The Punjab state, is among the major bread providers over the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region with its dominant cropping system being Rice-wheat. Due to large scale adoption of combine harvesters by most of the farmers in the state, huge amount of crop residue is left behind which is subjected to open field burning; so as to catch the next season crop. The resulting smoke act as a serious human health hazard and also pose a major threat to environment over the adjoining cities like Delhi-NCR. In this study, the major focus is on extent analysis and mapping the rice residue burning in Barnala and Sangrur districts of Punjab state for the year 2017 using Sentinel-2 satellite data. A multi-temporal, pre and post burn, vegetation and burn indices-based threshold algorithm was used for estimating the rice crop and residue burnt area in ENVI 4.8 software. Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) toolbox and Sen2Cor processor was used for format and atmospheric correction, respectively. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and difference NBR (dNBR) approach on pre-defined threshold were used to categorize the pixels as crop, non-crop, burnt and unburnt. The results indicated that out of the total geographical area of 505’000 ha, 382.94’000 ha has been estimated under the rice crop in the year 2017-18. Further, 8.65 % and 59.38 % area was mapped as burnt on 20th October 2017 and 30th October 2017, respectively. It was also observed that a total of 68.08 % of total rice crop area got burnt till 30th October 2017. The study concluded that maximum residue burning events took place towards the end of October and starting of November in the study region.
The experiment was conducted using eight source populations comprised of F1s, F2s, landrace and composite genotype of both field corn and sweet corn and these genotypes were crossed as a female parent with CIMMYT bred tropicalized advance haploid inducer line possessing R1-nj colour marker gene. Based on the colour marker of endosperm as well as endosperm and embryo, the seeds were classified into contaminants, haploids and diploids. The haploid kernels were then categorized based on plumule coloration and no plumule colouration after in vitro germination. Plumule coloured seedlings were directly grown in the field by hypothesizing that these seedlings are similar to diploids but the confirmations were still needed. The remaining seedlings that did not have plumule colour were diploidized using colchicines (0.04%) after cutting shoot and root tips of the in vitro germinated seeds. The seedlings having colour on plumule exhibited differential segregation on kernels after selfing due to R1-nj background effect whereas seedlings without plumule colour showed significant haploid behaviour. The seedlings sorted from haploids after germination on the basis of plumule colour was highest in PSM-3 (22) followed by Landrace DL1 (19) whereas the misclassification percentage was highest of 25% in Landrace DL1 followed by PSM-3 (18%) and sweet corn F1 ’s (13%). The results therefore showed that second line of sorting using plumule colour in germinated seedlings has significant impact on reducing false doubled haploids and thereby increasing resource use efficiency in doubled haploid breeding program
The study was conducted at Instructional Dairy Farm, Nagla, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar in the Rabi season of 2021-22 to assess the ‘Effect of nano urea scheduling on fodder yield, quality and economics of multi cut fodder oat (Avena sativa L.)’. Nano urea scheduling had significant effect on growth attributes, fodder yield, quality and economics of multicut fodder oat. The results revealed that application of 125% RDN (75 kg N basal followed by top dressing of 37.5 kg N each at 1st and 2nd cut) had significantly higher growth attributes, green and dry fodder yield quality and also economics with 6.9, 6.6 and 10.3% higher green fodder yield, 8.1, 7.2 and 11.1% higher dry fodder yield and 10.2, 8.5 and 16.8% higher net returns than 125% RDN+NU, 100% RDN and 100% RDN+NU treatments, respectively, Among the vermicompost treatments, the GFY was 3.1 and 3.3% and DFY was 3.8 and 2.2% higher under 75%RDNVC+NU than 100% RDNVC and 50% RDNVC+NU, respectively. The B:C ratio was higher under 75% RDNVC+NU than 100% RDNVC. Alone application of nano urea either at 45 DAS or 20 and 40 DAS followed by its spray at 1st and 2nd cut had significantly higher values than control but lower than other treatments. The crude protein content and production followed the similar trend as found in case of GFY and net return. Therefore it is concluded that multicut oat may be grown with application of 100% RDN i.e., 120:60:40:: N:P2 05 :K2 0 kg/ha and for organic oat fodder, vermicompost may be applied @4.5 t/ha as basal followed by two spray with nano urea @ 4ml/l at 1st and 2nd cut for higher growth, foliage yield, quality and net profits in Tarai region of Northern Himalaya and may also be replicated in other oat growing regions of India.
Dendrocalamus hamiltonii one of the promising species of clumping bamboos is known for its root system which spreads vertically and holds the soil strongly, effective measure to prevent soil erosion as well to accumulate large quantities of carbon in terms of biomass. Estimation of above ground biomass of this species was conducted through multiple regression at Agriculture Research Station, Majhera situated in Nainital District of Uttarakhand, India. Results highlighted accumulation of 35.61 kg biomass per clump contributed by culm, branches and leaves on fresh weight basis. Above ground biomass on per culm basis was at par with the reports available but total number of culms produced per clump was less. An increase of 293.87 per cent was observed on dry weight basis in two years interval after the plantation was well acclimatized. Correlation matrix of growth parameters of small micropropagated plants showed positive correlation between length and weight of twigs, weight of leaves and leaf area index. However, weight of leaf and leaf area index showed strongly positive correlation.
Soil micronutrient availability as influenced by monosaccharide distribution and its relationship in some cultivated farm lands sown to arable crops in Nigeria were studied, the results indicated that soils in the study area ranged from moderately to slightly acidic (pH 5.63 – 6.83 with a mean value of 6.33) indicating slightly acidic, low in CEC (mean = 5.65 cmol/kg) and exchangeable bases. The available Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn in the soils studied were found to be below the critical ranges except for Fe which was above the range. This means that deficiency symptoms of these plant nutrients on crops grown on these soils are likely. Also, mean values of 1.71 (arabinose), 0.34 (Galatose), 0.07(Glucose), 0.73 (Mannose), 0.46 (Galatose + Mannose/Arabinose), 1.24 (Mannose/Xylose), 1.61 (Xylose/Arabinose), 0.67 (Xylose) were observed. These values decreased with depth and was dominated by arabinose contrary to high concentration of glucose reported in most soils. Variability in monosaccharide distribution in the study area suggests that they could be of different carbohydrate origins. Higher content of arabinose in the soils suggests that the carbohydrate could be of fresh plant tissue origin since it has been noted that arabinose is the dominant sugar in fresh plant tissue origin. The significant relationship between micronutrients and soil properties (clay, pH OC and Cations) in this study (P < 0.05) showed the importance of these properties in the availability of micronutrients
