Climate smart agricultural technologies in rice-wheat water stressed regions of Punjab, India- A review

Intensively cultivated rice-wheat cropping sequence of Punjab, India responsible for many sustainability issues viz. declining underground water, declining soil health, arising micro-nutrient deficiencies etc. Around 1.3 M ha-m additional withdrawal of water from the ground is being taken place annually in Punjab and mainly it is used for the rice crop which is not a traditional crop of the region. Puddling, seepage and percolation losses are the main sources of water loss from the rice based cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGPs) and many Resource Conservation Technologies (RCTs) have been recommended for water saving. The real water saving techniques are those which hinder the water from going into those sinks from where it cannot be reused (Evaporation, E) and diverted greater fraction of water of ET toward transpiration (T) which is desired as greater transpiration, greater the inflow of water and nutrients andwhich ultimately increase the grain yield with the lesser consumption of irrigation water as interval in between two irrigation increases, which further increase the water productivity. Among different RCTs, short duration crop varieties and delaying transplanting time are the real water saving techniques for the regions where water table is already declining down, however other RCTs may be suitable for the regions facing water logging problems as these cut down the drainage losses and these energy saving rather than water saving techniques

Concept and Consequence of Evapotranspiration for Sustainable Crop Production in the Era of Climate Change

The chapter provides an inclusive information related to the adverse effect of climate change on sustainable crop production through understanding evaporation, transpiration as well as evapotranspiration. It is anticipated that water availability in arid and semi-arid regions across the world will decrease, due to lack of rainfall and increase the temperature which leads to increase in the dry areas. Since climate change will impact on soil water balance that leads to change in evaporation and plant transpiration. While, with the increasing temperature, lack of precipitation and soils water unavailability, crop production will likely to decrease through shortening the crop growth cycle. While soils with high water holding capacity and crop cultivars which are tolerant to adverse effect as well as the application of improved management strategies will be better to reduce the impact of drought. Similarly, if the irrigated areas will be expanded, the total crop production will be increased that ultimately lead to increase the food security of increasing population

Delineating soil moisture dynamics as affected by tillage in wheat, Rice and establishment methods of rice during intervening period

Intervening cropping period perhaps the most ignored period, which could be exploited for cultivating the intervening crops which further add to the soil, crop and water productivity and finally livelihood of the farmers of the region. The present investigation was carried out after rice- 2014, to monitor the residual effect of different tillage (wheat), establishment methods and tillage (rice) on the fluctuating behaviour of the soil moisture during intervening period. Our findings suggested that CTW-DSRZT (conventionally tilled wheat and zero till direct seeded rice) plots conserved more moisture than ZTW-DSRZT (zero till wheat and zero till direct seeded rice) plots an exception of CTWDSRCT plots which were almost equally effective in conserving the soil moisture. On an average, soil matric tension (SMT) was reported to be 36% higher in CTWDSRZT than CTWDSRP plots at 10cm soil surface. Further, ZTW-DSRZT plots on an average dried 8% faster than ZTW-DSRP plots. At 20cm, DSRZT plots dried 3% faster than its allied plots while at 30cm depth, in DSRP plots, SMT values increased 12% and 11% higher under CTW block and ZTW blocks, respectively than its allied plots. SMT readings in all the ZTW plots on an average increased at much more faster rates (24%) than CTW plots. The ZT plots had 1.4% higher water depths than the CT plots. Evaporation losses pragmatic to be higher (17.2% and 7.3%) in ZTW-DSRZT plots as compared to the ZTW-DSRCT and CTW-DSRCT plots which might improve declining crops and water productivity in the region

Soil evaporation studies using mini-lysimeters under differently established rice-wheat cropping sequence in Punjab, India

Present investigations were carried out in rice-wheat cropping sequence as a whole including the intervening period under divergent establishment methods from 2012-14 at experimental farm of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab. Treatments included tillage in wheat viz. zero (ZTW) and conventionally tilled wheat (CTW) - main followed by establishment methods viz. direct seeded rice (DSR) and mechanically transplanted rice (MTR) - sub while tillage in rice viz. puddle (PTR), conventionally tilled (CTR) and zero tilled rice (ZTR) - sub-sub plot. Mini-lysimeters were used for delineating the evaporation trends which found to be fast, low cost, reliable and accurate. During rabi seasons, CTW plots evaporated 15.8 and 3.0% faster respectively, as compared to the ZTW plots. CTW plots during 2012-13 evaporated 7% higher than during 2013-14 while ZTW plots evaporated with almost same pace during both the years. After rabi season during intervening period, ZTW plots evaporated 6.8 and 13.6% faster than the CTW plots during 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively. During rice seasons, among pure tillage system, zero tilled plots viz. ZTWDSRZT evaporated 21.7 and 22.2% faster than CTWDSRCT plots during rice 2013 and 2014, while coming over to the mixed tillage systems, CTWDSRZT evaporated 36.7 and 18.4% faster than the ZTWDSRCT plots. The results from this and other studies suggest that mulching suppress the evaporation losses which further improves the water use efficiency and finally land productivity of the rice-wheat sequence in the region

Delineation of Soil Moisture Potentials and Moisture Balance Components

Root architecture in soils is directly affecting crop yield potential, through influencing the moisture potential of soil and its balance components, as only transpiration share is useful for them. Soil moisture potential responsible for the soil moisture curves on the basis of differential energy states is quite important. Generally, a soil moisture flow rate is considered for its kinetic energy. Consequently, soil moisture energy state is defined by its equivalent potential energy, which is by virtue of its place in a force field which could assist to improve the water-use efficiency. Irrigation water losses significantly occur under the flood irrigation through evaporation, seepage, and drainage. While the soil moisture potential declines with help of the tensiometer, and significantly save the irrigation water. For evaluating the performance of any resource conservation technologies (RCT) in the region, estimation of the evapotranspiration (ET) is very important to analyze the effect of the RCT. It is also helpful in balancing the nutrient inflows in the plants through roots, which results to the improvement of land and water productivity. Hence, delineation of the soil moisture potentials and moisture balance components is important to improve the land as well as water productivity; it makes the livelihood security better in the water-stressed regions on the globe. This chapter deals with the methodological part of soil moisture potentials and moisture balance components, which is useful for the policymakers, modelers, scientists, students, and teachers engaged in the irrigation experiments under texturally divergent soils

Sugarcane nutrition for food and environmental security/ Nutrição da cana-de-açúcar para segurança alimentar e ambiental

Sugarcane is an important cash crop cultivated globally from temperate to tropical regions. Improving cane yield and recovery sustainably is an important research area for improving livelihoods of the cane farmers. Among different approaches sill judicious and integrated use of nutrients as per plant needs holds the special place. Further, applying need based N management through optical gadgets viz. Leaf color chart (LCC), SPAD, Green seeker, integrated nutrient management, fertigation, special focus on for improving the efficiency of different fertilizers through different state of art technologies. For having higher fertilizer use efficiency in sugarcane, some aspects of fertilization especially How much? What type of? When to add? Is it worth? Number of splits? Mode of action? must be considered both for seed or ratoon. Further, soil textural class and climatic conditions on one side while on changing climatic conditions also affected it a lot. Further, inherent fertility status of the soils is also an important factor which affects the fate of applied fertilizers. There is a need to create awareness in between the farmers for not to applying huge quantity of different fertilizers as per their neighboring farmers, rather farmer should be smart enough to adopt different technologies in a smart way for having better benefits and thus livelihoods as the purpose is to fed the canes but not the soil. In the present review an attempt being made to compare the comparative performance of sugarcane with respect to fertilization for finally guiding the sugarcane cultivars. Idea is to enlighten them regarding need based sustainable fertilization with an aim to improve the fertilizer use efficiencies for having improved yield and quality parameters instead of loading the soil with much of fertilizers which further have environmental concerns.  

Redox-responsive nanoplatform for codelivery of miR-519c and gemcitabine for pancreatic cancer therapy

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved. Desmoplastic and hypoxic pancreatic cancer microenvironment induces aberrant expression of miRNAs and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) responsible for gemcitabine (GEM) resistance. We demonstrated that miR-519c was down-regulated in pancreatic cancer and transfection of miR-519c in GEM-resistant pancreatic cancer cells inhibited HIF-1α level under hypoxia. We synthesized redox-sensitive mPEG-co-P(Asp)-g-DC-g-S-S-GEM polymer, with GEM payload of 14% (w/w) and 90% GEM release upon incubation with l-glutathione. We synthesized mPEGco- P(Asp)-g-TEPA-g-DC for complex formation with miRNA. Chemical modification of miR-519c with 2\u27-O-methyl phosphorothioate (OMe-PS) at 3\u27 end enhanced its stability and activity without being immunogenic. Epidermal growth factor receptor targeting peptide GE11 decoration increased tumor accumulation of micelles after systemic administration and significantly inhibited orthotopic desmoplastic pancreatic cancer growth in NSG mice by down-regulating HIF-1α and genes responsible for glucose uptake and cancer cell metabolism. Our multifunctional nanomedicine of GEM and OMe-PS-miR-519c offers a novel therapeutic strategy to treat desmoplasia and hypoxia-induced chemoresistance in pancreatic cancer

Supplementary data for the article: Rajan, S.; Pattanaik, A.; Kumaresan, V.; Bhatt, P.; Gunasekaran, S.; Arockiaraj, J.; Pasupuleti, M.; Beškoski, V. P.; Chakraborty, P. Characterization of Some Naphthalene Using Bacteria Isolated from Contaminated Cooum Riverine Sediment of the Bay of Bengal (India). Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society 2019, 84 (2), 225–236. https://doi.org/10.2298/JSC180724088R

Supplementary material for: [https://doi.org/10.2298/JSC180724088R]Related to published version: [http://cherry.chem.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/3048