Nutritional strategies in Covid-19 patients with gastrointestinal dysfunction

Nutritional support in infections, including that due to COVID-19, is a key aspect, as it has the potential to limit the severe intensity of inflammation, to modulate optimal immune responses, whilst, limiting the loss of lean-body mass, thereby  promoting enhanced recovery. However, optimal function of the gastrointestinal tract is essential to provide adequate nutrition, with optimal digestion and absorption

Stability Analysis For Yield And Yield Contributing Characters Of Tomato Under High Temperature Conditions

The current study was aimed at evaluating the stability of tomato yield and yield-contributing characteristics during three sowing intervals (February, March, and April) under high-temperature regimes, Pooled analysis of variance was performed on twenty-five genotypes, including eight parents, fifteen hybrids, and two checks, for seventeen agronomic traits. Except for plant height, ANOVA findings have revealed substantial differences among tomato genotypes, with environmental conditions playing a major role on genotype performance. The genotypes differed significantly in terms of days to 50% flowering, number of flowers per cluster, and fruit length, indicating significant variability among growing seasons. Furthermore, root length showed significant genotype x environment interactions, whereas the remaining variables are found non-significant. Among the three sowing intervals, February sowing (1st interval) was found to be the most beneficial environment for tomato growth, yield, and quality features, with the highest positive environmental indices for the majority of growth, yield, and quality contributing traits. In contrast, the April sowing period (3rd interval) was found to be most unfavorable, with the highest negative environmental indices for the traits studied. This study underlined the significant influence of environmental factors on the performance of tomato genotypes, in terms of multiple yield and yield-contributing attributes. The findings emphasize the importance of choosing the optimum sowing interval, with February as the most favorable season for cultivating tomatoes in the present study location under high-temperature conditions. These findings would help to guide the decision-making process in similar agro-climatic regions to improve the tomato output and quality

Community Seed system: Production and supply of sweet sorghum seeds

Under the NAIP project activities, it was aimed to develop a community seed system (community seed program) for multiplication of farmer selected sweet sorghum cultivars seeds to enhance their availability and benefit the project farmers. As there are not many seed companies producing seed of sweet sorghum, a community seed program was developed to address sustainability issue of regular seed supply to farmer selected varieties after completion of the project. Hence, a community-based seed system model was developed and implemented in the project area

Sweet sorghum ethanol value chain: Issues and the way forward

The ICRISAT-NAIP-ICAR sub-project on ‘Value Chain Model for Bioethanol Production from Sweet Sorghum in Rainfed Areas through Collective Action and Partnership’ focused on developing and establishing sustanable bioethanol value chain models by addressing issues involved along the value chain components. The sweet sorghum value chain encompasses sweet sorghum production and transportation of stalks distillery or crushing unit, crushing stalks for juice extraction, syrup production from juice, ethanol production from juice and or syrup, ethanol blending with gasoline and utilization of the by-products, bagasse, vinasse, etc. For successful implementation of the value chain models, based on the core competencies, a consortium of partners involving public sector research and development organizations (ICRISAT, DSR, IICT, CRIDA, ILRI and SVVU) and private sector ethanol distillery (Rusni Distilleries Ltd.) was formed with ICRISAT as consortium lead. Aakruthi Agricultural Associates of India (AAI), an NGO, was engaged to assist in implementation of the project activities that relate to mobilization of farmers and their capacity building in cluster villages. This unique consortium of private-public-people-partnership (PPPP) was in place to help reach the goals by harnessing the synergies of the partners. The information presented in the previous sections is based on the results obtained from implementation of the project work plans from 2008 to 2012. This chapter describes major issues encountered during implementation of the work plans, the issues related to sustaining the sweet sorghum based ethanol value chain in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, and the way forwar

Sweet sorghum for ethanol: A new beginning

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is an important dryland cereal grown in India (7.8 million ha) and around the world (45.8 million ha) for food, feed, fodder, bioenergy and fiber. Sweet sorghum is similar to grain sorghum and are generally tall (3.0-4.0 m), late maturing (20-30 days) and relatively photoperiod-sensitive; produce 2-3 t ha-1 grain yield with higher stalk yields (50-60 t ha-1 of fresh biomass). Sweet sorghum is a new generation bioenergy crop that has potential to accumulate sugar (10-15%) in its stalk similar to sugarcane, apart from producing grains. The bagasse, remnant stalk after extraction of juice, can be used as animal feed or for vermicomposting to generate power. The crop has the ability to adapt to various agro-climatic conditions and reasonably tolerates drought and saline-alkaline conditions. The crop is raised from seed and is of shorter duration (115-120 days) than sugarcane (12-18 months) making it amenable for multiple cropping systems. Water use or seasonal evapotranspiration (ET) for sorghum is 508 mm while it is 1257 mm for sugarcane. Water requirement of this crop is one-third that of sugarcane on a comparable time scale. Also, sweet sorghum requires about 22% less water than maize. With these advantages, sweet sorghum is a good bioenergy crop and can complement the available feedstocks for biofuel production

Effect of improved crop production technologies in enhancing sorghum productivity in rainfed areas of Mahbubnagar district in Andhra Pradesh

Mahabubnagar district in Andhra Pradesh state of India is a drought prone area, classified as ‘rain shadow area’ and receives an average annual rainfall of 587 mm. The district falls under hot moist semi-arid Agro-Ecological Sub Region (AESR) as per National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP). Erratic rainfall, frequent dry spells, low soil fertility, inappropriate soil and water management practices causing land degradation, and declining land : man ratio are some of the important problems faced by the farmers in the district. Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) are two important and predominant crops grown in the district. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is executing a project on “Enhanced Utilization of Sorghum and Pearl Millet Grains in Poultry Feed Industry to Improve Livelihoods of Small-Scale Farmers in Asia” in coalition with other partners. It is funded by Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (CFC/FIG/32). One of the activities of the project is to enhance sorghum crop productivity and improve livelihood opportunities through improved production technologies using convergence and coalition of institutions

Presence of Panagrolaimus sp. (Nematoda: Panagrolaimidae) in seeds of pearl millet (Pennisetum americanum (L.) Leeke)

During routine phytosanitary examination of pearl millet seeds at the Plant Quarantine Unit of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India, we discovered a common soil nematode belonging to the genus Panagrolaimus inside seeds of some of the breeding lines. To date Panagrolaimus spp. have been reported as free living microphagous nematodes, occurring in soil and fresh water (Goodey, 1963), as dyssaprobes (Paramonov, 1962) occurring in roots, stems and leaves also in spikelets (Baranovskaya, 1958) and in rice grains (Panwar & Rao, 1977). Some are endoparasites of insects (Poinar, 1972; Poinar & . Geetha Bai, 1979). This is the first record of a seedborne nematode in pearl millet seeds which is significant in plant quarantine terms

Sweet sorghum growing domains: Potential for up-scaling

Sweet sorghum cultivation as part of the NAIP-ICAR sub-project on the sweet sorghum to ethanol value chain was being pilot tested in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh (Map 1). Preliminary analysis of farm-level data from the project sites indicate that sweet sorghum is a commercially viable crop and is able to compete with other dryland crops such as grain sorghum, sorghum and pigeonpea intercrop and maize. One of the challenges before and after the completion of the project is up-scaling of sweet sorghum production to larger areas to make a viable alternative complement as feedstock for ethanol production. In this chapter we examine potential areas where sweet sorghum cultivation can be taken up in India. This is of course, subject to the establishment of a distillery in close proximity (50-100 kms from the farms)

Study of qualitative traits of germplasm of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Forty genotypes of tomato germplasm under present investigation were characterized based on 11 qualitative traits viz., leaf colour, leaf pubescence, leaf / foliage cover, petiole pubescence, stem type, stem thickness, stem pigmentation, flower size, flower colour, fruit size, fruit shape. Tomato genotypes exhibited high variability for all qualitative traits viz., Leaf characters, stem characters, flower characters and fruit characters. Therefore, it is emphasized to lay attention on the traits viz., days to first flowering, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight in crop improvement programme of tomato in future