Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
The increasing industrial application of metal oxide Engineered Nano-Particles (ENPs) is likely to increase their environmental release to soils. While the potential of metal oxide ENPs as environmental toxicants has been shown, lack of suitable control treatments have compromised the power of many previous assessments. We evaluated the ecotoxicity of …
The World Bank has approved a $109-million grant for Rajasthan to promote water-efficient agriculture through sustainable and efficient use of resources in the desert state. The fund, approved for the Rajasthan Agricultural Competitiveness Project, is expected to benefit some 1,55,000 farmers, mainly those with small land holdings in the state. …
India is the largest producer, consumer, importer and processor of pulses in the world. Ironically, the country’s pulse production has been hovering around 14–15 Mt, coming from a near-stagnated area of 22–23 M ha, since 1990–91. For meeting the demand of the growing population, the country is importing pulses to …
Fertilizer has been the key input in augmenting foodproduction in India. However, fertilizer use in India is skewed, high in a few states having adequate irrigation and dismally low in the NE states. There is also imbalanced use of N, P and K. Deficiency of secondary nutrient sulphur and micronutrient …
Improvement in post-rainy sorghum grain yield has been a challenge with M 35-1, a landrace selection released in 1937 dominating the post-rainy (rabi) tracts. It led to stagnation of post-rainy sorghum yields until the importance of specific adaptation was realized in lieu of highly variable soil and climatic conditions of …
Fire has become an increasingly important disturbance event in south-western Amazonia. We conducted the first assessment of the ecological impacts of these wildfires in 2008, sampling forest structure and biodiversity along twelve 500 m transects in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Acre, Brazil. Six transects were placed in unburned forests …
The afforestation of abandoned farmland significantly influences soil organic carbon (OC). However, the dynamics between OC inputs after afforestation and the original OC are not well understood. To learn more about soil OC dynamics after afforestation of farmland, we measured the soil OC content in paired forest and farmland plots …
Knowledge of the responses of soil nitrogen (N) availability, fine root mass, production and turnover rates to atmospheric N deposition is crucial for understanding fine root dynamics and functioning in forest ecosystems. Fine root biomass and necromass, production and turnover rates, and soil nitrate-N and ammonium-N in relation to N …
The Kerala State Planning Board is cutting a new path in farm development through a pioneering initiative in agro-ecological planning. The approach paper to the 12th Plan endorsed by the State Government has accepted the agro-ecological methodology to the development of agriculture. An agro-ecological unit is characterised by distinct responses …
One of the ways in which farmers can protect their soils is through the use of mulch. When the soil is covered with a thick layer of organic matter, it is protected from extreme rainfall, winds or drought. Mulch also serves as a home for insects, helping attract many species …
The race to buy mines is on not just in metals and coal. Agriculture is caught in an equally-intense struggle for new mines. And the billions farm input companies are willing to invest seem worth it because these mines are critical to global food production. ET helps you join the …
In a landmark decision, the Union rural development minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, today announced that the flagship scheme MG-NREGA would be made more agriculture focused. “At least 28 new work lists out of 30 suggested by the Planning Commission member Mihir Shah committee is agriculture based. We will have the …
LONDON : Global warming will get worse as agricultural methods accelerate the rate of soil erosion, which depletes the amount of carbon the soil is able to store, a United Nations' Environment Programme report said on Monday. Soil contains huge quantities of carbon in the form of organic matter. which …
The Karnataka Government has made budget provision of Rs 110 crore for watershed and soil enrichment (‘BhooChetana') project, for the year 2012-13, which is being implemented in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (Icrisat). Mr Suhas P. Wani, Programme Director - Resilient dry land Systems, …
Agricultural production in India has increased through green renaissance, growing high-yielding varieties of crops and adopting scientifically improved soil fertility management, water management, plant protection and crop husbandry technologies during the past three decades. Integrated approach Because of such integrated approach, we have been able to increase the agricultural production …
Farmers in Punjab and officials related to the agriculture sector have expressed a serious concern over the proposed suggestion by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MPNG) to the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to cut off the supply of domestic natural gas to fertiliser units producing phosphorous and …
Puts Centre’s Initiative For Nutrient-Based Fertilizers In Jeopardy. New Delhi: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s request for increased supply of urea as prices of nutrient based fertilizers are increasing has highlighted the challenges the Centre’s bid to reduce urea use and promote a more balanced product mix faces. Arguing …
Current paradigms generally assume that increased plant nitrogen (N) should enhance herbivore performance by relieving protein limitation, increasing herbivorous insect populations. We show, in contrast to this scenario, that host plant N enrichment and high-protein artificial diets decreased the size and viability of Oedaleus asiaticus, a dominant locust of north …
Multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW) and micrometer array measurements (MAM) have been carried out in the flood-prone areas of Selimpaşa, Kavakli, Ortakoy and Kadikoy in Turkey to understand several soil problems, especially soil amplification during earthquakes.
