Agriculture

Climate change and climate variability and financial institutions’ unwillingness to give loans have resulted in many farmers losing confidence in dry land agriculture. Traditional crop insurance methods have also presented challenges due to the risk related to adverse selection and moral hazard resulting in high transaction costs for individual assessment. This study focused on developing a weather index based insurance model that uses artificial neural networks to estimate potential evapotranspiration (ETO) and consequently yield reduction due to moisture stress. Weather data from 2012 to 2015 for Kutsaga area in Harare was used for the study. Seasonal weather data were used as input data to the first model to predict the ETo. The output ETO and effective rainfall data together with the crop factor (Kc), yield reduction factor (Ky), root zone depth (RzD) and root zone moisture (RzM)were used as input data for the second network to compute % yield reduction. Data for maize for the 2012-13 growing season was used for training the network and validating the estimated ETO and % yield reduction. The estimated ETO compared very well with the calculated values with R2 values of above 0.84. The estimated yield reduction % indicated even high accuracies with R2 values of above 0.91. The 2014-2015 growing season resulted in crop loss due to mid-season dry spells and the model predicted a 100% crop loss which means the farmer had to be compensated for the value equivalent to cost of inputs. The model has got potential to be used by insurance companies using weather based data and, with mobile banking transaction costs can be reduced.Climate change and climate variability and financial institutions’ unwillingness to give loans have resulted in many farmers losing confidence in dry land agriculture. Traditional crop insurance methods have also presented challenges due to the risk related to adverse selection and moral hazard resulting in high transaction costs for individual assessment. This study focused on developing a weather index based insurance model that uses artificial neural networks to estimate potential evapotranspiration (ETO) and consequently yield reduction due to moisture stress. Weather data from 2012 to 2015 for Kutsaga area in Harare was used for the study. Seasonal weather data were used as input data to the first model to predict the ETo. The output ETO and effective rainfall data together with the crop factor (Kc), yield reduction factor (Ky), root zone depth (RzD) and root zone moisture (RzM)were used as input data for the second network to compute % yield reduction. Data for maize for the 2012-13 growing season was used for training the network and validating the estimated ETO and % yield reduction. The estimated ETO compared very well with the calculated values with R2 values of above 0.84. The estimated yield reduction % indicated even high accuracies with R2 values of above 0.91. The 2014-2015 growing season resulted in crop loss due to mid-season dry spells and the model predicted a 100% crop loss which means the farmer had to be compensated for the value equivalent to cost of inputs. The model has got potential to be used by insurance companies using weather based data and, with mobile banking transaction costs can be reduced.

In order to better understand the zootechnical and economic characteristics of piglet farming, a diagnostic study was conducted from October to December 2019, three months with 30 pig farmers, in the form of cross-sectional and retrospective surveys in the three municipalities of the town of Kindu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The results showed that pig farming was practiced by both married and educated men and women. They were mainly zimba, Kusu and Nande and associated livestock with agriculture, private activity or trade. They operated in two different livestock systems (traditional and semi-intensive), with a clear predominance of the traditional system (85.5% of farms). The latter was characterized by semi-intensive hog barns (51.1%), where local-bred pigs were mostly reared (90.4% of farms). The average herd size was 19.2 - 20.1 pigs. In 97% of cases, farmers fed the animals from kitchen waste and agricultural and agro-industrial by-products. The average breeding age was 7.6 -1.8 months and the average litter size was 7.4 - 2.2 piglets. This livestock subsector has real potential for poverty reduction because it generates net incomes on average of $40 per piglet, depending on the system. Nevertheless, the lack of training of herders, inadequate pig habitats, food and health constraints remain the main factors hindering the development of pig farming in this city. It would be useful to find alternative ways to improve the habitat conditions, feeding and health monitoring of pigs, accompanied by better organisation and capacity building for producers and other players in the hog sector.

The objective of the study was assessment and mapping of the community villages in order to rank degree of vulnerabilities to climate change. On sensitivity to vulnerability, the majority of the respondents indicated that it was high (59.6%), medium (16.3%) and low (20.8%).of which on response to exposure to vulnerability, the respondents who indicated high (61.7%), medium (24.2% and low (11.3%).On vulnerabilities in response to adaptive capacity to vulnerability, was high (3.3%), medium (12.5%) and low (81.3%).This study demonstrated that participatory approach of addressing vulnerability to climate change which involved all stakeholders is effective in this dry forested pastoral ecosystem.

The aim of this investigation was the ability of different indices to identifies drought resistant genotypes of cotton under normal and stress conditions. Thirteen drought tolerance indices i.e., stress susceptibility index (SSI), tolerance index (TOL), mean productivity index ( MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP), stress tolerance index (STI), yield index (YI), yield stability index (YSI), drought resistance index (DI), yield reduction ratio (YR), a biotic tolerance index (ATI), stress susceptibility percentage index (SSPI), harmonic mean (HM) and golden mean (GOL) were calculated based on seed cotton yield/plant under normal (Yp) and stress (Ys) conditions for 24 cotton genotypes over the two summer seasons (2015 and 2016) at Sakha Agriculture Research Station, Agriculture Research Center, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt. The values of mean performances showed that, most studied genotypes were better than the grand mean during Yp and Ys. Drought stress reduced the studied traits while other was tolerant to drought, suggesting genetic variability in 24 cotton genotypes for drought tolerance. According to drought tolerance indices, MP, GMP, STI, YI and HM under Yp and Ys as well as the other studied drought tolerance indices under Ys could properly distinguish drought tolerant cotton genotypes with high yield performance. Therefore, the indices of MP, GMP, STI, YI and HM were considered as a better predictor of Ys and Yp than the other indices. Screening drought tolerant genotypes using mean performances and drought tolerance indices showed cleared that the genotypes G.94, G.86, G.96 and G.89 were the most drought tolerant under Yp and Ys. Thus, they are recommended to be used as a parents for improvement of drought tolerance of cotton in breeding and hybridization programs in Egypt to produce and select a new recombination’s are more and more tolerant for drought to overcome the water shortage and reduce the water rating of the cotton crop. And the possibility of planting and expansion of those new recombination’s under the conditions of new lands that suffer from shortage of water and access to an economic crop. Cluster analysis based on all studied traits of 24 cotton genotypes into five and nine clusters under normal and drought stress conditions, respectively .The results for cluster analysis suggested that these genotypes could be used as a source of germplasm for breeding for drought tolerance and also cleared that the hybridization between clusters may increases variability and expected transgresive segregation to select the new germplasm had more and more drought tolerance. 

Pigeon pea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] is the rich sources of dietary protein, carbohydrate & certain minerals but its poor yield needs to formulate a nutrient management practices for higher productivity in upland alfisols of Tripura and to combat it, an experiment was conducted during three consecutive kharif seasons at College of Agriculture, Lembucherra, Tripura comprising of two levels of Lime (150 and 200 kg ha-1) in main plot and two levels of molybdenum seed treatment (0 and 4g kg-1 of seed) in sub plot and 4 levels of recommended doses, viz 0% of RDF ha-1, 50% of RDF ha-1, 75% of RDF ha-1 and 100% of RDF ha-1 (Recommended dose @ 20:60:40 of NPK). It was revealed that by the use of 100% RDF ha-1 with 150 kg ha-1 lime and 4g kg-1 of molybdenum seed treatment leads to higher yield and return per rupee respectively. But by the use of 100% RDF ha-1 with 200 kg ha-1 lime and 4g kg-1 of molybdenum seed treatment, return per rupee was recorded at 2.98. The investigation reflects that by the use of 75% RDF ha-1 return per rupee (3.78) was less compared to 100% RDF ha-1 but significant with saving the cost of 25% RDF ha-1 and soil health from the excessive use of fertilizer for sustaining the agricultural growth.

Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) is a destructive pathogen in banana cultivating areas worldwide. As the virus is located in the phloem tissue and its purification is difficult and gives low yield. Therefore, in the present study BBTV coat protein was bacterially cloned and expressed using recombinant DNA approach. The BBTV infected banana leaf samples were collected around Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka. Further, the total nucleic acid was extracted using dellaporta method. A 531bp PCR product containing coat protein coding region of BBTV was amplified using BBTVCPF and BBTVCPR primers and the amplified product was cloned into the pTZ57R/T and further sub-cloned in to the pQE30. After transformation in to JM 109 and M15 cells the clones were confirmed through PCR and sequencing. Amplification with expected size of 531bp and 100% homology with other isolates showed integrity of the clone. Further, the coat protein appeared to be expressed at 3hr after induction with 1mM IPTG. The expressed protein was analyzed through sodium-dodecyl sulphate-Poly acrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). A band of 21kDa on the gel confirmed that coat protein was really fused to the His-tag. Further, 10mg/liter of the coat protein were purified using His-tag purification kit (Genei).

Green house experiment was conducted to explore the influence of different concentrations of Vermicompost in root–knot nematode management against Meloidogyne incognita infecting Cluster bean Cyamposis tetragonaloba. Vermicompost fortification treatment resulted in reduced nematode infection and increased growth characteristics such as shoot – root length and shoot – root weight. With the increase of concentration of Vermicompost corresponding increase noticed in growth characteristics of treated plants. Vermicompost fortified plants showed increment in sugar, protein and lipid over untreated control. Increment of these metabolites reflects treated plants were metabolically cope up the infection and promoting excessive plant growth.In vitro studies of hatching trials revealed significant reduction in larval emergence. The percent reduction of larval emergence showed a significant positive correlation with increased concentration of Vermicompost. Vermicompost treatment significantly affects the soil population of nematode which again reflects a dosage dependent phenomenon. Present investigation confirms Vermicompost as an excellent growth promoters and potential prophylactic agent.

A study was conducted to study the effect of integration of nitrogen sources on okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) grown in sandy regosols. Nitrogen sources farmyard manure, poultry manure, Amutha Karaisal and urea were applied on equal N basis at 135 kg Nha-1. Organic nitrogen (N) sources were used solely and in combination with urea at 50% N from each. And P2O5 and K2O were applied at the rate of 90 kg ha-1 by triple super phosphate and muriate of potash respectively. There were eight treatments replicated thrice. Among the treatments, yield was superior in 100% N supplied by poultry manure and next was followed by 50% N from farmyard manure + 50% N from Urea. The influence of AmuthaKaraisal was inferior in yield than other manures. There was no significant difference in average length of pod, but there was significant difference in average number and fresh weight of pod.

Studies on pathogenecity of Meloidogyne incognita on Green gram, Phaseolus aureus were carried out in relation to different concentration of Azolla pinnata, a biofertilizer with reference to growth parameters of host plant and reproductive parameters of nematode pathogen. Amendments of Azolla resulted reduction in nematode infection and increment in growth characteristics of host plant. Azolla treated plants showed excessive shoot and root growth over infected untreated control plants. The growth increment was directly proportional to the dosage of Azolla amendments Reproductive parameters studied were also significantly affected by Azolla treatment. A progressive reduction in root – knot index, number of egg masses, eggs/egg mass, soil population and reproductive factor was recorded in different concentration of Azolla treatment. Alteration in protein content of plant tissue in response to Azolla treatment reveals that plants were put up resistance against nematode infection.

Two field experiments were carried out at Arab El-Awammer Research Station, Agric. Res. Center Assiut Governorate during winter seasons of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015. The present study assessed the effect of crop sequence and nitrogen fertilization on productivity of wheat. The experimental treatments were four crop sequences with three nitrogen fertilizer rates. Treatments were arranged in a factorial experiment 3×4 based on a RCBD with four replications. These results suggest that the sequence of cowpea / clover / wheat and the sequence of cowpea + maize / clover / wheat produced the maximum yield and its components of wheat as compared with the other sequences. Naturally Occurring Biological Control Agents (NOBCA) the maximum number of agents was existed in the sequences of cowpea / clover / wheat and cowpea + maize / clover / wheat. The lowest number was existed in the sequence of maize / wheat. The present research proved that the two promising sequences contributed so much in increasing the cropping area. Therefore, the cropping index was increased to be 2.87 or 3.39 in the year for the two sequences of cowpea / clover / wheat and cowpea + maize / clover / wheat, respectively. These values are considered to be more than the traditional index in Egypt which is 1.73. The net return from the sequence of cowpea + maize / clover / wheat was the highest when compared with the other sequences. Thus increasing the cropping area which increased the cropping index caused an increase in the net return.