Eco-friendly Agro-biological Techniques for Enhancing Crop Productivity

285 Pages·2018·4.47 MB·English

by  Rakesh Singh Sengar

Rakesh Singh Sengar
Ashu Singh Editors
Eco-friendly
Agro-biological
Techniques for
Enhancing Crop
Productivity
Eco-friendly Agro-biological Techniques
for Enhancing Crop Productivity
Rakesh Singh Sengar • Ashu Singh
Editors
Eco-friendly
Agro-biological
Techniques for Enhancing
Crop Productivity
Editors
Rakesh Singh Sengar Ashu Singh
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology Department of Agricultural Biotechnology
College of Agriculture College of Agriculture
S.V.P University of Agriculture S.V.P University of Agriculture
& Technology & Technology
Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
ISBN 978-981-10-6933-8 ISBN 978-981-10-6934-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6934-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934387
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Contents
Organic Agriculture: Techniques to Improve Crop Production . . . . . . . . . 1
Somasundaram Eagan and Udhaya Nandhini Dhandayuthapani
Recent Biotechnological Approaches to Produce Climate-Ready
Crops and Enhancing Crop Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Gourav Kumar, Gopal Kumar Prajapati, Amar Nath Mishra,
and Dev Mani Pandey
Bioformulation and Fluid Bed Drying: A New Approach
Towards an Improved Biofertilizer Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Pramod Kumar Sahu, Amrita Gupta, Megha Singh, Priyam Mehrotra,
and G. P. Brahmaprakash
Analysis of Chlorophyll Fluorescence: A Reliable Technique
in Determination of Stress on Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
M. K. Adak
The LISA and SOCRATEES© Approach for Sustainable
Crop and Soil Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Athanasios C. Gertsis and Christos Vasilikiotis
Integrated Farming Systems for Sustainable Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
N. A. Dar, Bilal Ahmad Lone, B. A. Alaie, Z. A. Dar, Gulzafar,
F. A. Bahar, S. A. Haque, and K. N. Singh
Resource-Conserving Technologies for Enhancing Resource
Use Efficiency and Crop Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Hari Ram, Balwinder Kumar, Navneet Aggarwal,
and Jashanjot Kaur
Biotechnological Tools for Enhancing Abiotic Stress
Tolerance in Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Amit Kumar, Rakesh Singh Sengar, Ashu Singh, Rekha Dixit,
and Raj Singh
v
vi Contents
Bioengineering of DREB and NAC Transcriptional Factors
for Enhanced Plant Tolerance Against Abiotic Stresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Manoj K. Sharma, Ashu Singh, and Rakesh Singh Sengar
Perspectives in High-Throughput Phenotyping of Qualitative
Traits at the Whole-Plant Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Oksana Sytar, Marek Zivcak, Katarina Olsovska, and Marian Brestic
An Overview of QTL Identification and Marker-Assisted
Selection for Grain Protein Content in Wheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Ajay Kumar, Shalu Jain, Elias M. Elias, Mohamed Ibrahim,
and Lakesh K. Sharma
Statistical Data Analysis Tools: Software Prospects for Crop
Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Sunil Kumar, A. S. Panwar, Sudhir Kumar, M. Shamim,
and Dushyant Mishra
About the Editors
R. S. Sengar the author of the book is Professor and Head, Department of
Agriculture Biotechnology, College of Agriculture in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut. Dr. Sengar has 24 years of teach-
ing, research, and extension experience to his credit. He remained associated with the
teaching for a period of about 10 years at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and
Technology, Pantnagar, U.S. Nagar (Uttarakhand). Prof. Sengar possesses a career of
leadership in improving agrarian livelihood, food, nutrition, and ecological security
in cutting-edge research and technology development, in higher education and
human resources development, and in policy and program formulation, execution,
and appraisal, each pursued in national and global capacities. He has supervised 11
Ph.D. students and published more than 98 research papers in Indian and foreign
journals of repute. Dr. Sengar contributed more than 115 abstracts/papers to differ-
ent conferences/symposiums/workshop organized at national and international
forums. He also participated in several international programs and seminar/confer-
ences as chairperson of technical sessions, group leader, invited speaker, and dele-
gate. He has published 885 popular articles in Hindi and English languages in
important journals and magazines. He has also published 11 books for scientific
community and farmers. Dr. Sengar has delivered more than 205 talks at All India
Radio and Television at Delhi, Lucknow, Rampur, and Bareilly centers. Dr. Sengar
is life member of several professional societies. He is a member of editorial boards
and review committees of few journals. He has been the principal and co-investiga-
tor of 10 projects financed by various government departments, while he has honor
of mentorship of two national projects under Department of Science and Technology,
Government of India, and has a wide exposure to international programs and also in
handling international projects. He has widely traveled and has visited United
Kingdom, Nepal, and Dubai under various programs. Dr. Sengar is the recipient of
the “Best Writer” Award from Vishwa Agro Marketing and Communication, Kota,
Rajasthan; “Kunwar Saxena Bahadur SRDA” Award from Society for Recent
Development in Agriculture, Meerut; “Man of the Year” and “Research Board of
Advisors” Awards from American Biographical Institute, Inc. USA; and “Aryabhat”
Award from Vigyan Bharti, New Delhi. Dr. Sengar has also received Gold Medal
2011 from Hi-tech Horticulture Society, Meerut; Dr. J.C. Edward Medal 2012 from
Bioved Research Society, Allahabad; “Scientist of the Year – 2013” from The
vii
viii About the Editors
Academy of Environmental Biology, Lucknow; Life Time Achievement Award –
2014 from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar National Institute of Social Sciences,
Dr. Ambedkar Nagar (Mhow), Madhya Pradesh; Dr. R.B. Lal Vishisht Sikshak
Puruskar – 2015 from Uttar Pradesh Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lucknow;
Farm and Food Award – 2016 from Farm and Food, New Delhi; and Young Achiever
Award – 2016 from Society of Plant Research, Bareilly. He is fellow of the Society
of Plant Research, Bareilly; Society for Recent Development in Agriculture, Meerut;
Gramin Vikas Avam Siksha Prasar Samiti, Agra; and Technical Society for Basic
and Allied Sciences, New Delhi. Dr. Sengar has made significant contributions in
the fields of plant physiology, biotechnology, and crop production and management
systems besides providing leadership in shaping up national level research institu-
tions and agricultural universities. Dr. Sengar has assisted several developing coun-
tries in enhancing their human resource, research and technology development
capacities, and in augmenting productivity, sustainability to enhance farmer’s
income and alleviate hunger and poverty crises.
Ashu Singh was born in Allahabad, India. She received the B.Tech. degree in
Genetic Engineering from the Allahabad Agricultural Deemed University,
Allahabad, India, in 2008, and the M.Tech. degree in Biotechnology Engineering
from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology (State
Agriculture University) Modipuram, Meerut, in 2011. In 2013, she joined the
Department of Agriculture Biotechnology, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of
Agriculture and Technology (State Agriculture University) Modipuram, Meerut, as
a Women Scientist (WOS-A). Since April 2013, she has been with the Department
of Agriculture Biotechnology, College of Agriculture, where she is working on vari-
etal improvement of aromatic rice. Her current research interests include molecular
characterization and gene mapping of salinity and drought resistance of aroma rice
(Oryza sativa L.). Miss Singh is a National Woman Scientist Fellow of the
Department of Science and Technology New Delhi, India. She has a long experi-
ence of eight trainings of more than 3 months at different reputed institutes and
research laboratories with technical expertise in molecular breeding and also has
made significant contribution in the vast arena of stress physiology, biotechnology,
and basmati rice production while exploring the applicability of research in enhanc-
ing productivity. She also holds Diploma in “Industry Programme in Bioinformatics”
(BII, Noida). She has submitted research study on “Importance of Protein Folding
for Protein Structure.” Apart from this she is also an Associate Editor at Biotech
Today journal published under the Society of Green World for Sustainable
Environment along with being an active reviewer of many reputed journals. Miss
Singh contributed 12 research papers in reputed indexed journals worldwide and
attended several conferences/symposiums/workshops organized at national and
international forums.
Organic Agriculture: Techniques
to Improve Crop Production
Somasundaram Eagan and Udhaya
Nandhini Dhandayuthapani
Abstract
Global awareness of health and environmental issues is increasing in recent years,
and there is a growing demand for organically grown food products worldwide. We
are also convinced that modern agriculture may not be able to meet the require-
ments of the ever-increasing population in the future. So, we are searching for
alternative technologies. Several alternatives have been proposed such as low
external input agriculture, sustainable agriculture, organic farming, biodynamic
farming, etc. However, they require, sometimes, little or considerable external
inputs whose availability may be uncertain in the future. Hence for the developing
countries, other alternatives, viz. traditional methods, have special advantages over
modern agricultural techniques. For centuries, farmers have planned agricultural
production and conserved natural resources by adopting indigenous knowledge.
Indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) has immense potential for innovation, espe-
cially at the grassroots level. India is a country populated by a number of indige-
nous communities, most of which have their own set of unique traditional
knowledge and technology base. Also the capital and technological skill require-
ments in the use of traditional technologies are generally low, and their adoption
often requires little restructure of the traditional societies. The traditional technolo-
gies are nothing but indigenous technical knowledge. By adopting such indigenous
knowledge, our ancestors did not face any problem of large-scale pest outbreak or
economic crisis unlike today’s farmers. Energy crisis, higher fertilizer cost, sus-
tainability in agriproduction system and ecological stability are the important
issues which renewed the interest of farmers and research workers to opt for non-
chemical sources of plant nutrients like bio-fertilizers, Azolla and organic manures,
viz. farmyard manure, vermicompost, poultry manure and green manure.
S. Eagan (*) · U. N. Dhandayuthapani
Department of Sustainable Organic Agriculture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 1
R. S. Sengar, A. Singh (eds.), Eco-friendly Agro-biological Techniques
for Enhancing Crop Productivity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6934-5_1
2 S. Eagan and U. N. Dhandayuthapani
Keywords
Environmental issues · Modern agriculture · Indigenous technical knowledge ·
Economic crisis and Organic farming
1 Introduction
Recently, pollution has drawn lot of attention at local and international level as well,
and it was well documented that chemicals used in agriculture are the main sources
of soil and water pollution. Presently the farming situation urges need to develop
farming techniques, which are sustainable from environmental, production and
socio-economic points of view. Modern agricultural production throughout the
world does not appear to be sustainable in the long run. Sustainable agricultural
development refers to a range of strategies for addressing many problems that affect
agriculture. A sustainable agriculture is a system of agriculture that is committed to
maintain and preserve the agriculture base of soil, water and atmosphere ensuring
future generations the capacity to feed themselves with an adequate supply of safe
and wholesome food. Such sustainable development in the agriculture, forestry and
fishery sectors conserves land, water, plant and animal genetic resources and is
environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and
socially acceptable. Such concerns imparted a way to organic farming. It is the need
of the day to understand the prospects and problems of organic farming to launch a
successful and flawless organic production programme in the farm environment.
India over several millenniums has been the treasure of biological wealth, intel-
lectual knowledge and spiritual wisdom. During both pre- and post-Vedic periods,
arts, science and technology had flourished well in various fields. Indian agriculture
to some extent is much traditional and dates back to about 10,000 years. The tradi-
tional practices or grassroots technologies are low cost, easy to adopt as they depend
on local resources and often not polluting the environment and food chain system.
Through the long path from primitive agriculture to the modern farming, people
have developed a number of farming techniques through their own age-old
experiments by trial and error in their attempt to overcome numerous problems
faced during the farming operations. This knowledge is based on many generations
of insight gained through close interaction within the natural and physical micro-
environments (Kolawole 2001). Derived from experience gained over the centuries
and adopted to the local culture and environment, traditional knowledge is
transmitted orally from generation to generation. It is derived in the form of stories,
songs, folklores, proverbs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local
language and agricultural practices, including the development of plant species and
animal breeds. It is the basis for local-level decision in agriculture, health care, food
preparation, education, natural resource management and a host of their activities in
rural communities (Warren 1993). Indigenous knowledge is the information base
for a society, which facilitates communication and decision-making. Indigenous
information systems are dynamic and are continually influenced by internal creativ-
ity and experimentation as well as by contact with external systems.