Exogenous Enzymes in Animal Nutrition- Benefits and Limitations

The use of exogenous enzymes in animal nutrition dates back to the mid-1920s, however, nowadays the development of interdisciplinary sciences exploiting molecular methods create new opportunities and deliver new tools to assess effectiveness of their utilization. The proper use of enzymes in animal nutrition allows to obtain maximum benefit from their action not only for the animals, but also for the environment

Food-feed crops research: A synthesis

The present paper synthesizes the salient findings of the 16 papers included in this special issue on food-feed crops. While summarizing the approaches and outcomes of the research papers, the synthesis also discusses related issues, which are of importance in delineating the future research agenda on this important topic. Cereal crop residues (CCRs) constitute the single most important fodder resource providing more than 40% of the available dry matter for feeding of ruminants. However, the inherent low nutritive value typical to most CCRs is a handicap in the effective utilization of this vast feed resource. The synthesis paper besides providing an update on the progress in food-feed crop research, suggests future approaches to exploit the variability in fodder quality traits for improving livestock productivity. It also highlights the need for the plant and animal scientists to work in tandem to achieve this goal. It also stresses the need for greater integration, focus, coordination of efforts to improve the utilization of food– feed crops

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Not AvailableAn experiment was conducted in rabbits to evaluate the possible involvement of oxidative stress in iron-overload animals. Ten adult female Newzealand white rabbits were divided into 2 equal groups with 5 animals each. Group II animals received intramuscular iron dextran injections (120 mg/kg body wt/day) on alternate day for 14 days (8 injections), while Group I animals did not receive any iron supplementation to serve as negative controls. The blood samples were collected by cardiac puncture before the start on iron dosing and thereafter, at weekly intervals for 28 days. The samples were processed to measure blood iron concentration, packed cell volume, erythrocytic lipid peroxide (LPO) level, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities. The blood iron concentration showed a rising trend following repeated iron administration, and the mean level recorded on day 14 was significantly higher than respective day 0 value, LPO level remained significantly higher from day 14 onwards till the end of the observation period of 14 more days after cessation of iron administration. Erythrocytic superoxide dismutase activities showed a transient significant rise on day 7, and thereafter, showed a declining trend, but remained statistically comparable to respective day 0 or corresponding value of the control animals.Not Availabl

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Not Available. Research in the Perspective of Farmers WelfareNot Availabl

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Not AvailableCharacterization of soil hydraulic properties is an important step for assessing soil water regime in agricultural fields. Because direct measurement of soil hydraulic properties at multiple locations is costly and time-consuming, pedotransfer functions (PTF) are conveniently used to estimate these properties from easily measurable basic soil properties. Over the last two decades, several studies have demonstrated that basic soil properties of surface soils may be rapidly estimated by measuring soil spectral reflectance. In this study, we evaluated a PTF approach to use proximal spectral reflectance over the visible, near-infrared, and shortwaveinfrared (VIS–NIR–SWIR) region (350–2500 nm) as predictor variable in place of basic soil properties. To develop these transfer functions, spectral reflectance of air-dried and sieved soil samples was measured using a handheld spectroradiometer equipped with a contact probe. Transfer functions in the form of multiple linear regression relationships between soil hydraulic properties and different attributes of measured spectral reflectance were developed. These new transfer functions are called spectrotransfer functions (STF). Both the parametric PTFs and STFs for the parameters of van Genuchtenwater retention model (α and n) and point PTF for saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) were evaluated using the root-mean-squared error (RMSE). Results show that STFs have the similar accuracy as PTFs for estimating hydraulic properties. Specifically, STFs developed with the absorption features of proximal spectral reflectance performed better than the PTFs for estimating α. Among three hydraulic parameters for which the STFs were developed, van Genuchten parameter n is well predicted with comparatively lower values of RMSE. Thus, this study shows that proximal spectral reflectance of soil may be used for rapid estimation of soil hydraulic properties in a large area with accuracy comparable to PTFs. A rigorous testing in different geographical regions is warranted to establish the utility of STFs as a method for estimating soil hydraulic properties.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableA study was conducted to determine the accumulation pattern of cadmium in selected tissues of Clarias batrachus. Sixty Clarias batrachus were first acclimatized for 15 days in plastic pools filled with non-chlorinated water and subsequently divided equally into four groups and subjected to different concentrations (0, 14, 28 and 56 mg/L) of cadmium for a period of 96 hours. Physio-chemical attributes viz. pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, hardness and choride content of aquaria water were monitored. Following 96h of exposure, all the fishes were sacrificed and cadmium content of various organs were assessed. The result revealed that the highest level of cadmium was accumulated in kidney 17.276±0.975 ppm, followed by liver 4.018±0.508, gill 2.881±0.138 and intestine 2.493±0.285. Skin and muscles accumulated the lowest level (0.135±0.010 to 0.982±0.027) of cadmium. The kidney and liver seems to be the target organ for cadmium accumulation with respect to exposure level in Clarias batrachus and may have public health significance for human consumer.Not Availabl