amplitude of scotopic b-wave and also scotopic oscillatory potentials in pre-diabetic rats indicating development of retinal functional abnormalities. Increased expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and decreased expression of rhodopsin (Rho) in pre-diabetic animals indicate development of angiogenesis and retinal degeneration respectively. Further there was an increase in 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) in retina indicating association of oxidative stress with pre-diabetes. Feeding of bitter gourd to these pre-diabetic rats partially prevented these changes. Pre-diabetes induced retinal abnormalities were prevented by bitter gourd through its hypoglycemic and antioxidant potential. This study will give an additional insight into molecular action of bitter gourd in preventing the pre-diabetic abnormalities thereby leading to the development of therapeutic strategies in controlling diabetes.

For finding status of wilt of lentil in three districts viz., Morena, Bhind and Gwalior of Madhya Pradesh carried out a survey of the lentil growing areas in villages of Gwalior, Bhind and Morena districts during 2010-11 in Rabi season. In all surveyed fields none of them remained free from wilt disease. Incidence of wilt in the surveyed fields ranged from 6.27 to 19.37 per cent. The maximum incidence of wilt was observed in Dandraua (19.38%), followed by Dimni (19.01%), Mehgaon (18.62%), Berja (17.49%) and Gormi (16.40%).The minimum incidence of wilt was observed in Milavali (6.27%) followed by Khera (6.64%), Badagaon (6.76%).The first symptom of wilt occurs as an isolated patch more or less circular. Curling of the leaves begins from the lower end and extends upwords. The crown then droops and this is followed by the death of the plant. The root system is poorly developed and discoloured brown (If we see after splitting of stem).

The research study was undertaken in Jabalpur district of M.P. under ex-post facto research design and planned to know the socio-economic, psychological and communicational attributes of the sesame growers. Ten different villages of Sihora block were selected randomly. Thus, in all, 100 sesame growers were interrogated through pre-tested structural interview schedule to constitute the samples for the investigation. The study uncovered the facts that majority of the sesame growers belonged to middle age, had education up to middle level, possess small land holdings with marginal land under sesame. It was also observed that a large number of them had low material possession, no participation in social organizations and falls under medium annual income group with low socio-economic status. The communicational attributes like exposure to mass media and extension participation were found to be low in majority of them. Although the sesame growers had medium knowledge and adoption level of sesame production technologies, they were seen to have high scientific orientation.

Different wheat varieties were grown under the normal irrigated and very late planting situations, under wheat improvement project JNKVV, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh in order to expose plants to different level of temperature and water regime, since the two situation differ in the total amount of rainfall and number of irrigation supplied during the growing season. Plants were suffered from the terminal heat stress as well as drought stress in the very late sown condition. Since genotype, PBW-343/CDWR-9563-1 showed better performance under both planting situations on basis of grain yield. MP-3349/MP-3222, HD-2864, and GW-366 were the genotypes showed high amount of chlorophyll content, higher relative water content and coolest canopy under both planting situations. All measured parameter, chlorophyll content, relative water content and canopy temperature are good physiological indices of drought and heat stress tolerance and can be used for the enhancement of drought and heat tolerance genotypes in wheat.