Total Factor Productivity in Horticultural Crops in Konkan Region of Maharashtra

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Determinants of Rural-Urban Migration in Konkan Region of Maharashtra

The study has identified the factors responsible for rural-urban migration based on 120 sample respondents each of migrants and non-migrants spread over two districts, viz. Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg of Konkan region of Maharashtra by employing the logit model. The study has highlighted the importance of rural development programs like MGNREGA that are being implemented by the government with a view to provide employment and income to the rural population in the country. It has also shown that for both migrant and non-migrant households,, agriculture was the major source of income, and their consumption expenditure was more than the production expenditure. It has also been observed that migration has a positive impact on income, expenditure and net savings of migrant sample households. The regression analysis has shown that one unit increase in the age of household-head increases the probability of migration of family members by 0.81 per cent. The probability of migration of family member decreases by 0.003 per cent with one unit increase in before-migration income of a household. The odds ratio for familysize has indicated that with one unit increase in family-size, the probability of migration of family members increases by 8.7 per cent. There is a negative relationship between migration of family members and income from agriculture. As off-farm income of a household increases, the probability of migration of its family member decreases. The odds ratio for off-farm income implies that with one unit increase in off-farm income of a household, the probability of migration decreases by 0.018 per cent.Migration, Logit, Variable inflation factor, Odds ratio, Agricultural and Food Policy, J11, J61, C13, R23,

Wireless Portable Microcontroller based Weather Monitoring Station

Weather monitoring and its forecasting has become vital part of day-to-day life because of its numerous applications in agriculture, farming, fishery, shipping and military operations. Measuring the weather using conventional or manually operated Weather Monitoring Stations requires skilled labor for operation and demands regular maintenance which invariably increases the life cycle cost of the Weather Monitoring Station. To address these issues, the authors of this paper have attempted to design and implement inexpensive Wireless Portable Weather Monitoring Station using PIC16F887 microcontroller. The implemented Weather Monitoring Station is equipped with sensors to measure weather variables such as relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, rainfall, solar radiation, wind speed, wind direction, surface and ambient temperature. Besides of these capabilities, the designed Weather Monitoring station also includes some unique features like Modbus communication protocol, which provides seamlessly communication of real time weather measurements to the base station (PC Laptop) over both wired (RS serial) and wireless (Xbee Pro modules) interfaces. Further, at the base station, the received data is logged and uploaded to an online data server to enable worldwide ubiquitous access to the weather measurements. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

CSH 22SS – an improved sweet sorghum hybrid

Parentage: ICSA 38 x SSV 84 Medium duration hybrid: 120 days;Days to 50% fl owering: 80 to 88 days;Plant height: 280–350 cm;High stalk yield (44–52 t ha-1): 29% higher than SSV 84 and CSV 19SS. ; High ethanol yield (1250–1320 L ha-1):43% higher than SSV 84 and 34% 8% higher than CSV 19SS. High CCS (3.2–4.0 t ha-1): 33% higher than SSV 84

Unconventional Cosmology

I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction. The second is an "emergent" scenario, which can be implemented in the context of "string gas cosmology". I will compare these scenarios with the inflationary one and demonstrate that all three lead to an approximately scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological perturbations.Comment: 45 pages, 10 figures; invited lectures at the 6th Aegean Summer School "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology", Chora, Naxos, Greece, Sept. 12 - 17 2012, to be publ. in the proceedings; these lecture notes form an updated version of arXiv:1003.1745 and arXiv:1103.227

Development of Alaskan gas hydrate resources

The research undertaken in this project pertains to study of various techniques for production of natural gas from Alaskan gas hydrates such as, depressurization, injection of hot water, steam, brine, methanol and ethylene glycol solutions through experimental investigation of decomposition characteristics of hydrate cores. An experimental study has been conducted to measure the effective gas permeability changes as hydrates form in the sandpack and the results have been used to determine the reduction in the effective gas permeability of the sandpack as a function of hydrate saturation. A user friendly, interactive, menu-driven, numerical difference simulator has been developed to model the dissociation of natural gas hydrates in porous media with variable thermal properties. A numerical, finite element simulator has been developed to model the dissociation of hydrates during hot water injection process

Exploitation of hybrid vigour in ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula Roxb L.)

A study was conducted for accessing hybrid vigour of 28 crosses of ridge gourd over standard parent during late Kharif 2008 at N.A.U., Navsari. These hybrids were generated by half diallel mating design of eight diverse ridge gourd genotypes. Highly significant difference existed between genotypes for all studied traits. None of the hybrid showed consistent heterosis for all studied traits. In crosses, maximum heterosis was observed for fruit yield per vine followed by primary branches per vine. The highest economic heterosis was observed for fruit yield in ARGS 98-06 x ARGS 00-03 (63.81%) which was followed by ARGS 02-14 x ARGS 03-18 (37.38%), ARGS 04-23 x ARGS 00-03 (34.76%), ARGS 00-03 x ARGS 03-18 (31.67%), ARGS 02-14 x ARGS 98-06 (28.33%), ARGS 04-23 x ARGS 98-06 (26.67%) and SKNRG 21 x ARGS 03-18 (25.00%). These cross combination also showed heterosis for one or more yield contributing traits. Therefore, three hybrids viz., ARGS 98-06 x ARGS 00-03, ARGS 02-14 x ARGS 03-18 and ARGS 04-23 x ARGS 00-03 were identified for evaluation at multi-location and for commercial exploitation

Determinants of Rural-Urban Migration in Konkan Region of Maharashtra

The study has identified the factors responsible for rural-urban migration based on 120 sample respondents each of migrants and non-migrants spread over two districts, viz. Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg of Konkan region of Maharashtra by employing the logit model. The study has highlighted the importance of rural development programs like MGNREGA that are being implemented by the government with a view to provide employment and income to the rural population in the country. It has also shown that for both migrant and non-migrant households,, agriculture was the major source of income, and their consumption expenditure was more than the production expenditure. It has also been observed that migration has a positive impact on income, expenditure and net savings of migrant sample households. The regression analysis has shown that one unit increase in the age of household-head increases the probability of migration of family members by 0.81 per cent. The probability of migration of family member decreases by 0.003 per cent with one unit increase in before-migration income of a household. The odds ratio for familysize has indicated that with one unit increase in family-size, the probability of migration of family members increases by 8.7 per cent. There is a negative relationship between migration of family members and income from agriculture. As off-farm income of a household increases, the probability of migration of its family member decreases. The odds ratio for off-farm income implies that with one unit increase in off-farm income of a household, the probability of migration decreases by 0.018 per cent

Not Available

Not AvailableIn order to know the variation in seed quality among the varieties and hybrids (public, private sector) of sorghum collected at different market outlets, a total of 52 entries (38 cultivars) were evaluated for seed germination and seedling vigour. The values ranged significantly from 1.67g (KDSH 302) to 4.60g (MRS 4649) for hundred seed weight, 55% (CSH 16) to 97% (CSH 14) for seed germination, 9.2cm (CSH 16) to 16.93cm (JKSH 434) for root length, 11.15cm (MSH 51) to 20.95cm (Sudhama 333) for shoot length, 10.21mg (KDSH 302) to 28.22mg (MRS 4649) for seedling dry weight and 728 (KDSH 302) to 2196 (JKSH 22) for seedling vigour index traits. Whereas, CSH 16, JKSH 474, NSH 36, KDSH 302, CSH 9, NSH 18, MDSH 262, VJH 540, MSH 51and ‘Local farm market (Udaipur)’ showed low values of germination ranging from 55 to 75% (lesser than minimum seed certification standard) which is the alarming status of seed quality and needs attention for searching the causes and solutions. The differences for these seed quality traits within the cultivar were also observed due to different market sources as found with 11 cultivars. Farmers become aware of vigour differences when the germination test fails as measure of quality for expensive seeds. The study highlights the importance of seed vigour and suggests the supply of standard quality seed by seed industry which is essential to realize the performance of cultivars on farmer field.Not Availabl