Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
Researchers at Colorado State University, USA, believe that they have found an environmentally friendly method of dealing with rootworms that ravage cornfields. The experiment were based on the discovery that rootworm larvae search for the roots of the plant by detecting the carbon dioxide (CO2) that roots emit. Louis B …
A new technology for the multiplication of banana plants in 12 commercial varieties has been developed at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. P S Rao, head of the Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology division of BARC says that the plants that are being developed with the new technology, will …
Agro-scientists at West Bengal government's rice research station have developed four high-yielding rice varieties which will increase current levels of yield by an average of 30 per cent. While the seeds for two of the varieties have been derived through a process of
Dutch scientists have discovered a gene that makes plants resistant to nematodes, and are using it to develop transgenic worm-resistant crops. Every year the world loses about US $100 billion worth of crops to tiny pests that live in the soil and eat the roots of plants. Researchers at the …
genetic tinkering can produce plants that can be made to bloom as and when required. Doused with the correct chemical trigger, they spring into bloom within days. George Coupland and his colleagues at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, say that if plants could be persuaded to flower as and when …
a genetically engineered rice that can produce human proteins and can be harvested just like any other crop, has been developed by California-based Applied Phytologics. This technique could make it cheaper to produce many bioengineered proteins such as those found in detergents ( New Scientist , Vol 155, No 2090). …
Australian chemists have developed a simple test kit, which could help prevent millions of Africans from being poisoned by the cyanide that occurs naturally in cassava, their staple food. The test involves mixing 100 mg of cassava with 0.5 ml of water. The mixture is then placed on paper containing …
In an effort to create more productive and disease-resistant strains of rice, Chinese researchers have created a gene 'map' that will eventually allow not only comparisons between different strains of rice but between other major grains as well. Scientists at Shanghai's Genetic Research Center have isolated and catalogued the individual …
German researchers are creating plants that can withstand climate changes. Usually plants use 'heat-shock factors' to make denatured proteins resume their shape. By modifying these heat-shock factors (HSF-1), researchers have created a heat tolerant form of thale cress - Arabidopsis thatiana. When A thatiana gets too hot, HSF-I enters the …
LATE-BLIGHT, a fungus that destroys potatoes, which had been neutralised decades back, may play havoc with crops in Europe once again. Researchers in southwest Scotland are about to infect a crop of potato hybrids with late-blight to see whether they can resist the disease. (New Scientist, Vol 154, No 2079) …
Cultivation costs (Amount in Rs) Land preparation by tractor 28,000 (400 hours x Rs 70 per hour) 28,000 Cultivation by tractor(120 hours x Rs 80 per hour) 9,600 Seed of prime variety(1,000 kg x Rs 200 per kg) 2,00,000 Inter-culture and weeding (600 workingdays at the rate of Rs 40 …
American scientists have found a way to give pollen grains an electrostatic charge to improve pollination. The charge attracts the pollen to plants, they say. The pollen is stored in a tank and pumped through a hollow electrode, after mixing it with distilled water and salt. A high speed air …
Biologists in Australia and Japan have genetically engineered tobacco plants so that they destroy their own seeds. They say the same technique should work in citrus crops. Anna Koltunow of the division of horticulture of the CSIRO, Australia's national research agency in Adelaide, and Fumio Takaiwa of Japan's National Institute …
A LARGE number of tea gardens in Darjeeling have switched over to organic tea. No inorganic fertilisers, pesticides and wcedicides are used. The planters only use bio-compost, biomass-based mulching is being used as fertilisers. Similarly, only neem-based pesticides and weedicides like Neerrigold and Neemazol are used. Organic tea is meant …
SENNA (Cassia angustifolia 17ahl) a native of Saudi Arabia is now cultivated extensively in western Rajasthan The main advantage of the crop is that it is does not require the application of any fertilisers as it is not devoured by insects or other animals or birds. Further, the plant is …
Organic tea cultivation is fast emerging as an alternate source of income for small and marginal farmers in the Darjeeling hills. The founder of the locally based Specialised Agriculture and Indus trial Consultancy on Tea and veteran tea planter, Harish Mukhia, says that his firm has recently supplied good quality …
Agracetus, a company in Middle town, Wisconsin, US , has genetically engineered cotton plants to produce fibres containing granules of plastic for making ultrawarm winter wear, carpets and insulation material. Maliyakal John of Agracetus injected cotton plants with genes from Alcaligenes eutrophus , a bacterium that makes a biodegradable plastic …
Flyash, produced in millions of tonnes as a waste by thermal power plants can serve as an excellent soil conditioner, studies at the Central Research Institute, Dhanbad, Bihar, show. The studies confirm that the yield of crops increases by 20-60 per cent on the addition of 25-200 tonnes of flyash …
AS A result of industrial and mining operations, extensive acres of agricultural land are poisoned worldwide due to toxic effluents. Scientists at Oxford Universitv LJK, have found a possible solution to this growing menace by producing genetically engineered cabbages, cauliflowers arid Brussels sprouts, that would soak up toxic metals and …
PLANTS can be cultivated in test-tubes that contain the appropriate nutrient medium. Any part of the plant can be inoculated into the medium to produce a large number of plants. This system is far more efficient and cost-effective as compared to conventional methods of multiplication. Tissue culture, to begin with, …
