To increase the production and productivity in wheat cultivation, new set of varieties having good combining ability are required. Because, the choice of the most suitable breeding method depends mainly on the combining ability behaviour vis-a-vis nature of gene action involved in the control of the trait of interest to the breeder. Therefore, the present research investigation was carried out with 10 parent half diallel set consisting of parents, F1’s and F2’s to estimate the general and specific combining ability variances and effect. An overall appraisal revealed that parent Raj 3777, Raj 4037, Raj 4120 and Raj 4083 were most desirable parents while among the crosses, the cross WH 1021 x Raj 3777 emerged as good specific cross combinations for grain yield and its contributing attributes as they showed significant and high gca and sca effects for most of the characters under study.

Guttation is the physiological phenomenon resulting in loss of xylem sap on the tips and edges of leaves through hydathodes. Field research was conducted during kharif season of 2014 to evaluate the correlation of guttation fluid with photothermic indexing. Every crop has GDD ; growing degree days values for the life cycle of entire crop. Number of days required from sowing till harvest solely is a reflection of photothermic index i.e., perception of light and temperature for crop growth and development. Different physiological parameters of rice likedays to panicle initiation, days to flowering, total dry matter at maturity and yield (g/m2) were taken for the study. The experiment was arranged as split plot design with three treatments and three replications. Guttative fluid from three flag leaves was collected from fifteen genotypes of rice grown under early, normal and late sown dates. For this experiment the field was kept ponded with 5cm of standing water throughout tillering and reproductive stage. Genotypes with more guttative fluid show higher yields. Sowing performed in month of May recorded higher yield (g/m2) and more amount of guttative fluid followed by normal and late sown genotypes. All rice genotypes showed the positive correlation between guttation fluid and days to panicle initiation, days to flowering, total dry matter at maturity and yield (g/m2). Further studies provide good opportunities to identify and clone the genes controlling the rate of guttation and inserting them into desirable genotypes through transgenic technology and creating efficient rice plants.

The crops grown by the Indian farmers include different food crops, commercial crops, oil seeds etc.; sugarcane is one of the important commercial crops grown in India. The area under sugarcane is covering around 5.08 million hectares and with an average annual production of 350.02 million tonnes in the year 2013-14 and with an average productivity of 68 tonnes/ha. India is a second largest producer as well as consumer of the sugar in the world and during 2014-15; it produced 28 million tonnes of sugar, which was nearly 11.8 per cent of the total sugar production of the world. The major producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Though, the area under cultivation of sugarcane is more in the world as well as in the country, the extent of labour consuming is more and mechanization is less and also the energy consumption in sugarcane production is more as compared to other crops like paddy, wheat, potato, maize, etc. Since the cost of labour in country is increasing rapidly and the price of local sugar is uncompetitive with the product from mechanized international producers, India needs to change its sugarcane production methods from manual work to mechanization in order to catch up with international trends in this global industry. Use of mechanization helps in labour saving, timeliness of operations, human drudgery reduction, reduces cost of operation, helps in improving quality of work and ensures effective utilization of resources. The major operations in sugarcane cultivation right from land preparation, sugarcane planting, ratoon management, weeding, harvesting, detrashing and trash management, respectively needs mechanization effectively. Almost all of the sugarcane grown in India is still harvested and detrashed the leaves by hand. In order to summarize past experience and promote the mechanization of sugarcane production in India, this paper reviews the whole process of developing mechanization since years and describes the current state of sugarcane mechanization in India. The mechanization used in all the operations is discussed in this study

Mobile communication in agriculture is an emerging field focusing on the empowerment of farming communities in India. It involves application of innovative ways to use Information & Communication Technologies in the rural domain. This advancement in telecommunication can be utilised for providing accurate, timely, relevant information and services to the farmers, thereby facilitating an environment for more remunerative agriculture. The present study has been conducted in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu with a sample of 200 farmers subscribing the SMS based agro advisories. The study revealed that per cent of farmers received pest management, disease management and weather forecasts /advisories. More than half (54.00 %) of the respondents received messages on daily basis and nearly two-thirds (61.00 %) of the respondents got the messages at morning time. This study indicates, to improve the farm production and productivity.

The present study aims to analyze the constraints faced by tribal women in participation of developmental programmes for their livelihood security and seek solution to overcome the constraints. The study was carried out in Salem, Namakkal and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu. Four villages were selected purposively from four identified blocks were that tribal women population residing more. Ex-post facto research design was used for this study. A sample size of 200 tribal women members were selected by using Proportionate Random Sampling (PRS) method. The data was collected through personal interview method. The results shows that about half of the tribal women reported that less job opportunities (45.00%) followed by lack of periodical trainings (40.00%) and lack of awareness about developmental programmes (35.00%). And major suggestions are create awareness about developmental programmes (58.50%) and create job opportunity for jobless tribal women (54.50%) respectively.