Burhan U Choudhury

• Ph D (Soil Physics/IARI-New Delhi)
• Head Regional Center at ICAR NEH Regional Center Tripura

Identifying, characterizing and mapping, unique vegetable crops grown on small mixed lands in the eastern Himalayan mountain ecosystem (EHME) using traditional methods is a challenge. The exploration of high-resolution, multi-spectral optical satellite data for vegetable mapping is hindered by heavy rainfall, clouds, and year-round fog/snow cover....

Information on periodic land use/land cover (LULC) changes are imperative for regional agricultural planning and policymaking. In this study, 332 soil samples were collected across five LULC types (coal mine degraded land, grassland, shifting cultivation or Jhum, plantation, and upland agriculture) of Eastern Indian Himalayas and subsequently chara...

Abstract. Frost in the uplands of northeast India frequently damages maize, leading to poor yields or even complete crop failure. We studied the feasibility of using reflectance spectra from a handheld radiometer and a camera on board a drone at 80 m above the crop to assess physiological changes, differential responses of crop to nutrient manageme...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encompass 17 global goals aimed at fostering a more sustainable and equitable world by addressing socio-economic and environmental challenges, including agriculture. Achieving these goals necessitates the adoption of agro-ecological principles, particularly in sustainable land use and food production, to enh...

Leaf chlorophyll concentration (LCC) is a key indicator of leaf nitrogen (N) and changes in canopy structure, particularly the leaf area index (LAI), play a significant role in estimating LCC. Spectral prediction models for chlorophyll are a useful tool for timely nutritional management, particularly in precision agriculture. However, the accuracy...

Understanding the physico-chemical properties of biochar is crucial for optimizing its use as a soil amendment to enhance crop growth. This study focuses on biochar produced from three types of biomass prevalent in the eastern Himalayan region: pine wood residue, maize stalk, and mixed weeds. The biochar was applied to soil at different rates (0, 5...

Heat stress (HS) poses a significant challenge to pig production worldwide, with far-reaching consequences for productivity, reproduction, and overall animal welfare. Stress, broadly defined as the nonspecific physiological response to environmental demands, disrupts homeostasis, leading to health imbalances, behavioral changes, and reduced product...

Tripura, a state in Northeast India, holds immense potential for fostering agri-entrepreneurship and startups due to its abundant natural resources, diverse agro-climatic zones, and strategic location. With a predominantly agrarian economy, there is scope for modernization through innovative startups in agriculture and allied sectors such as hortic...

Alligator weed (AW; Alternanthera philoxeroides) can have severe ecological and economic consequences by impacting water quality, flow and the growth of native flora and fauna. Plants, both edible and inedible, contain phenolics, compounds that can serve as antioxidants. Using this background information, the study aimed to explore the possible ant...

Climate change, land degradation, and shrinking land resources are major limitations for increasing crop productivity in the East Himalayan Region (EHR). Agroforestry having a plethora of complementarities is a preferable land-use option for improving agricultural productivity while conserving the natural resources. The effects of agroforestry syst...

Maize is a major crop of the Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR) which faces significant environmental challenges including waterlogging (WL) under changing climate. Through microcosm and field experiments, this study aimed to evaluate the phenotypic plasticity and adaptive mechanisms of maize landraces under WL conditions at the seedling and flowering...

Weather variables that change over time and on a long-term basis can impact the climate of a region. Using Mann-Kendall tests and Sen's slope, we evaluated the variability, trends, and magnitudes of change in weather variables in West Tripura for 32 years (1992-2023). The rainfall experienced yearly variation (CV: 21.5%), with an average of 2320.5...

Agroforestry systems play a critical role in enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) stability and mitigating climate change by integrating trees and crops to improve soil fertility and carbon sequestration. This study investigates the SOC stability, aggregate dynamics, and temperature sensitivity of SOC mineralization across four agroforestry systems...

This publication gives a succinct introduction to Google Earth Engine (GEE), a cloud-based open-source platform that processes geospatial data to enable environmental monitoring and analysis on a large scale. Also discussed are high-performance machine learning (ML) algorithms and parallel computing that leverage Google's powerful computational net...

Conventional pre-genomics breeding methodologies have significantly improved crop yields since the mid-twentieth century. Genomics provides breeders with advanced tools for whole-genome study, enabling a direct genotype-phenotype analysis. This shift has led to precise and efficient crop development through genomics-based approaches, including mole...

The study investigates the impact of polyethylene glycol (PEG), sodium nitroprusside (SNP), and different carbon sources on the in vitro callus induction and regeneration of drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes. PEG, a known osmotic agent, mimics drought conditions, thus providing insights into the plant’s respons...

Sandalwood (Santalum album) presents a valuable agroforestry opportunity for enhancing farmer income and adapting to climate change in the foothills region of Nagaland. Sandalwood, known for its aromatic heartwood used in various industries, thrives in well-drained, sandy loam soils and requires specific host plants for optimal growth. Despite the...

The environmental control of crop physiology increases relative sensitivity of crop water movement within the soil plant atmosphere continuum (SPAC), so as the dynamics of crop water usage under modified climate. The variable environmental conditions determine the relative direction of change. Elevated CO2 exposure depressed the water movement of t...

Sustainable hill farming necessitates a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. Due to unsustainable hill farming, the mountain ecosystem in north-east India (NEI) is now at greater risk of soil erosion and degradation. The adoption rate for advanced watershed engineering and mechanical measures (WEMM) among resource-poor hill...

Irrigation scheduling plays a vital role in the efficient utilization of water to obtain optimum yield, particularly for high value crops grown under protected conditions. The present experiment was conducted during 2020-22 at Horticulture Experimental Farm, ICAR-Research Complex for North Eastern Hill Region, Umiam, Meghalaya to standardize the ir...

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the major staple crop of Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR) and its cultivation and productivity is severely constrained by elevated temperature (T) in cooler mountain regions like EHR. Present study on stress physiological response of indigenous rice cultivars (68no.) of EHR for elevated T of Carbon dioxide temperature gradie...

The environmental control of crop physiology increases relative sensitivity of crop water movement within the soil plant atmosphere continuum (SPAC), so as the dynamics of crop water usage under modified climate. The variable environmental conditions determines the relative direction of change. Elevated CO2 exposure depressed the water movement of...

There are about 1,000 billion goats and 1156 different goat breeds are available in the world and 95% of them are in Africa and Asia. The goats are famous for chevon production and there is no religious restriction for consumption of goat meat and meat products. According to various reports since 2000 AD the global goat production has increased 30%...

This study explores the high-precision mapping (1: 50 K stratified random sampling) of spatial variability in soil acidity (pH), soluble aluminum (Al), and plant-available micronutrients (Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn extracted by DTPA) for the acid soils of the Meghalaya Plateau northeastern Himalaya, India. Results revealed that soils in nearly 88% of the t...

Abandoned cropland is a global threat to land degradation, particularly in the eastern Himalayas, where the conversion of forests into cropland is widespread, resulting in abandonment. Agroforestry systems have the potential to mitigate land degradation and carbon (C) losses. The region lacks information on comparing soil carbon inventories between...

Under changing climate, identification and diversification of cropping systems having higher stress resilience and adaptability for fragile mountain ecosystems of Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR) are paramount. Lesser known and underutilized crop like buckwheat (BW) with year-round cultivation potential and having higher stress tolerance to prevailin...

Mandarin fruits are the most widely grown citrus fruits in the world, particularly in the eastern Himalayas of India, which is the primary center of citrus diversity. Diagnosing potential nutritional imbalances using leaf tissue analysis is a mandatory practice for a higher yield. Regarding the nutritional diagnosis of Khasi mandarin plants, partic...

Background: Livestock productivity and health are adversely affected by heat stress (HS). The aim of this study was to determine the effects of HS on the thermoregulation and hormonal profile in Assam Hill Goats reared in the subtropical hilly regions of Meghalaya so as to arrive at a conclusion on its heat adaptation abilities. Methods: An experim...

The majority areas of valley lands in the Himalayan foothills remains fallow after the rice harvest. Recycling of plant biomass with conservation tillage may help in enhancing soil water availability, crop physiological function and productivity under moisture stress hill environments of this region. The present study focused on three tillage pract...

Seasonal variations in rainfall patterns, particularly during sowing, early growing season, and flowering, drastically affect rice production in northeastern India. However, sensitivity to drought stress is genotype-specific. Since 80% of the land in this region is used for rice production, it is crucial to understand how they have adapted to water...

The analysis of cropping systems using remote sensing is crucial to the long-term sustainability of agricultural productivity, soil and environmental health through diversification and intensification of crop areas. Realizing the importance, medium resolution satellite data from advanced wide field sensor (AWiFS: 56 m) and synthetic aperture rada...

The conventional sprinkler irrigation time calculation does not consider current soil moisture, leading to inadequate or excess irrigation due to daily weather changes. In present study, a new approach for calculating sprinkler irrigation time was proposed, which used in-field soil moisture values obtained by a convolutional neural network (CNN). T...

Background: The demand for quality rice is increasing due to the influence of population growth and rising living standards. North eastern region of India is considered as centre of origin of rice and has diversified rice landraces with unique cooking quality and yield attributing traits. The studies on genetic diversity and marker-trait associatio...

Soil bulk density (BD), although a key input parameter in many soil functions is often overlooked in soil studies, including surveys. Direct measurements over a large area are slow and expensive, especially in resource-poor mountain ecosystems. For soils of eastern Himalayan ecosystems, cost-effective indirect methods such as pedotransfer functions...

Blending of improve practices with farmer's practice of cultivation of vegetable crops for enhancing sub-optimal productivity was undertaken in a participatory approach in farmer's field covering villages viz., Mawmih, Mawlaiteng, Lawmei and surrounding of East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya. Treatments comprised of mulching with weed biomass, org...

Crop production under stressful and fragile agro-ecologies is really formidable challenge. Under changing climate, the development of crop stress resilience is further challenging owing to its intricacies and linkage among abiotic and biotic stress responses and unprecedented prevalence of climatic vulnerabilities. Root mediated stress modulation a...

In the process of carbon storage, fractionation, and mineralization in soil, biochar and organic manure are essential. Regarding the impact of these interconnected procedures that link to soil C-cycling, there are still some doubts. At the ICAR-Sikkim Centre in Gangtok, India, a ten-year field experiment was conducted during 2013–2022 to investigat...

Rain-fed agriculture in the hills of northeastern India is at the risk of crop failure, primarily due to over-dependence on inconsistent distribution and variable intensity of rainfall. Intermittent long dry spell between monsoon months (June-September) delay the timely planting of summer crops. In the rainless (<200 mm annually) months (November-M...

The Intermontane valleys interspersed with rugged landscapes represent a unique ecosystem and are the barn of the eastern Himalayas (EH). Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in controlling cropland productivity in these valleys. Despite this, very little is known about SOC inventories (content and stocks) and their complex interplay w...

High-value vegetable production under open field in northeast India's hilly ecosystem often suffers from abiotic and biotic stresses (low temperature, soil acidity and moisture deficit during winter, and infestation of pests-diseases during humid summer). Protected cultivation with soil ameliorative measures may help in overcoming these limitations...

Plants are subject to a variety of abiotic stresses contributed to yield losses of up to 50%, posing a significant challenge to global food production. To cope with drought stress, of 205 bacterial cultures investigated for moisture stress tolerant potential, 16 cultures showed promising results in improving the majority of plant growth amelioratin...

The phosphorus (P) content in soil is about 0.05% (w/w) but only 0.1% of the total phosphorus is available to plant because of poor solubility and its fixation in every type of soil. Phosphorus solubilizing microorganisms (PSMs) through their various mechanisms of solubilization and mineralization are able to convert the unavailable form into bioav...

North-Eastern India is blessed with a vast diversity of rice genotypes with varying yielding abilities. However, the predominant strong soil acidity induced nutrient stresses from the toxicity of aluminum (Al3+) ions often causes sub-optimal rice productivity. The lack of suitable nutrient media for the screening of aluminum (Al) toxicity tolerance...

Increased rainfall intensity under changing climate scenarios threatens the sustainability of cropland due to soil erosion in the Himalayan mountain ecosystem. This study aimed to identify the resilient integrated farming system (IFS) based land-use practices in hilly micro-watersheds (HMWs) under projected climate change scenarios. The IFS based l...

This E-Bulletin describes step-wise procedures (practically) of how state of art facilities like the FREE AIR TEMPERATURE ENRICHMENT (FATE) system operates in climate change studies. What are the precuations one should take into consideration while running the system (electronic and electrical-technical aspects) with adequate screenshots, which is...

Soil erosion from traditional hill agriculture is a major concern for agronomic development in the Eastern Himalayas (India). An integrated farming system (IFS: is the combination of multipurpose trees‐MPT interspersed with seasonal agricultural crops) may reduce the severity of erosion while ensuring food and nutritional security. The aim of our s...

The net arable land area is declining worldwide rapidly due to soil erosion, drought, loss of soil organic carbon, and other forms of degradation. Intense rainfall, cultivation along steep slopes, unscientific land-use changes, shifting cultivation, soil acidity, and nutrient mining in hills and mountains make agriculture unsustainable and less pro...

Land degradation caused by soil erosion (SE) in forests converted into cropland under climate change, particularly with increased rainfall intensity, is of great concern to the agricultural sustainability of the tropical mountain ecosystem. We evaluated the response of six hilly micro-watersheds (HMW) under different Integrated Farming Systems (IFS...

The Northeastern Region of India, due to its geographical location in the eastern Himalaya, exhibits unique features of hilly terrain and abundant rainfall with wide spatial variability. Due to inappropriate and un-sustainable land-use practices along the steep hill slopes, the region is prone to severe water erosion and soil loss. Only a few discr...

Improving soil quality, especially the organic carbon (C) accumulation and soil aggregation through economically and environmentally sustainable alternatives, is the need for hill agriculture. A five-year (2012-13 to 2016-17) field experiment was conducted with four green manure treatments [green gram (Vigna radiata); cowpea (Vigna unguiculata); se...

The organic manures and biochar amendment plays a pivotal role in organic production system. A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of organic sources of nutrients and low-cost biochar technology on maize and black gram yield along with mineral nutrients acquisition pattern under fully organic production system. The results of this study reve...

The conversion of primary forests to cultivation brings a significant change in soil carbon (C) forms. In the foothills of the Eastern Himalayan Region of India (Manipur), such conversions are prevalent. However, little is known about the response of C forms, particularly in deep soil, to land use conversion in the region. We evaluated changes in s...

Long term soil management practices, type of land use and vegetation type largely influence the organic carbon content and availability of nutrients, through their disturbances in the soil. In order to determine the effect of land use type on soil nutrients in the present study, soil samples were collected at two different soil depths i.e. 0-20...

Short communication The warm and humid tropical climate of Tripura (Hyperthermic) in the Purvachal range manifests a high degree of seasonal variability in rainfall (length of growing period >300 days), which is the main support to rainfed shifting cultivation and horticultural plantations in the hill slopes and extensive rice cultivation along wit...

Citation: Md. Zafar, B.U. Choudhury, and S. Hazarika. 2021. Steps to generate a Crops Spectral Library: A hyperspectral proximal field remote sensing approach. ICAR RC for NEH Region. Ref. No. ICARNEH-ML-EPUB-2021-03, Pages: 1-30. http://www.kiran.nic.in/publication.html

Depleting soil properties, low diversification and productivity are the major issues for keeping large area as fallow after rainy season rice (Oryza sativa L) in south-east Asia. Long duration rice cultivars along with conventional till farming and lack of irrigation facility limits the chances of growing succeeding crop like pulses in rice fallow....

Farming in eastern Himalayan region of India is a high risk activity due to climatic uncertainty, lack of resources with small and marginal farmers and non-adoption of improved technologies. Pond based integrated farming system (IFS) is a whole farm approach aims at increasing production, employment and income through integration of various farming...

Management of soil micronutrients for better crop production needs a sound understanding of their status and causes of variability. This is more relevant for acid soils of the mountain ecosystem of Eastern Himalaya (Northeast India). We assessed the status, and the effect of land uses along altitudinal gradients (14 to 4090 masl) on soil properties...

Biochar application to soil has been projected as an approach to improve soil quality, which can also influence soil microbial activities. In this experiment, we have utilized four dissimilar feedstocks derived biochar amendments. The highest microbial biomass carbon was found in Lantana camara (LC) biochar followed by pine needle (PN), maize stalk...

In order to establish a simple, rapid and cost effective method of estimating cation exchange capacity (CEC) of acidic soils, we tested the utility of methylene blue spot test (MBST) vis-à-vis commonly used neutral 1N ammonium acetate method (NAAM) in twenty acidic soils. The soils collected from ten different states of India varied widely in pH, o...

Since studies on biochar stability in agricultural soils are very limited, the microbial biomass carbon and soil enzyme activity influenced by biochar addition to field condition remains uncertain. Results of this study revealed that microbial biomass carbon and different soil enzyme activity were significantly influenced by both manure alone and c...

Liming is the key to success of crop production on acid soils. The practice however has not met wider adoption, due largely to the higher doses of lime requirement. To ascertain the effect of lime pelleting (seed pelleting with lime) vis-a-vis higher doses of lime as required for furrow application and broadcasting, we conducted a greenhouse pot ex...

Liming is the key to success of crop production on acid soils. The practice however has not met wider adoption, due largely to the higher doses of lime requirement. To ascertain the effect of lime pelleting (seed pelleting with lime) vis-a-vis higher doses of lime as required for furrow application and broadcasting, we conducted a greenhouse pot ex...

Efficient utilisation of bio-wastes could be an important strategy for meeting the growing demand of nutrients and improving the soil health and crop productivity in north-eastern India, where there is abundant availability of bio-wastes (such as crop residues, weed biomass, forest litter, animal dung etc.), and use of chemical fertilisers is tradi...

Energy intensive traditional cereals based monoculture often lead to high greenhouse gas emissions and degradation of land and environmental quality. Present study aimed at evaluating the energy and carbon budget of diversified groundnut (Arachis hypogea L) based cropping system with over existing traditional practice towards the development of a s...

The collective utilization of biochar and organic manure represents the profit to plants and nutrient cycling. In this experiment, the maize (stalk and cob) biomass was pyrolyzed at 600 °C and morpho-mineralogically characterized. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) image represented cross-linked pores and feathery plate–like layer construction...

Physiology of green gram is highly sensitive to fluctuations in the thermal environment. Abnormally high temperatures during pod setting to pod development stage induces reduction in pod setting, nonhealthy development and early maturity of grain which results in yield decline. We evaluated the effect of elevated temperatures in a Temperature Gradi...

How to source open-source satellite data product and their potential use in Agricultural Science (Soil Science)

Canopy reflectance based spectral indices help in effective irrigation scheduling of wheat for optimization of yield in water-scarce regions. A field experiment for two consecutive years (2013 to 2015) was conducted to evaluate the responses of wheat crop to exogenous application of plant bio-regulators (PBRs) in the water-scarce Deccan region of I...

How to map spatial variability in geo-referenced soil properties using ArcGIS: a tutorial guide to beginners in Agricultural Sciences (specially Soil Science).

Soil quality (SQ) assessment considering surface and profile soils holds great significance in sustainable soil health management. We assessed the effect of land-use systems (agriculture, forest and plantation) on SQ using three SQ indices (SQI) models namely additive (SQIa), weighted additive (SQIw) and nemoro (SQIn) from total (TDS) and minimum (...

Management of soil micronutrients for better crop produce needs sound understanding of their status and causes of variability. This is more relevant for acid soils developed in the mountain ecosystem of Eastern Himalaya (Northeast India). We assessed the status, and the effect of land use systems along wide altitudinal gradients (14 m to 4090 m mas...

This technical bulletin “Prospects of Bio-char for Sustainable Agriculture and Carbon Sequestration in North Eastern Hill Region of India” was compiled and published with the intention of enriching knowledge of the hill farmers, extension functionaries and researchers about biochar preparation, its characteristics, soil applications and its impact...

Efficient utilisation of bio-wastes could be an important strategy for meeting the growing demand of nutrients and improving the soil health and crop productivity in north-eastern India, where there is abundant availability of bio-wastes (such as crop residues, weed biomass, forest litter, animal dung etc.), and use of chemical fertilisers is tradi...

Simulations of single season rainfed transplanted rice crop- biomass and yield using APSIM-ORYZA.

Low productive cereals (rice and maize/mixed cropping) in the Jhum degraded abiotic stressed soils (from acidity and moisture deficit) of rainfed hilly ecosystem of Northeast India (NEI) restrict jhumias socio-economic upliftment. Shift in cropping pattern to stress-tolerant groundnut cultivars may provide an option in such a situation. We evaluate...

We assessed soil site suitability for selected winter crops in the coastal saline agro-ecological environment of Sagar Is- land, India by integrating land limitation and crop suitabil- ity evaluation framework of FAO. Grid based (1 km by 1 km) soil sampling and estimation of important soil quality at- tributes were measured in the laboratory follow...

The present study comprehensively assessed soil site suitability for selected winter crops in the coastal saline agro-ecological environment of Sagar Island, India by integrating land limitation and crop suitability evaluation framework of FAO. Soil properties (e.g. texture, pH, organic carbon; SOC, electrical conductivity; EC and available macronu...

Performance of 27 improved groundnut cultivars were assessed for agronomic and physiological traits associated to improve the productivity in degraded acid soils under rainfed hilly ecosystem. The cultivars ICGS 76 and ICGV 86590 produced significantly higher pod yield with more than 39% improvement over JL 24. The study also identified five more p...

Long term effects of six agroforestry practices (AFPs) (>25 years old), on soil attributes with respect to soil degradation and improvement was assessed in the North Eastern Hill region of India and their effectiveness in improving soil health parameters was compared with shifting cultivation (Jhum) and natural forest of Khasi pine and terraced agr...

Large areas in North Eastern Region (NER) of India remain fallow (approx. 2.50 million hectare) after the rainy season (June-October) rice (Oryza sativa L.) could be cultivated in succession with winter pulses like lentil (Lens esculentum L.) on residual soil moisture. Growing short-duration lentil cultivars under no-till (NT) and mulch rice may li...

This paper provides a systematic comparison of parametric and non-parametric retrieval methods using the high-resolution data provided by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). We used turmeric crop reflectance data to evaluate the vegetation index (VI)based parametric methods and compared them with linear and nonlinear non-parametric methods to build a ri...

The present investigation was undertaken to study the population distribution and performance evaluation of Burmese black pigs in north east region of India. A total of 900 pig farmer’s across108 villages in 14 districts of four north eastern states of India were interviewed on random basis to evaluate the population structure. Data pertaining to...

Slash and burn cultivation (jhum), a major form of traditional agriculture in the hills of north eastern Himalaya has now slowly shifted towards more stable forms of land use. This land use change in the region may have direct effect on soil quality which is an important concern for sustainable land use system. Our aim was to elucidate the impact o...