Pradeep Kumar Rai

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at SKUAST- J, Jammu

Drought poses a significant threat to agricultural productivity, particularly affecting economic crops like tomatoes. To address this challenge, various alternatives have been explored, including the use of elicitors or biostimulants such as salicylic acid (SA). This study aims to assess the stimulatory action of SA in alleviating drought stress in...

The main obstacle for sustained supply of agricultural products and feeding the globe in the coming years is abiotic stress. Plants typically shorten their developmental processes under stress, which eventually has a negative impact on production. A key phytohormone that plays crucial role in combating abiotic stress is abscisic acid (ABA). ABA pla...

Heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) contribute significantly to thermotolerance acclimation. Here, we identified and cloned a putative HSF gene (HSFA2h) of 1218 nucleotide (acc. no. KP257297.1) from wheat cv. HD2985 using a de novo transcriptomic approach and predicted sHSP as its potential target. The expression of HSFA2h and its target gene (...

Salinity or salt stress has deleterious effects on plant growth and development. It imposes osmotic, ionic, and secondary stresses, including oxidative stress on the plants and is responsible for the reduction of overall crop productivity and therefore challenges global food security. Plants respond to salinity, by triggering homoeostatic mechanism...

Rice is an important staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Though the genetic potential of commonly cultivated varieties of rice is diminished due to various biotic and abiotic constraints, bacterial leaf blight (BLB) of rice caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is considered one of its most destructive diseases in Indi...

Soil testing is used for the judicious use of fertilizers, which works on the principle of profitability, i.e if all the factors of production are at optimum level and none of them are limiting, there is more profitable response to applied nutrients based on soil testing than those applied on adhoc basis. It is a science based and time tested tool...

An experiment was conducted at Agriculture University Chatha in order to evaluate the effect of Boron and FYM application on different types of soil Boron. Composite surface soil samples (0-15 cm) from different locations were collected and analyzed for water soluble boron (WSB), Hot water soluble boron (HWS-B), Calcium chloride soluble boron (CCSB...

Climate change and associated unfavorable abiotic stress conditions, such as drought, salinity, heavy metals, water logging, extreme temperatures, oxygen deprivation, etc., influence plant growth and development to a great extent, eventually disturbing crop yield and quality, finally food security in general. Plant cells produce oxygen radicals and...

and Keywords The increasing importance of guava (Psidiumguajava L.) as a commercial subtropical and tropical fruit crop, bothfor table purposes and processing demands its wide spreadcultivation under High-density-planting system. Recent trends in guava cultivation were found to be planting at a closer spacing for obtaining higher yield per unit are...

Advances in proteome research have opened the gateway to understanding numerous metabolic pathways and fundamental mechanisms involved in abiotic stress tolerance. In the present study, the antioxidant capacity of four tomato genotypes i.e., Kashi Amrit, Kashi Anupam, EC-317-6-1, and WIR-4360 was determined under drought stress to ascertain the sca...

In the current era of rapid industrialization, the foremost challenge is the management of industrial wastes. Activities such as mining and industrialization spill over a large quantity of toxic waste that pollutes soil, water, and air. This poses a major environmental and health challenge. The toxic heavy metals present in the soil and water are e...

Saffron, comprising of dried stigmas of the plant known as Crocus sativus, is one of the most important and scantly cultivated agricultural products. It has been used as a precious spice for the last at least 3500 years. Due to its numerous medicinal qualities and pharmacological applications, it is considered as a “golden condiment”, and its deman...

Phytohormones are key plant growth regulators synthesized in defined organs of the plant that have a noticeable impact on plant metabolism and play a dramatic role in the alleviation of abiotic stresses. Though, abiotic stresses modify the endogenous levels of phytohormones such as auxins, gibberellins, abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid and salicy...

Crop production continues to be controlled by a number of biotic and abiotic factors that can shrink crop yield and quality. Potassium (K) is an important mineral nutrient that is involved in plant biochemical and physiological processes that control plant growth and metabolism. It also plays a pivotal role in the survival of plants under different...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is considered as one of the most expensive spices. Fusarium corm rot of saffron, caused by Fusarium oxysporum, is known to cause severe yield losses worldwide. In the present study, efficacy of biocontrol agents (Trichoderma asperellum, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas putida, Bacillus stratos...

Soil redox potential (Eh) and pH are fundamentals parameters for plants growth. Measuring soil redox is essential but complex due to the lack of measurement reliability resulting from high temporal variability and metrological challenges. This paper proposes practical advancements for measuring redox in aerobic soils using soil water testing kits....

Abiotic stresses are one of the key limitations to global crop production and food security. Among the abiotic stresses, drought is one of the most vital factors that cause changes in morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics in plants, and consequently affects the growth and productivity of crops. The main purpose of the present...

'Biofertilizer' is a substance which contains living microorganism which, when applied to seed, plant surfaces, or soil, colonizes the rhizosphere or the interior of the plant and promotes growth by increasing the supply or availability of primary nutrients to the host plant. Biofertilizers are not fertilizers. Fertilizers directly increase soil fe...

HUGE EARTHWORM POPULATIONS DAMAGING SEVERAL IMPORTANT CROP PLANTS

The present paper entitled "Capital Investment Structure of Broiler Production Units in Kathua District of J&K State" was carried out on the basis of primary data collected through pre-tested schedule-cum-questionnaire with personal interview method. For purpose of the study, three groups of broilers units were selected purposely and classified as...

An experiment examining the soil micronutrient status of the basmati growing areas of the Jammu subtropical was conducted. A total of 180 samples were collected from the study area. Surface soil (0-30) was examined for DTPA extractable Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn. The mean value of DTPA extractable Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn were 1.38, 3.89, 30.89 and 15.16 with a ra...

An experiment examining the soil micronutrient status of the basmati growing areas of the Jammu subtropical was conducted. A total of 180 samples were collected from the study area. Surface soil (0-30) was examined for DTPA extractable Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn. The mean value of DTPA extractable Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn were 1.38, 3.89, 30.89 and 15.16 with a ra...

EMERGING RISK OF ROOT WEEVIL IN MUSKMELON

WEEDS ACTING AS ALTERNATE HOSTS FOR MEALY BUGS VIS-À-VIS MEALY BUGS ACTING AS BIOAGENTS IN WEED MANAGEMENT

Maize-mustard cropping sequence is the most adopted cropping pattern in the rainfed belt of Jammu region, Jammu & Kashmir, India. Mustard is attacked by aphids, flea beetles, saw flies and painted bugs, among which aphids are of great economic importance. An experiment was conducted to assess the impact of various organic and inorganic fertilizers...

Studies were carried out from 2013 to 2015 with the objectives to isolate and identify some indigenous rhizobacterial strains against major soil-borne pathogens of brinjal. Seventy thizobacterial isolates were characterized based on colony characters, morphological and biochemical test and identified as Pseudomonas flourescens (30), P. aeruginosa (...

Harad is considered to be the mother and king of medicines in Ayurveda. Its fruit has astringent, purgative, antibacterial, antifungal and laxative activity. The country's richest germplasm of harad including Raj Harad exists here. Among the various medicinal plants of Jammu and Kashmir, Terminalia chebula Retz., is one of them. Though the insectic...

A study was conducted during 2013 and 2014 on the effect of integrated use of inorganic and organic fertilizers (vermicompost) along with bio-inoculants on plant growth, yield and quality of Kinnow mandarin. Vegetative growth parameters like plant height and canopy volume showed maximum increase with cent per cent nitrogen through urea augmented wi...

This work was carried out to study the influence of foliar application of iron (0, 0.2 and 0.4 %) and zinc (0, 0.2 and 0.4%) on vegetative growth, flowering, yield and fruit quality of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) cv Chandler during 2010-11. The results indicated that plants treated with 0.4 % FeSO4 showed maximum plant height (19.65 cm),...

Over exploitation of natural resources by growing population has resulted in various severe problems. Destruction of vegetation has resulted in land degradation, denudation and soil erosion, The soil erosion has converted most of the fertile soils of Jammu and Kashmir into barren, fallow and degraded lands. Recently about 31 per cent (7,02,0000 ha)...

Excess moisture (water-logging) during the summer–rainy season is one of the major production constraints for maize (Zea mays L.) in a large area of Southeast Asia. Identification and development of genotypes capable of withstanding the stress conditions could be an ideal and affordable approach suitable for resource poor maize-growing farmers of s...