Cutting-edge Research in Agricultural Sciences Vol. 13

The objective of this study is to understand the role and responsibilities of NGOs in the formation and implementation of FPOs and way forward for the success of FPOs. NGOs are more competent at facilitating farmers to learn from their own experience, they knowthe real situation at field level because they maintain closer contact with them. In Andhra Pradesh the promoting and facilitating agencies are taking joint responsibility for implementation of FPOs. NABARD, Department of Agriculture and ICRISAT etc. are working as promoting agencies, while NGOs are acting as facilitating agencies or Resource institutes for some period of time. NGOs are good at community mobilization with immense response. Local, capable and reputed NGOs having been promoted several FPOs. The role of NGO as facilitating agency is mobilization of farmers, community will, participation, help in registration of the FPO, leadership development, responsibility for management, self -governance, compliance and reports to the Government. Some of the NGOs like Rashtriya Seva Samithi (RASS), Accion Fraterna (AF-Ecology), FES, APMAS (Mahila Abhivruddhi Society, Andhra Pradesh), AAA, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, are some of the facilitating or resource institution involved in the promotion of FPOs in Andhra Pradesh state. The NGOs are normally having social mobilizing skills, but they lack business development, supply chain and marketing skills which are critical for success of FPOs as a business entity. Hence, NGOs must have a clear exit plan for sustainable and profitable FPOs before termination of their tenure; otherwise the future of FPO might be non – futuristic.

Planning local community development is an important process in order to increase the decentralization process in Cameroon. The involvement of the population is important so that their real needs can be found in the local plan.   However, participation of the population is not really massive especially in non- centralized societies. The purpose of this research is to identify factors that can influence an individual's participation in the materialisation of the planning process at the village level. A structured pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from 108 respondents in the Bonalea and Dibamba councils. To determine the characteristics that can influence their participation in the planning process, binary logistic regression was employed. The findings reveal that an individual's implication is influenced by his or her affiliation (membership) with a farmer's group as well as his or her knowledge of the program's activities. This suggests that the government should increase sensitization or awareness creation about the program's activities and the benefits of being a member of a farmer's organisation. The family's origins influenced their participation. A non-native of a locality does not consider it important to participate in any development process in their host locality, implying the need for the government to implement a special plan for non-indigenes in localities, such as refugees.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of different concentration of copper on growth and development of MUSA ACUMINATA cv. Bantala grown IN VITRO. Copper (Cu) is an essential transition metal that is involved in many physiological processes in plants, because it can exist in multiple oxidation states in vitro. The results showed that 1.0 µM copper stimulated root induction, elongation and shoot growth when compared with the control (0.1 µM copper). In addition, higher level of copper (100 µM) has toxic effect on banana leaves with regard to stunted growth, curling leaf and complete inhibition of root formation. Copper exposure increased photosynthetic pigment contents, decreased carbohydrates and protein contents at 100 µM of copper. This investigation will help to estimate the copper tolerant plants for phyoremediation programme.

Vegetable production is influenced by a large number of factors including soil, climate, markets and availability of water. In this study, the information such as biographical information of the vegetable farmers, information about the vegetable gardens or farms, the current vegetable farming practices, irrigation practices on the vegetable soil and the farmers’ physical and financial records were assessed. The assessment was conducted through interviews and questionnaires. Seventy three point three percent of the farmers’ respondents farm on communal land whereas 33.3% of the respondents are farming on land size of two to four hectares. A model was developed to reflect the process vegetable farmers must follow when acquiring communal land from the Chief for vegetable production. Sixty six point seven percent plough the garden soil to the depth of 30 cm. Of the twenty-eight respondents, 85.7% are planting in seedbeds while the rest are planting on ordinary rows without seedbeds. The findings of this study will guide vegetables farmers towards best practices on vegetable production.

A reliable management policy must begin with a thorough understanding of the available resources. Soil is an important natural nonrenewable resource that serves as a vital medium for all other species. Having comprehensive soil parameters in digital format can aid better management by allowing for better crop allocation and the application of necessary nutrients to each crop. Soil is a three dimensional body with properties that reflect the impact of climate, vegetation, fauna, man and topography on soil's parent material over a variable time span.  Furthermore, soil digital information will support sustainable Land use by allowing crops to be distributed based on soil fertility, saving money, effort, and time during the production cycle. There are numerous tools available; Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are two of the most essential instruments utilised in the production of digital spatial soil information supplemented by rigorous field work. Landsat TM and ASTER images were utilised to create a land unit base map that was later used in field work.During the field survey, at least one soil profile was obtained for each land unit, for a total of 317 soil profiles (horizons were described, photographed, and sample were collected). Field observations, such as morphology and vegetation type, have been used to modify land units.

As a result, a full digital soil map for the research area (Larache, Morocco) was created, complete with a database of chemical and physical attributes. This database will serve as the foundation for several critical spatial analyses, such as crop suitability, irrigation, forest development, and capability analysis.

Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) under Sub Surface Drip Irrigation (SSDI) is becoming popular among the farmers because of high output with minimum input. Even though the benefits of SSI under SSDI are understood by farmers, development of optimal irrigation and fertigation schedule is very much necessary. Field trials were carried out at Agricultural Research Station, Bhavanisagar for three years to develop an optimal irrigation and fertigation schedule for SSI for Western Agro climatic zone. The experiment was taken in randomized block design with three replications. The experiment consisted of eight treatments of which six treatments comprised of SSDI with three irrigation regimes of 100, 80 and 60% pan evaporation and two fertigation levels of 100 and 75% of recommended N & K and two treatments in surface drip irrigation (SDI) with 100 % pan evaporation (PE) + 100% RD and 100% PE + 75% RD of N&K through fertigation. The results of this study revealed that SSDI with 60 per cent PE + 100 per cent RD of N&K through fertigation recorded lower water use (1004 mm) and higher WUE (113 kg/ha mm). However, significantly higher and comparable yield of sugarcane (148 t/ha) was recorded in SSDI with 100 % PE + 100 pe cent RD of N&K through fertigation and surface drip irrigation with 100% PE + 100% RD of N&K through fertigation. The net return (Rs. 2,09,405 per ha) and B:C ratio (2.6) were higher in SSDI with 100% PE + 100% RD of N&K through fertigation treatment.

Understanding crop physiology provides us with an exciting information and knowledge for better crop management towards increasing productivity. Crop physiology is the science of plant's functions under normal and stressed conditions. Based on this fact, many physiological aspects of cereal crops (wheat, rice, sorghum and barley) have been studied during the last two decades in Iraq with interesting achievements.  These aspects included : physiological aspects of tillering in wheat and its relationship to the crop management and grain yield ,seed priming of rice and sorghum for better seed germination and field establishment, accurate timing of agrochemicals application (e.g. nitrogen fertilizer and plant growth regulators) based on certain critical growth stages to increase grain yield of wheat and barley, and proposed strategies for saving water in rice cultivation among them  growing rice successfully, under sprinkler irrigation for saving water and increasing water use efficiency (WUE). The objective of these four case studies was to improve the cereals management and, hence, increasing their grain yield via physiological approaches. Considerable increases in the grain yield of these cereals crops have been achieved via the combination of crop physiology and crop management. Full details of the methodologies and achievements will be presented for each case study. In conclusion, this approach, may represents a good and effective strategy to increase crop productivity and saving water.

Inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers are being routinely used to detect genetic polymorphisms. Study employed ISSR markers to ascertain genetic diversity in 13 accessions of chickpea including cultivated and wild. Among all these anchored ISSR primers tested, pentanucleotide repeat primer UBC-879 produced better amplification patterns. A total of 150 bands were amplified in a molecular weight range of 100-2000 bps revealing an average of 21.4 bands per primers and 1.64 bands per primer per genotype. The repeats (GA)8C, (AG)8YT, (GA)8YC, (AG)8C, (GTT)6 and (GT)8YC give least amplification.

A study was conducted in the Lake Zone, the leading cassava producing Zone in Tanzania during the 2015 and 2016 dry seasons. It was aimed at establishing the influence of the weather variables on occurrence and damages caused by Cassava green mites (CGM), Mononychellus tanajoa on commonly grown cassava varieties. Cassava is a subsistence food to 200 million poor people in the African continent and also plays an important role in the generation of employment and income, especially for small and medium producers. The experiments were laid out in a Split plot design with varieties as sub plots and locations as main plots. The three locations were; Ukiruguru, Ng’ombe and Kishiri, the former two being in Misungwi and the other one in Kwimba districts respectively. Infestation of M. tanajoa was allowed to occur naturally. Results suggested that mites population and damage varied significantly (P<0.05) among varieties, data collection dates and locations in both years. Generally, Kwimba in 2015 and Ukiruguru in 2016 recorded the highest population of M. tanajoa while N’gombe had the lowest counts in both years. The highest root yield was recorded at Ukiriguru in both seasons. In both years, Liongo Kwimba and Naliendele were comparatively the most susceptible varieties while Suma and Kyaka were found to have tolerated/resisted the pest. Rainfall, relative humidity and temperatures contributed either positively or negatively to the survival, perpetuation of and damage by M. tanajoa in both seasons.

An indirect solar dryer was designed, fabricated, and evaluated based on meteorological data of mean monthly values of ambient temperature, wind speed, and global solar radiation, which were 22.2^oC, 3.64 m/s, and 206 W/m2 respectively, in an attempt to minimise post harvest losses of tomato that gluts in Mubi, Adamawa State, Nigeria in the months of August to October annually. With an air mass-flow rate of 3.106 X 10^-3 kg/s and an overall mean drying rate of 0.140 kg/h, the planned dryer features a solar collector inclined at an angle of 20.26^oC to the horizontal. And it had a 0.065m thick lagging material and a 0.115 m3/s air volumetric flow rate. The dryer's evaluation found that drying tomatoes from a postharvest moisture content of 95.6 percent (d.b) to a storage moisture content of 15.8 percent (d.b) takes 50.8 hours throughout the study months (d.b). Following the development and evaluation of tomato-fruit dryers in other parts of the world, more research is needed to determine the effects of incorporating either an additional source of heat or a heat reservoir to ensure day and night drying, which will improve the drying rate and, as a result, reduce drying time. Color of the fruit, its firmness, flavor, nutritive value & safety of tomatoes are related to their composition at the time of harvest and compositional changes during the postharvest handling.