S. Previna — новинки

Maize is one of the most important cereal crops in the World’s agricultural economy both as food for humans and feed for animals and poultry. Maize is known as “Queen of Cereals” due to its higher yield potential compared to other cereals. In India it is the third most important food crop after rice and wheat. The demand for maize is increasing day by day in India, owing to the increased demand for poultry and cattle feed and for the same reason it is also emerging as an important cereal crop in India. In crop plants, the physiological basis of dry matter production is dependent on the source-sink concept, where the source is the potential capacity for photosynthesis and the sink is the potential capacity to utilize the photosynthetic products. Hence, for improving attainable crop yields the knowledge of yield forming physiological processes such as source-sink relationships is required. Many studies have been conducted on source-sink relationship in different crops including maize to understand this phenomenon towards maneuvering such crops. Since, maize being the sink limiting crop, it is important to study the source-sink relationship to improve the sink capacity and maize yield

Distribution of sulphur forms and their interrelationship with soil characteristics decides sulphur supplying power of soils by governing its release and dynamics in the soil. Wider sulphur deficiencies had been reported from large areas, in soils varying in soil reaction, terrain texture and organic matter content. The relative abundance of the sulphur pools in soils depends upon the physical and chemical properties. With emphasis on alleviating sulphur deficiency in soils of Chitradurga district the soils were characterized for various physical and chemical properties and sulphur fractions. Two experiments were undertaken during 2011-12 and 2012-13 in soils of this region to study the effect of sources and levels of sulphur on sunflower and groundnut. The details of research work and results are summarized in this text book. This research work was carried out at University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore and three gold medals were awarded for this research work.

The introduction of Green Revolution Agriculture(GRA)had paved the way for attaining self sufficiency in India, with respect to its food production. Major important component of GRA for increasing production is irrigation. Due to GRA, the ground water resources are exploited all over the country almost to its maximum potential.The combination of two major sectors (Agriculrure and Industries) in utilizing the ground waters of Pondicherry region had resulted in the salinization of water causing huge problems both for agriculture and industries. Further investigations had shown that the crops were affected by hydrogen sulphide injury, which has resulted due to irrigating with sulphate rich water and submergence for a longer period of time. The source of sulphate in the ground waters was identified to be the sea water which has intruded into the ground water due to over exploitation of ground water aquifers. Keeping all the these points in mind, Agro - Ecologically sustainable management practices are demonstrated in this text book to mitigate the poor quality of ground water as well as to reclaim the sulphate rich soils in the rice bowl region of coastal Agro Ecosystems.

Sugarcane producing countries running sugar industries and apart from the sugar and alcohol, these factories generate many by-products and waste materials like solid waste (press mud), molasses and bagasse. The effluent in distillery industry plays a prime role in bridging the gap between the depletion and repletion by its inherent potential of high organic carbon and nutrient contents. Although the distillery effluent utilization in agriculture has augmented the crop yields, its unscientific and unsystematic use causes degradation of land and the environment. To harmless its full manurial potential, there is a recommendation of one time land application and distillery effluent through irrigation water as a source of plant nutrients for sugarcane crop and also to sustain the soil health. Thus, wherever there is uncontrolled discharge of distillery effluent, the environment is aesthetically unpleasant. Scientific utilization of distillery effluent in agriculture would save costs on fertilizers and facilitate reduction in pollution load on the environment and also improve the overall soil health.

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is the oldest oilseed crop known and cultivated by man. Among the oilseed crops, sesame ranks first for having the highest oil content of 46-64 per cent and 6355 K cal per kg dietary energy in seeds. The seed of sesame is also rich in protein (20-28 %), sugar (14-16 %) and minerals (5-7 %).The specific reasons identified for the low yield of sesame in India is due to its cultivation under sub-marginal lands without due importance to the choice of appropriate season, high yielding variety, nutrient management and new agro-technological packages. One way of increasing the productivity in sesame is by increasing the number of branches leading to increase in total number of capsules per plant. Maintaining the plant population also plays a vital role in realizing the yield potential of sesame. Possibility of cultivation of sesame in summer season under irrigated condition wherever supplemental water resource is available had not been tried or practiced by the farmers of this region. Therefore, selection of suitable variety, time of sowing, appropriate geometry and agronomic technologies are importance for increasing the productivity of sesame in this region.

Maize is the third most important crop in the world agricultural economy after wheat and rice with an area of 168.26 million hectares with a production of 854.59 million tonnes with average productivity of 5120 kg / ha. Weed management in maize is carried out by manual, mechanical and chemical methods, among which chemical method is the most economical and effective tool to suppress weeds in order to get healthy crop stand and good yield. Advancement in biotechnological research enables genetic engineering to enhance production and minimize crop yield losses through development of crops that are tolerant to insects and herbicides. Genetically modified crops are the most rapidly adopted technology in agricultural history due to the social and economic benefits. Major yield reducing factors for maize cultivation are weeds and insects. Transgenic corn hybrids with stacked event (TC1507 X NK603) were developed for preventing yield losses of corn and improve the productivity. The stacked product having both insect protection and herbicide tolerant traits will provide protection to the crop against target pests and also provide effective weed management system to farmers.