2. • Currently in rice-wheat cropping system
biological research is focusing on issues related to
natural resource management (NRM).
• Most notable success to-date has been the recent
development of several resource conservation
technologies (RCTs) due to the efforts
championed by rice and wheat coordinating
(RWC) units with its NARS (National Agricultural
Research System) partners, including the private-
sector machinery manufacturers.
3.
4. Conservation agricultural (CA) Practices
• Acreage of CA is increasing steadily world-wide
to cover about 108 m ha (Derpsch and Friedrich
2009) globally (7% of the world arable land
area).
• CA is an innovation process of developing
appropriate CA implements, crop cultivars for
iterative guidance and fine-tuning to modify
crop production technologies.
• Recent estimates revealed that CS based RCTs
are being practiced over nearly 3.9 m ha of
South Asia (Gupta 2010).
5. Site specific crop management practices
• SSNM, BMP besides IPNS results in better crop
yield and efficiency.
• Building crop management programmes by
integrating available BMPs for the site with due
consideration of interactions and their careful
management result in huge cumulative benefits –
additive, and/or multiplicative from the biological
system of crop production.
• This would greatly reduce external input supply and
achieve highest fertilizer use efficiency and
sustainability.
6. System of Rice Intensification
• The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is new technique
of rice cultivation which changes the management of soil,
water and nutrients that support optimal growing
environment for rice.
• The SRI showed that keeping paddy soils moist gives better
results, both agronomically and economically, than flooding
the soil throughout its crop cycle.
• This benefit is enhanced by complementary agronomic
practices that greatly increase the growth of roots and of
soil biota which make it possible to grow more productive
phenotypes from any rice genotype.
7. • The SRI, thus is currently attracting the greatest attention to
address the issue of ‘more yield with less water'. The SRI can
also reduce GHG emission and improves soil health.
• A study at IARI, New Delhi showed that the global warming
potential (GWP) in the SRI was only 28.9% over the
conventional method. It increased the water productivity by
44% compared to conventional planting method.
• Seed rate in SRI was much lower which reduced the input
cost.
• SRI seems to be a ‘win-win’ technology. However, there are
some concerns and bottlenecks in its adoption.
8. Golden rice
• A nutritionally enriched rice variety now popularly
being referred to as 'golden rice'.
• This golden rice is genetically modified rice which
contains genes that produce high levels of beta
carotene and related compounds.
• Beta carotene is contained in yellow fruits like carrots
(from which it gets its name) and mangoes and in
vegetables like spinach.
• Beta carotene and other related compounds are
converted in the human body to the crucially needed
vitamin A.
9. Quality Protein Maize
• Maize is a major cereal crop for both human and livestock nutrition,
worldwide.
• Protein from cereals including normal maize, have poor nutritional value
because of reduced content of essential aminoacids such as lysine and
tryptophan leading to harmful consequences such as growth retardation,
protein energy mal-nutrition, anemia, pellagra, free radical damage etc.
• As a consequence, the use of maize as food is decreasing day by day
among health conscious people.
• The complex nature of these problems posed a formidable challenge.
• This challenge was gladly accepted by two distinguished scientists of
CIMMYT, Mexico, Dr. S. K. Vasal and Dr. Evangelina Villegas whose
painstaking efforts for a period of 3 decades led to development of
Quality Protein Maize (QPM) with hard kernel, good taste and other
consumer favouring characteristics.
• This work is globally recognized as a step towards nutritional security for
the poor.
10. Vertical farming
• The concept of "The Vertical Farm" emerged in 1999 at
Columbia University.
• It promotes the mass cultivation of plant and animal life
for commercial purposes in skyscrapers.
• Using advanced greenhouse technology such as
hydroponics and aeroponics, the skyscrapers could
theoretically produce fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables.
• While the concept of stacked agricultural production is
not new, scholars claim that a commercial high-rise
farm such as 'The Vertical Farm' has never been built,
yet extensive photographic documentation and several
historical books on the subject suggest that research on
the subject was not diligently pursued.
