India is an emporium of medicinal plants. Indian systems of medicine as well as folkloric systems are utilizing medicinal plant wealth from very ancient times for combating a wide array of human ailments. There exists a history of facing several pandemics including Small pox, Tuberculosis, Spanish Flu, Malaria etc. using traditional herbal medicines. National Medicinal Plant Board had suggested selected twenty medicinal plants including Amla, Aswagandha, Basil, Giloe, Cinnamon, Clove etc. as a prophylaxis or support therapy for curing COVID-19 related ailments. In addition, in silo, in vitro and pre-clinical evidences exhibiting the anti-COVID-19 activity of these medicinal plants revealed the scope for development of plant derived anti-COVID drugs.
Agricultural extension is a form of rural development that relies on non-formal education. It is an old curriculum that works hand in hand with applied and academic agricultural scientific research. There is a wide debate about the necessity of separating the skills of the researcher from those of the agricultural extension worker. This study demonstrates what a scientific specialist needs to be a crucible that combines academic foundation, research mastery, and agricultural advisor skills. In this popular article, a quick presentation of the contents of 11 academic lectures separated into 10 sections on agricultural extension targeting master's students in plant protection at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. In the summary, a skilled agricultural supervisor needs broad academic capabilities, integrated research, scientific applications skills, and social characteristics, as well as the use of various media to understand the needs of the local community and build extension plans to affect the adoption of qualitative technologies that contribute to rural agricultural development. The article recommends the necessity to raise awareness on the importance of combining the characteristics of an academic, researcher, and agricultural advisor in agricultural societies.
Rice the major principal food crop for the half of the world population. As the world population increases alarmingly, agricultural scientists are striving towards development of an “evergreen revolution” to ensure the food security in the future. To increase the productivity of rice, many deliberate research programmes are being adopted by using all the technologies prevailing currently. Among the all technologies, hybrid development is a popular technology to increase the rice productivity. In the future also these hybrid development technologies will contribute major portion for the food security. The crop scientific community should be ready to face the challenges come from climatic changes viz., high temperature stress, CO2 elevation, etc., Hence, the development of the hybrids in the aspect of future climatic factors will help to overcome the food shortages.
Genes of the crop reacts to the environment and gives the trait expression accordingly. The environment viz., climate, soils, abiotic and biotic factors are influences the total output of the crop traits. Knowledge of the relative contributions of genotype (G), environment (E), and genotype and environment interaction are very important for a breeder to select the superior lines in the breeding programmes. Every plant breeder facing challenges to partition the genotypic and environmental effects and their interaction effects during the breeding programmes to select the heritable traits. The Genotype and environment interaction gives effects on yield and quality of the grain yield in any crop crops.
The invention of green revolution made high yielding rice varieties more popular than the traditional varieties. In India, Ayurvedha and Unani medicinal system depends on the medicinal properties of rice. Traditional rice varieties has been extensively used to control high blood pressure, regulating blood sugar level, body balance, diarrhoea in children, digestive system disorders, skin inflammation, and certain other specific diseases. And also rice milling place a major role in the nutrient condent. It is done for polishing rice grain, involves discarding bran or brown outer layer of rice kernel which has considerable nutritional value and health benefits. Processed rice is lacking in many important minerals namely phosphorus (for strong bones and dental health), potassium (maintains blood pressure), manganese (required for various chemical processes in the body) and sulphur (main constituents of proteins in our body). So Polishing should be kept to a minimum during milling.
