The loss of biodiversity is a complex problem affecting both the environmental and economic field, because the natural capital pro-vides essential resources for industry and agriculture.

It is projected that the global COVID-19 pandemic effect on the hydroponics market will generate revenues of USD 17 billion with a CAGR of about 11.5% from 2020 to 2024 (forecast period). The study outlines the strengths, opportunities, threats and potential business risks and provides an extensive summary of the influence of COVID-19 on the global market situation. Hydroponics refers to an agricultural process, such as a mineral nutrient and a water so-lution, used to grow plants in a soil-free medium. In a particular climate, crops have historically been cultivated, but in hydropon-ics, they are cultivated in a controlled setting. Hydroponics uses two methods, a solid medium crop and a solution crop, to grow crops.

The meaning of Farm pond is small tank or reservoir like constructions, are constructed for the purpose of storing the surface runoff, generated from the catchment area. The farm ponds are the water harvesting structures, solve several purposes of farm needs such as supply of water for irrigation, cattle feed, fish production etc. Farm Ponds are shielding the vagaries of drought and help the farmers to keep their farm activity and provide ability to store water during an occasional rain and use the same to feed water to crops during the dry spells. All these have been evidenced in Ananthapuramu district through watershed intervention.

Global population already hit 7.7 billion mark; another million-feeding mouth are being added every 14 months in average. This aggressive population growth doesn’t seem to slowing anytime sooner. More population has high demand for consumption of natural resources, but the real concern is, can our earth be able to withstand this population pressure? Clear indication on steadily increasing income elasticity of demand for food is indicating to-wards the verge of catastrophic failure of human civilization as earth hospitality may not remain the same. To amply feed the glob-al population we need to expand our framework on current agri-culture practices and food distribution network. Poverty, food se-curity and food safety are major challenges to address. Agriculture innovation and technology adaptation are our vital tools for the change. These must be supported by modernization prescribed on scientific ground. The increasing demand for adequate and safer food can be addressed by smart agriculture, green revolution and sustainable agriculture aided by mechanization. To ensure food for all advanced tools like biotechnology and agrigenomics can also be used.

The experiment was conducted to assess the postharvest quality and storage life of Sein Ta Lone mango affected by wrapping materials and storage temperature. It was carried out at the Laboratory of Department of Horticulture, Yezin Agricultural University during the mango harvest season of May 2018. Treatments were laid out in factorial arrangement, randomized complete block design with four replications. Factor A was the storage at controlled temperature (13 °C) and at room temperature (35 - 38 °C) and factor B was wrapping materials of white net sack, white fruit wrapping paper and without wrapping (control). Sein Ta Lone mangoes were collected from Myanadi mango orchard, Department of Agriculture, Myittha Township, Mandalay Region. The data on physiological weight loss (%), color index, fruit firmness (kgcm-2), total soluble solid (TSS%), total titratable acidity (TTA%), respiration rate (mg CO2 kg-1h-1), ethylene production rate (µl kg-1h-1) and shelf-life (days) were collected at two days intervals throughout the experiment. Control fruits stored at 13 °C significantly showed the longer shelf-life (14 days) than those under room temperature (7 days). The fruits wrapped with paper showed the longest shelf life of 16 days at 13 °C while the fruits wrapped with net sack maintained the lon-gest shelf-life of 8 days at room temperature. The ethylene production and respiration rates of Sein Ta Lone mango under 13 °C were considerably lower than those of the fruits under room temperature but not significantly different among the treatments. The mini-mum respiration and ethylene production rate of unwrapped mangoes were 10.84 CO2 mg kg-1h-1 and 0.07ul kg-1h-1, respectively. The color value rapidly increased in all treatments stored at room temperature at 4 days after storage. However, the color development of the fruits stored at 13 °C gradually increased with lower value than that of those under room temperature. There were no significant differences in TTA% and TSS% among the treatments at respective temperatures. The results from this study revealed that net sack wrapping should be used at room temperature to protect injury and paper wrapping should be used in low temperature storage of 13 °C to absorb moisture and maintain fruit quality.

This paper deals with the eco-friendly and low cost recent techniques of removal of arsenic from aqueous medium keeping in mind the health hazards of arsenic contamination.Arsenic contamination in ground water of the Gangetic plain in Holocene newer alluvial due to arsenic bearing chemicals has become a matter of grave concern. As a result researches on arsenic mitigation using natural resources are going on in different parts of the world. Natural resources e.g. bentonite mineral of Rajmahal hills and aquatic plants have been utilized for removal of arsenic from aqueous medium. Aquatic plants remove arsenic through their roots and leaves known as phytoremediation and dried biomass is also useful for removal of arsenic known as bio-remediation. The presence of unsaturated carboxylic acid, hemicellulose and amino groups present on the surface of the biomass bind arsenic on the surface but bentonite mineral removes arsenic by adsorption and ion exchange both due to the presence of unsatisfied charges on the surface. Percentage removal of arsenic with varying time by bentonites and aquatic plants have been calculated and experimental data have been used to explain the nature of adsorption.

A field experiment was carried out during the summer (kharif) seasons of 2019-20 at research farm field in TCA, Dholi, under Dr. RPCAU, Pusa, Samastipur (Bihar). The experiment was laid out in split plot design with 4 main plot treatment viz., T 1: Permanent bed (PB), T 2: Zero tillage (ZT), T 3: Fresh bed (FB) and T 4: Conventional tillage and 3 sub-plot treatment viz., N 1: 100% Recom-mended dose of fertilizer (RDF), N 2: 120% Recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) and N 3: 80% Recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) witch were replicated thrice. Considering the overall impact of conservation agriculture practices, growing maize+pigeon pea intercropping under PB, crop recorded higher maize equivalent yield (130.7 q/ha) at par with ZT (120.7 q/ha) over the FB (112.1 q/ha) and CT (108.4 q/ha) while, 120% RDF application recorded (127.7 q/ha) over the 100% RDF (117.7 q/ha) and 80% RDF (108.6 q/ha) application under nutrient management. The gross return, net return and B:C ratio from maize+pigeon pea intercropping ob-tained significantly higher under PB (244839, 189239 and 3.4) compared to FB (210514, 153665 and 2.7) and CT (203320, 147070 and 2.6) while under nutrient management, the gross return, net return and B:C ratio recorded higher with 120% RDF application (239028, 181223 and 3.1) compared to 80% RDF (204076, 150031 and 2.8). the soil physico-chemical properties viz., bulk density, pH, EC, organic carbon, available N, P and K were also favourably influenced by PB and ZT practices but it’s were not significantly affected by nutrient management practices. Appropriate tillage practices and nutrient management are some of the reasons behind the increasing economics or net returns of crop. Therefore, the study was conducted to identify the appropriate tillage practices and suitable nutrient management in new immersing maize + pigeonpea intercropping system in an alternative conventional farming.

Rice (Oryza sativa) is the major source of food security for most of the population in the world. False smut is recently emerging as a major Rice disease which was previously considered to have a negligible impact. An ascomycetes fungus, Villosiclava virens is the pathogen that causes the False Smut disease of rice. It is found in two different stages sexual and asexual and both spores can infect the spikelet and lead to the formation of smut ball of rice grain. The disease has been reported from all across the world after being reported for the first time in Tamil Nadu by Cooke in 1878. Rice False Smut has been reported to cause 40% of the yield losses and this disease can be controlled with the proper management practices and the control approaches. The disease is found to have linked with the higher nitrogen usages and the occurrence of heavy rainfall during Reproductive stage. Preventive approaches include crop rotation, optimum nitrogen usages, selection of the resistant variety, scheduling of the crop plantation to avoid raining during sensitive stages and field preparation. While control of the disease could be done with different methods, application of fungicides Triûoxystrobin 25%+ Tebuconazole 50% and Propiconazole 25 EC in vitro and in vivo condition showed 100% inhibition to growth of fungal mycelium being the most effective chemical among other contemporary fungicides. Among the different fungicides tested azoxystrobin (18.2%) SC showed better efficacy at 0.1 per cent and enhanced the paddy yield under field condition. The study done by Raji 2016 shows significant control of the False smut using the extract of garlic, turmeric, lantana and Bael, whereas plant oils of lemon grass and cinnamon have completely inhibited the growth of U. virens. Andargie., et al. (2017) reported Antennariella placitaea bio-control agent to be effective against rice false smut (Ustilaginoidea virens) both in vitro and in vivo condition. This review aims to educate about the disease and its effective management strategies.

This research aims to discuss the variation of solar activity and in particular the proton density connected to seismic events of magnitude greater than 7. Between January 28, 2020 and March 25, 2020, our planet was shaken by three M7+ earthquakes (January 28, 2020 in Jamaica with magnitude of M7.7; February 13, 2020 in Russia with magnitude of M7.0 and, again in Russia, on March 25, 2020 with magnitude of M7.5) and provided the opportunity to carry out the research. The changes in the ionic density of the solar wind that preceded the global seismic sequence occurred after major increases in the proton density of the solar wind. In this regard, the authors analyzed space weather to verify the existence of a correspondence between solar activity and the three M7+ seismic events. The data showed a close relationship between the two variables, in a temporal sense and from a qualitative point of view. The time intervals between the proton density increase and the main tremors were 28 hours, 12 hours, and 112 hours, respectively.

As per the Livestock Census of 2019, current goat population in India is about 148 million and that of pigs are 9.06 million in India. They are identified using physical tagging, stenciling, tat-tooing, branding, etc. that can easily be manipulated extravagantly creating opportunities for poachers and middle men to poach the animals for their bones, meat, etc. and illegal transfer across inter-national borders. However, to prevent this, a unique, non-invasive, non-manipulative method of identification based on behavioral patterns must be incorporated, also termed as biometrics. Such unique character trait or ‘fingerprints’ become a mandate in the process of unique animal identification. Several character traits have been examined and investigated to develop the unique identi-fication and has later been proved that irises of goats and auricular vein pattern of pigs have been found to be the most feasible one in such identification.

Bentonite deposits are widely distributed in different parts of the world associated with volcanic rocks and tuffaceous sediments of Miocene and Oligocene age. Other important minerals are illite, kaolinite and vermiculite. Bentonite mineral is smectite group of minerals having a montmorillonite unit which consists of two tet-rahedral silica sheets and one octahedral sheet [1-3]. These come under clay minerals abundant in Rajasthan and Jharkhand. A vast deposit of bentonite occurs in a place Wyoming in U.S.A, Montmo-rillon in France, Japan and some countries of the world. So, this bentonite has been named after its place known as Wyoming ben-tonite and montmorillonite has gained its name after its discovery locality at Montmorillon 70 Km NNW of Limoges, France. Natural bentonite is 98% montmorillonite giving positive stain test with benzidine solution [4-6]. Owing to low cost and abundance in na-ture, a new vistas of research on bentonites has been opened up with a view to remove heavy metals and toxic elements from aque-ous medium. Clay minerals have residual charges on the surface due to partial substitution of tetrahedral Si4+ by Al3+ or Al3+ or Fe3+ by Fe2+ or Mg2+. Thus, substitution of tetravalent cations by triva-lent cations leaves deficit charge on the surface of the clay. Main constituents of clay minerals are SiO2, Al2O3 along with Na2O, K2O, CaO and MgO [7]. Characterization of bentonites are done by XRD, FTIR, SEM, TGA, DSC and physico chemical tests. Bentonites of dif-ferent colour and grade of Rajmahal hills of Jharkhand have been used commercially for various industrial purposes. High swell-ing power, plastic properties, adsorption potential and cation ex-change capacity of bentonite have made it a low cost adsorbent of Cr, Cd, As, F and organic dyes.

Foxnut (Euryale ferox Salisb.) commonly known as makhana is a flowering plant with gigantic and floating leaves. Foxnut is a high-ly-valued aquatic crop due to its high amount of carbohydrate, protein, ash, crude fiber, minerals and phytochemical content. Foxnut plant species can take part remarkably towards the betterment of human health, fight against hunger and providing traditional medicinal effects. Owing to their powerful medicinal properties, foxnut pops are used against many human disorders that affect the respiratory, circulatory, gastrointestinal, excretory and reproductive system. It is used as an important source of natural antioxidants with antidiabetic and antihyperlipidemic potential and used as food additives. The amino acids arginine and methionine are the cre-atine precursors that are necessary for beautiful skin nails and hairs. Creatine obtained from arginine and methionine plays a crucial part for healthy skin. It is used as a functional food for the treatment of diabetes and the alleviation of its complications. Euryale ferox Salisb seed reduces hyperglycemia that could be triggered by the release of insulin from the remnant. It contains low sodium and high potassium, which reduces blood pressure and contains very low levels of monosaturated fat that prevent blood sugar from rising. It has all the nutritional and potential health benefits necessary to be regarded as a super food.