Rice is globally the most important food crop and there is a dire need to feed the ever-increasing population by improving its productivity. It has been realised that diseases are the major ...impediment towards enhancing the productivity of this crop. Despite the advent of modern effective disease control measures such as use of chemicals, bioagents and resistant varieties; agronomic practices still play a vital role in disease management in rice. Optimum use of different agro-techniques can be exploited for efficient control of various devastating diseases like rice blast, sheath blight, bakanae and many more by providing a favourable environment to better crop survival. Besides, appropriate selection of a variety, use of quality seed, method of establishment, planting time, nutrient, water and weed management practices can be well exploited to control various diseases. This manuscript entails to review the work pertaining to use of agronomic practices for exploiting the potential of crop environment interaction through reduced disease infection and to bridge the yield gap for ensuring sustained food security.
Rice is globally a major food crop and its production has progressively been affected by various types of abiotic stresses especially drought, flooding, salinity, heat and cold in most of the ...cultivable rice ecosystems. The incidence, intensity and duration of these stresses are anticipated to aggravate due to climate change consequences, demanding resilient yields in these situations to be essential. Present paper deals with reviewing various types of abiotic stresses and their mitigation strategies for enhancing and stabilizing rice production in stress prone areas. Review of available literature pertaining to the study area has been used as research methodology for this paper. The available literature suggests that stress-tolerant varieties can serve as the most viable strategy to contribute in coping with the problem of abiotic stresses. Although, good progress has been made in the development of stress-tolerant rice varieties (STRVs) and incessant efforts are being made to spread these varieties in target areas, adoption by farmers is yet to meet expectations. Advantage, affordability, awareness and availability are the main factors responsible for adopting of any technology. The adoption of stress-tolerant varieties has not reached its potential, predominantly due to the lack of awareness and non-availability of seeds amongst farmers. Strategic and intentional collaborations should be ensured for scaling the sustainable delivery and diffusion of STRVs. A promotional roadmap that ensures the linkages between private and public seed sectors remains the key factor for its successful adoption. Similarly, strengthening of formal, informal and semi-formal seed systems is crucial to accelerate the dissemination of these varieties. There is an imperative need to create strategic plans for the development of varieties possessing multiple stress tolerance. Significant investments for sustainability of rice production in stress prone areas form the essential component of long-term agricultural development. The sooner these investments and strategies are accomplished, the greater the gains are expected.
Maize is one of the most important cereal crops of Kashmir Valley where it serves as a source of food, feed, fodder and industrial raw material, providing enormous opportunity for crop ...diversification, value addition and employment generation. However, the average productivity of maize in Kashmir Valley is quite low (1.5 t ha-1) when compared to the national productivity (2.5 t ha-1). The development, dissemination and adoption of high yielding, early maturity, cold tolerant maize hybrids can serve as the most economical, effective and coherent approach to contribute significantly towards increasing maize production in Kashmir Valley. A single cross hybrid SMH4 (Shalimar Maize Hybrid 4) has been developed to enhance the maize productivity in high altitude agro-ecologies of the Valley. SMH4 possesses very high yield potential of about 7.0-8.2 t ha-1 compared to 2.5-4.0 t ha-1 as realised by the predominantly grown landraces in hilly agro-ecosystems. The hybrid revealed the grain yield superiority of about 23.61% and the stover yield superiority of about 15.77% over the commercial check viz., Shalimar maize Hybrid 1. The variety is resistant to Turcicum leaf blight and common rust, besides showing resistance to stem borers and cut worms. SMH4 has a very good acceptability by farmers for its high yield potential (both grain and fodder), better seedling vigour and early maturity. SMH4 with the traits like cold tolerance and early maturity can play a potential role in enhancing the economy of maize growers under high altitude ecologies of Kashmir Valley. The development, upscaling and mass adoption of SMH4 in temperate agro-ecologies will lead to socio-economic upliftment of small and marginal farmers through increase in production, productivity and farm profitability.
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