Flowering.

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-202
Author(s):  
Shu-Yen Lin ◽  
Po-An Chen

Abstract This chapter covers the various factors affecting the transformation of vegetative growth to reproductive phase of guava trees, and the phenology, anthesis and pollination in guava. The agricultural practices for regulating crop production are also discussed.

Author(s):  
Hasrat Arjjumend ◽  
Konstantia Koutouki ◽  
Olga Donets

The use of unsustainable levels of chemical fertilizers and plant protection chemicals has resulted in a steady decline in soil and crop productivity the world over. Soil biology has undergone irreversible damage, coupled with a high concentration of toxic chemical residues in plant tissues and human bodies. Agricultural practices must evolve to sustainably meet the growing global demand for food without irreversibly damaging soil. Microbial biocontrol agents have tremendous potential to bring sustainability to agriculture in a way that is safe for the environment. Biopesticides do not kill non-target insects, and biosafety is ensured because biopesticides act as antidotes and do not lead to chemical contamination in the soil. This article is part of a larger study conducted in Ukraine by researchers at the Université de Montréal with the support of Mitacs and Earth Alive Clean Technologies. The responses of farmers who use biofertilizers (“user farmers”) and those who do not (“non-user farmers”), along with the responses of manufacturers or suppliers of biofertilizers, and research and development (R&D) scientists are captured to demonstrate the advantages of applying microbial biopesticides to field crops. Participants reported a 15-30% increase in yields and crop production after the application of biopesticides. With the use of biopesticides, farmers cultivated better quality fruits, grains, and tubers with a longer shelf life. Moreover, while the risk of crop loss remains high (60-70%) with chemically grown crops, this risk is reduced to 33% on average if crops are grown using biopesticides. The findings indicate that a large proportion of farmers would prefer to use biopesticides if they are effective and high quality products. In this context, the quality and effectiveness of products is therefore very important. Despite their benefits to soil, human health, and ecosystems, biopesticides face significant challenges and competition vis-à-vis synthetic pesticides for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the development of biopesticides must overcome the problems of poor quality products, short shelf life, delayed action, high market costs, and legal/registration issues.


Fermentation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Michele Sellitto ◽  
Severino Zara ◽  
Fabio Fracchetti ◽  
Vittorio Capozzi ◽  
Tiziana Nardi

From a ‘farm to fork’ perspective, there are several phases in the production chain of fruits and vegetables in which undesired microbial contaminations can attack foodstuff. In managing these diseases, harvest is a crucial point for shifting the intervention criteria. While in preharvest, pest management consists of tailored agricultural practices, in postharvest, the contaminations are treated using specific (bio)technological approaches (physical, chemical, biological). Some issues connect the ‘pre’ and ‘post’, aligning some problems and possible solution. The colonisation of undesired microorganisms in preharvest can affect the postharvest quality, influencing crop production, yield and storage. Postharvest practices can ‘amplify’ the contamination, favouring microbial spread and provoking injures of the product, which can sustain microbial growth. In this context, microbial biocontrol is a biological strategy receiving increasing interest as sustainable innovation. Microbial-based biotools can find application both to control plant diseases and to reduce contaminations on the product, and therefore, can be considered biocontrol solutions in preharvest or in postharvest. Numerous microbial antagonists (fungi, yeasts and bacteria) can be used in the field and during storage, as reported by laboratory and industrial-scale studies. This review aims to examine the main microbial-based tools potentially representing sustainable bioprotective biotechnologies, focusing on the biotools that overtake the boundaries between pre- and postharvest applications protecting quality against microbial decay.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 3634-3648
Author(s):  
Erika Koppányné Szabó ◽  
Krisztina Takács

By 2050, 9.8 billion people are projected to live on Earth, which means that we need to double our current food production to keep pace with such a large population increase. In addition, rising greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate change are placing a significant strain on the planet’s ability to sustain itself. However, in order to increase the quantity of proteins of plant origin, it is necessary to increase crop production areas, harvesting frequencies and the quantity of crops produced. Unfortunately, the optimization of these factors is already very close to the available maximum in the current situation. The developed cultivation systems and maximum utilization of the soil power leads to very serious environmental problems, soil destruction, loss of biodiversity and serious environmental pollution through the transport of the produced plant raw materials. This poses a serious challenge to food security and further increases the risk of hunger. There is therefore a need for agricultural practices that can lead to the cultivation of food and feed crops that have better sustainability indicators and are more resilient to climate change, which can be used to safely produce health-promoting feeds, as well as novel and value-added foods. Within this group, a particular problem is presented by the protein supply of the population, as currently about one billion people do not have adequate protein intake. However, conventional protein sources are not sufficient to meet growing protein needs. As mentioned above, food and feed proteins are based on plant proteins. In recent years, a prominent role has been played by the research into alternative proteins and the mapping of their positive and negative properties. Among alternative proteins, special attention has been paid to various yeasts, fungi, bacteria, algae, singe cell proteins (SCPs) and insects. In this paper, we focus on the presentation of algae, particularly microalgae, which are of paramount importance not only because of their significant protein content and favorable amino acid composition, but also because they are also sources of many valuable molecules, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, pigments, antioxidants, drugs and other biologically active compounds. It is important to learn about microalgae biomass in order to be able to develop innovative health food products.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-544
Author(s):  
A. Khanal

Plant nutrient is one of the limiting factors affecting crop production. Nitrogen and boron are major nutrients in case of broccoli. So, an experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of nitrogen and boron in seed yield and yield attributing characters of broccoli in Rampur, Chitwan during winter season. The experiment was laid out in factorial RCBD design with four levels of nitrogen and two levels of boron. Each plot consists of 25 plants which were separated by 60 * 60 cm spacing. There are altogether eight treatments replicates thrice. Local variety Calabrese was used.  Significant effect of different dose of nitrogen and boron on yield attributing characters was found. Also interactive effect of nitrogen and boron in number of pods, pod length, seed yield and number of seeds per pod was found significantly different.Int J Appl Sci Biotechnol, Vol 3(3): 541-544


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Anna Mae M. de los Reyes ◽  
Eureka Teresa M. Ocampo ◽  
Ma. Carmina C. Manuel ◽  
Bernadette C. Mendoza

Each plant species is regarded to substantially influence and thus, select for specific rhizosphere microbial populations. This is considered in the exploitation of soil microbial diversity associated with important crops, which has been of interest in modern agricultural practices for sustainable productivity. This study used PCR-DGGE (polymerase chain reaction - denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) in order to obtain an initial assessment of the bacterial and fungal communities associated in bulk soil and rhizospheres of different mungbean genotypes under natural field conditions. Integrated use of multivariate analysis and diversity index showed plant growth stage as the primary driver of community shifts in both microbial groups while rhizosphere effect was found to be less discrete in fungal communities. On the other hand, genotype effect was not discerned but not inferred to be absent due to possible lack of manifestations of differences among genotypes based on tolerance to drought under non-stressed environment, and due to detection limits of DGGE. Sequence analysis of prominent members further revealed that Bacillus and Arthrobacter species were dominant in bacterial communities whereas members of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were common in fungal communities of mungbean. Overall, fungal communities had higher estimated diversity and composition heterogeneity, and were more dynamic under plant growth influence, rhizosphere effect and natural environmental conditions during mungbean growth in upland field. These primary evaluations are prerequisite to understanding the interactions between plant and rhizosphere microorganisms with the intention of employing their potential use for sustainable crop production.


2021 ◽  
pp. bs202103
Author(s):  
Yachana Jha

Applications of synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides lead to several environmental hazards, causing damages to entire ecosystem. To reduce damage caused by such chemical inputs in agriculture and environment required a serious attention for replacement of chemicals input with eco-friendly options. In this study decaying macrophytes were selected as an option for organic agriculture, by analyzing its ability to provide important mineral nutrient to the maize crop grown in low nutrient soil as well as for providing resistant towards many common phyto-pathogens to enhance yield. The results of the study showed that decaying macrophytes have high concentration of stored important mineral nutrient in their body mass, which get released in the soil during its decay and to be used by the maize plant. The decaying macrophytes leaf extract have considerable amount of phenolic and flavonoids also having antimicrobial activity. The antimicrobial activity of the leaf extract has been analyzed against the common phyto-pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa , and S. aureus by agar disc method and the formation of clear zone indicate its potential as bio-control agent. So under intensive agricultural practices, application of such biological waste is of particular importance for enhancing soil fertility without chemical input, to ensure sustainable agriculture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 08009
Author(s):  
N.V. Stepnykh ◽  
S.D. Gilev ◽  
E.V. Nesterova ◽  
A.M. Zargaryan ◽  
S.A. Kopylova

Modern agriculture is characterized by a variety of technologies associated with a multivariance of means of production. Due to the fact that the forces of scientific organizations do not allow to study most of the innovations in agriculture, the analysis of the effectiveness of technologies is possible directly in agricultural enterprises, where a large amount of agronomic and economic information obtained in the specific conditions of the introduction of agricultural practices is accumulated. The purpose of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of modern technologies for growing grain crops according to accounting and agronomic reports of agricultural enterprises of the Kurgan region. The methods of monographic, mathematical, and statistical analysis of data from literary sources, annual reports of agricultural enterprises of the region, as well as data from production fields of the Kurgan Research Institute of Agricultural Sciences were used. The results of the study showed the possibility of obtaining high results in crop production due to different methods of tillage (with and without surface tillage), the use of optimal doses of fertilizers. The reserves of profitability growth are associated with a more accurate use of resources, which is possible when considering the data of each field, thanks to the maintenance of electronic books of the field history, as a variant of a digital management tool in crop production.


2020 ◽  
pp. 12-19
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Chesnokov

Modern crop cultivation technologies have reached the limits of “saturation” both in the ecological (environmental pollution, suppression of the mechanisms of its self-regulation), energy (exponential growth of irreplaceable energy costs for each additional unit of production), and in production. In this regard, environmental factors (air drought, frosts, active temperatures, etc.), which cannot be optimized, are becoming increasingly important in ensuring a steady increase in the yield of cultivated plant forms. In recent decades, more and more attention has been paid to technogenic and biological systems of agriculture, based on the ecologization and biologization of the intensification processes of adaptive crop production. Such approaches are the precision agriculture system (PA) and QTL analysis. Using these approaches allows not only to ensure a steady increase in productivity due to the combined use of the advantages of precision farming and molecular genetic assessment, including the creation of new forms and varieties that are responsive to РА agricultural practices, but also to level the negative impact of abiotic and biotic environmental factors that limit the size and quality of the crop as well as plant productivity. It is shown that the strategy of adaptive intensification of crop production through the use of the TK system and QTL analysis approaches is not alternative to existing farming systems, however, it focuses modern agriculture on the growth of knowledge-intensive agricultural production as a whole. An analysis of the causes under consideration, the current unfavorable trends in modern crop production and agriculture, clearly shows their scale and long-term nature, and therefore the inevitability of the search for new priorities for intensification of crop production and agriculture, providing a qualitatively new stage of their development in the interests of man.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 01-08
Author(s):  
R. Lalthankhumi ◽  
Joseph Lalmalsawma

Agriculture constitutes one of the major sources of income among the people of Mizoram. The areas used for cultivation in Mizoram are usually slashed and burnt down to ashes and are abandoned for years, the land is used and the same plot is re-use after 3-5 years. More than half of the total population is either directly or indirectly involved in agriculture. However, the income from agriculture is less than 5% of the State Gross Domestic Product (State Economic Report, 2015). In the last few decades Mizoram witnessed several changes in agriculture pattern as many farmers have been shifting from cultivation to small- scale agricultural farming. This paper highlights the transformation of agricultural practices and the major factors affecting agricultural production and attempt is made to examine the prevailing socio- economic aspects associated with farmers with special reference to Lawngtlai Rural Development Block and a questionnaire method was used for collecting relevant information for the purpose. The research found that there exist major transformations of agricultural practices in the last couple of decades. The cycle of shifting agriculture period has been shortened drastically. It is also revealed that farmers are gradually adopting settled farming from shifting agriculture and that government intervention and assistance has been increasing more and more in this field. It is suggested that agricultural practice be transformed from jhuming to settled farming and from cultivating the traditional crops to cash crops with governmental and institutional support for shifting to higher income in agricultural and horticultural crops.


Author(s):  
Md. Abdul Awal

The landmasses of the coastal areas of Bangladesh still remains under-utilized, thus cropping intensity is much less than the national average. Most areas remain fallow during dry (rabi) season from December to May due to presence of higher concentration of salts in soil and water, and scarcity of suitable irrigation water. Available adaptation options or technologies are not capable to solve these problems at all. Nevertheless, the areas receive a lot of water from monsoon rain, most of that rainwater is drain-out as surface runoff. The present study results suggest that the use of harvested rainwater and conservation agriculture either in combination or alone could mitigate the problem for bringing huge areas under crop cultivation. The public social safety net programmes such as cash-for-work, food-for-work etc. can be deployed for excavating or re-excavating the abandoned coastal ponds, ditches or canals for storing rainwater. Salt-, drought- and/or heat-tolerant crop varieties with short life span can also be cultivated to get the better results. Early plantation or growing crops with early-maturing varieties can ensure safer harvest in ahead of stress arrives. The avenues have immense potential as climate-smart practices for growing crops preferably non-rice crops during dry season in vast fallow land that will not only ensure food security for coastal people but could turn the entire southern Bangladesh as a food surplus zone. The findings refer the broad recommendation, therefore, specific research works based on the locations and resources available are necessary.


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