Adolescent girls form a crucial segment of the population and constitute, as it were, the vital “bridge” between the present generation and the forthcoming generation. At present, the frequency of anemia among adolescent girls is on the hike in India mainly due to low socio-economic status and poor access to health-care services. Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is the most common type of nutritional anemia which affects people globally. Food plays a key role in the effective development of the body in order to maintain an individual’s health. The present study was undertaken to know the food intake pattern of anemic adolescent girls of Samastipur district, Bihar, India. The pattern of dietary intake and consumption of appropriate nutrients are essential elements for determining nutritional status. The findings indicated that the experimental adolescent girl’s adequacy level was lower than the control girl’s adequacy level while considering both food and nutrient intake.

Family farming constitutes that form of production, in which the ownership of the means of production and labor power co-exists in the same production unit, without a discrete division between capital and labor among family members. From a sociological perspective, family farming is associated with family values, such as solidarity, continuity and commitment; in economic terms, family farming is identified with specific entrepreneurial skills, business ownership and management. Hence to realize the full potential of family farmers in eradicating hunger and ensuring food security, an enabling policy environment is necessary. The state of Food and Agriculture 2014: “Innovation in family farming”, analysed family farms and their role in ensuring global food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. Hence, the year 2014 was designated as the “International Year of Family Farming” at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). NCEUS (2008) says that “some of the general challenges that confront small family farmers as agriculturalists are: absence of access to credit markets, smaller access to suitable extension services, restricting suitable decisions regarding cultivation practices, land and tenacy security, low level of formal education and skills, credit and indebtedness, globalization challenges and impact of climate changes. The topic entitled “Status of Family Farming Systems in Balasore district of Odisha” was conducted in the Balasore district of Odisha. This district was selected as Family farming practices was confined to this area under favourable agro- climatic condition. The results of this research study revealed that the acceptance of family farming was high in coastal blocks of the study area as compared to distant blocks of the district. There are six different family farming patterns were found in the study area. The majority of the farmers belonged to medium-type farmers and most of those were having dairy enterprises. Similarly, most of the farmers were having a number of domestic animals of their own and the majority of them practiced pisciculture as their secondary enterprise as a significant bulk of the farmers had a pond of their own and crop cultivation as their primary enterprise. Similarly, plantation and goatery had emerged as the majorly followed enterprises in the study area. This study definitely unfolded some significant areas in the field of status of family farming system which can be critically analysed and suitably streamlined by the scientists, planner and policymakers and also provides vital information about different primary and secondary agriculture & allied enterprises of the study area. It can be concluded from the study that, Status of family farming is quite stable and satisfactory in the study area and it can be added that, encouraging more families to take part in family farming has many benefits.

Water saving techniques in agriculture are gaining importance because of scarcity of water due to climate change and lower share of water for agriculture due to globalization. To overcome these challenges this research study was designed is to evaluate the effect of the partial root drying irrigation practice (PRD) and deficit irrigation (DI) practice on the, yield and water use efficiency of tomatoes (Shivam variety) grown under a greenhouse. The following irrigation treatments were formulated to study the effect of PRD and DI. The treatments were, partial root drying (PRD) at 75% and 50% crop evapotranspiration, ETc (PRD25 and PRD50, respectively), and deficit irrigation (DI) at 75% and 50% crop evapotranspiration, ETc (DI25 and DI50, respectively) and FULL Irrigation (FI). The PRD practice requires wetting oalf of the root zone and keeping the other half dry, consequently using less lied irrigation water. In successive irrigations, the wet and dry sides are alternated. The highest fruit yield was obtained under FULL irrigation (225 t ha-1).

Mutation breeding is a tool to strengthen the germplasm and is being exploited for crop improvement. Mutations for morphological, yield, and yield attributes were isolated from parent variety Bio902 using g-radiation and Ethyl Methane Sulphonate (EMS). Their morphological and molecular diversity analyses were performed. Morphological diversity was assessed using PCA analysis and the result revealed six principal components with Eigen values greater than one and altogether explained 74.34% of total accumulated variability. Varimax rotation was applied since the analysis without rotation of axes failed to load all the variables. The UPGMA-based cluster analysis showed the formation of 8 clusters. Thirty mutants were grouped in cluster VIII and this cluster did not contain any of the checks including Pusa bold and BIO 902 hence these mutants were diverse from the checks. For the molecular marker study, 20 SSR primers were used out of which eight primers showed polymorphism. The percent polymorphism varied from 66.67 to 100% with an average of 77%. Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) values ranged from 0.08 to 0.48 with an average of 0.34 per primer combination. Distance-based cluster analysis and dendrogram showed the presence of three major clades. The first clade consists of Bio902 along with five mutants derived from g-irradiation. The second clade consists of five mutant’s viz. ACNMM 23, ACNMM13, ACNMM 22, ACNMM 14, and ACNMM 7 without any checks, while the third clade consists of two genotypes viz. Kranti and ACNMM15. The findings of this study shall be useful in a breeding program to recombine desirable traits. Out of the 10 superior high-yielding mutants selected for molecular analysis, mutant ACNMM9 was similar to checks both in morphological as well as molecular studies. Mutants ACNMM 4, ACNMM 17, ACNMM 19, and ACNMM 15 were found in distinct clusters as of checks morphologically but in the same cluster as that of checks in molecular analysis.

The present study was carried out to evaluate natural farming and the performance of maize in comparison with inorganic and organic farming. The highest grain yield was recorded in the inorganic method, which was superior to organic and natural farming. In turn, organic farming was superior by 55 % to the natural farming method. Particularly, the grain yield of DHM 117 hybrid, in inorganic farming was 342 % higher than in Aswini variety whereas, it was 131, 176 percent higher in organic and natural farming methods, respectively. Similarly, stover yield in the inorganic method was 55 and 89 % higher than in organic and natural farming, respectively. The population of microbes (bacteria and fungi) in the organic method was significantly superior to inorganic and natural methods. Significantly higher urease and dehydrogenase activity was recorded in the organic method over inorganic and natural farming. Notably higher organic carbon content was left in the soil after maize crop in the organic method over the other methods, while pH and EC did not change due to farming methods or variety/hybrid. Higher, available N and K2O were recorded in inorganic farming while available P2O5 and Zn were higher in organic farming.

Field Studies on bird damage to the guava (Psidiumguajava) orchards were carried out in protected and unprotected conditions at Kongara Village of Ibrahimpatnammandal, Ranga Reddy District, Hyderabad,Telangana State. The Rose-ringed parakeets (Psittaculakrameri), and other bird pests were also observed in damaging the unprotected guava orchard. The orchard of 60 trees were was unprotected and damage caused due to bird pests was heavy and yield was recorded as very less (8kg/tree) and its total yield was 480 kg. Half part of the orchard(60 trees) 300 meters away from the main orchard were was protected by bird scarers, where damage was found negligible and its yield was 24kg/tree, and the total yield was 1440 kg. The damage due to birds pest during morning hours was 36.17%, and during evening hours 48.68% was observed under unprotected conditions. The yield of 60 trees of an unprotected orchard compared with the yield obtained from the 60 trees of a protected orchard and the cost -cost-benefit ratio was nearly 1:4.00.It is suggested that engaging bird scarers, wire netting or other eco-friendly methods must protect the orchards, particularly during the fruits ripening stage until the harvest of the crop.

The field experiment was conducted at Research Farm, Agricultural College, and Research Institute, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, during Kharif and Rabi seasons 2020-2021 to study various sources and fertilizers’ levels to influence deficit and excess water conditions on soil fertility, growth, yield and quality parameters like chlorophyll content, proline content of maize (Zea mays). The study revealed that excess and deficit water conditions in moisture regime irrigations at Irrigation water / Cumulative Pan Evaporation (IW/CPE) ratio of 1.0 along with nutrient management practices (N8) 125 % Soil Test Crop Response (STCR) – NPK soil application by 1 % foliar spray of micronutrient mixture. Significantly higher mean values of available nitrogen (225 kg ha-1), available phosphorous (20.81 kg ha-1 ), available potassium (351 kg ha-1 ), dry matter production (DMP) (16,404 kg ha-1 ), plant height (250 cm), quality parameters like chlorophyll content (55.24%), proline content (76 µg g-1) and yield (8,530 kg ha-1 ) and was comparable with IW/CPE ratio of 0.8, 0.6 along with others nutrient management practices at 100 % and 75 % STCR – NPK followed by foliar sprays 2 % NPK (19:19:19) and Pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs (PPFM) 1 %. Hence, under a normal water availability situation, irrigation at an IW/CPE ratio of 0.8 was good enough to produce a higher yield, while under deficit and excess water conditions, an IW/CPE ratio of 1.0 along with a 125 % STCR-NPK by foliar spray of micronutrient mixture of 1 % was suitable for obtaining optimum nutrient management for enhancing soil fertility, yield, growth and quality parameters of maize.

Jasmine cultivation is considered a quickly developing business in India. Jasmine is one of the oldest traditional flowers grown in India. It is infested by a number of insects and mite pests. Available scientific literature shows that not much information is available on insecticide usage pattern in jasmine. Hence, a region oriented study was undertaken to study the insecticide usage pattern of jasmine growers in Southern districts of Tamil Nadu, India. The results revealed that more than 50 percent of the farmers believed that jasmine budworm (100.00 %), blossom midge (73.33 %), red spider mite (66.67 %), and leaf webworm (63.33 %) are the notable important insect pests in jasmine. The major insect pests of jasmine warranting insecticide application in order of importance as perceived by the respondent farmers were, jasmine budworm (100.00 %) > blossom midge (73.33 %) > red spider mite (66.67 %) > leaf webworm (63.33 %) > thrips (50.00 %) and whitefly (30.00 %). The insecticides viz., cypermethrin 4 EC (100.00 %), imidacloprid 17.8 SL (88.95 %), fenpyroximate 5 EC (83.79 %), monocrotophos 36 WSC (83.14 %), and profenophos 50 EC (80.00 %) were the most applied insecticides on jasmine in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts of Tamil Nadu. High volume knapsack sprayer (40.69 %) was the widely used sprayer for spraying insecticides in the jasmine garden. Seventy-eight percent of the farmers relied solely on insecticide spray for the management of insect pests in jasmine and the rest of the farmers (23.66 %) were using panchagavya followed by neem product (15.03 %). The majority of the farmers (80.00 %) were not using surfactants along with insecticides. Jasmine growers mostly derived diagnostic advice and recommendation from Agro input dealer (42.87 %) which is located in nearby areas. Media like television (46.27 %), newspaper (31.70 %) and FM Radio (10.88 %) also provided pesticide recommendations to the jasmine farmers.

An experiment was conducted to explore the effect of shoot bending at different angles on the performance of the Hybrid Tea Rose cultivar ‘Minu Pearle’ for two consecutive years. From the study, a significant effect was observed in terms of vegetative traits as well as flowering characteristics. The cultivar performance was recorded to be superior with shoot bending at 30˚and 45˚angle in terms of vegetative traits and flower quality parameters such as shoot length, stalk length, flower diameter, self-life and vase life of flowers. Similarly, in terms of flowering traits (days to flower bud emergence, sepal reflex, and days to attain cup shape from the date of bending) earliest was recorded with shoot bending at a 30˚followed by45˚ angle, and the slowest flower development was obtained at 90˚ angle. A similar trend was also followed in terms of the number of flowers per plant in bent shoots. This is the first-ever report on the effect of shoot bending angles on roses and this practice can help in enhancing the production of a higher number of quality roses at the commercial level.

Crops grown in most soils in India suffer from deficiencies of one or more micronutrients, even though the soils often contain adequate total amounts of the respective elements. Of the 17 elements essential for plant growth, eight are micronutrients: boron (B), chlorine (CI), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), zinc (Zn), and nickel (Ni). The nature and extent of deficiencies vary with soil type, crop genotype, management, and agroecological situations. Among the various micronutirents zinc is a deficiency found in most area. Micronutrient deficiencies are now frequently observed in intensively grown cereals, oilseeds, pulses, and vegetable crops.Due to micronurinet the crop yield losses were observed by 9-35 %. Chelated micronutrinets have been found to increase nutrient utilization efficiency. The chelated fertilizer improves the bioavailability of micronutrients and in turn, contributes to the productivity and profitability of commercial crop production. Chelated fertilizers have a greater potential to increase commercial yield than regular micronutrients. Hence, inclusion of micronutrients in a balanced fertilization schedule would optimize micronutrient supply and availability throughout the entire food consumption cycle.