Current Standing and Future Challenges of Dairying in Pakistan: A Status Update

Pakistan is considered among the leading raw milk producing countries. Unlike the production systems in the developed countries, milk production systems in Pakistan represent smallholding with subsistence- or market-oriented-level farming followed by peri-urban or commercial-level farming. Historically, dairy sector has been owned and managed by the private sector. During the past two decades, new initiatives have been taken because of the active involvement of corporate private sector. These efforts have resulted in improvements like enlargement of herds and import of high-quality milk germ plasm, the productivity per animal, milk collection, processing and marketing, the supply of dairy inputs (machinery, equipment, feeds, semen, and elite dairy animals), and farmers knowledge, and skills on modern management practices. Conclusively, the dairy sector is performing at some sustainable level to meet the food requirements of the growing population and helping save a handful of foreign exchange. Yet, challenges like local replacements of high genetic potential dairy animals, health hazards of β-casein proteins, antibiotics and aflatoxins, and uneconomical operational costs facing the dairy industry in the near future need to be addressed. The main objective of this chapter is to identify the current trends in dairy industry of Pakistan and describe those factors, which can influence the sustainability and profitability of dairying in the near future

Impact of Epidemiological Factors on Development of Puccinia Triticina Sp. Tritici on Wheat in Pakistan

The weather changes after the host-pathogen interaction play a vital role in the wheat leaf rust development. This study presents the impact of weather changes at wheat growing areas of Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Sakrand  on development of wheat leaf rust  by taking into account the disease and weather data (from 4th February -5th March) of the respective years from 2003-2009. For the purpose multiple regression analysis of the temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity with the disease severity on six wheat cultivars namely Morroco, Inqilab-91, Sarsabz, Kirin-95, Soughat-90 and Tandojam-83 was conducted. It was found that temperature and relative humidity both played a significantly positive effect in disease development while wind velocity had negative impact on disease development. The most favorable conditions for leaf rust development on wheat in Pakistan were recorded at Bahawalpur, where the temperature (16.85-20.44°C), relative humidity (57.08-76.95%) and wind velocity (1.98-4.07 km/hr) acts collectively in onset of leaf rust. When these weather parameters were individually regressed no clear trends were noticed keeping in view their coefficient of determination (R2), regression coefficients/lines. This study depicts that all these factors interact with each other in a multi-colinear interaction, and had a collective effect on onset of leaf rust in the natural environment. Key words: Climate change, wheat, leaf rust, weather parameter

Review of morphological, optical and structural characteristics of TiO2 thin film prepared by sol gel spin-coating technique

Optical, structural and morphological properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2) deposited by spin coating method have been reviewed in the current work. Sol–gel spin coating is a cost effective and versatile technique due to intellectual properties like simple instruments, easy preparation technique, and less time consuming. In this method, compound in the form of metal oxides is liquefied in a specific liquid in order to bring it back as a solid in a skillful manner. Study of metal oxide thin films have valuable applications in numerous semiconductor devices such as optoelectronics devices and solar energy converters etc. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis has been used for studying TiO2 thin films and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis has been applied for morphological investigation and to prove the nanosized structure. Optical and structural properties have been studied as a function of the annealing temperatures. XRD analysis reveals that the films crystallize in orthorhombic brookite phase. Moreover, UV-visible has been used to investigate the optical properties of material. XRD characterization indicates that crystalline structure of TiO2 thin films improves with increasing annealing temperatures which confirms the anatase form of TiO2 thin film. Optical band gap is significantly dependent on the annealing temperatures. The refractive index may increases with increase of crystallite size. The TiO2 film annealed at 400 °C shows high refractive index 2.52 at a wavelength of 335 nm. Moreover, optical band gapes of thin film vary approximately from 3.3 to 3.46 eV which show strong relation with annealing temperature

5-[(E)-(2-Fluoro­benzyl­idene)amino]-2-hy­droxy­benzoic acid

In the title compound, C14H10FNO3, the dihedral angle between the two benzene rings is 32.66 (14)°. An S(6) ring motif is formed due to an intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond between the hy­droxy and carbonyl groups. In the crystal, mol­ecules are consolidated into dimers with R 2 2(8) ring motifs by pairs of O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds