Suresh K Malhotra

ICAR- Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare · Indian Council of Agricultural Research - Department of Agriculture Research & Education

Variety development programme at ICAR-NRCSS through AICRP on Spices have identified a new high yielding variety named as Ajmer Ajwain-73 (AA-73) during Workshop of AICRP on Spices held at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University during 14-16 November, 2019. AA-73 is a new variety of Ajwain developed through mass selection by material collected from Bari...

Dill has been used in ayurvedic medicines since ancient times and it is a popular herb widely used as a spice and also yields essential oil. It is an aromatic and annual herb of apiaceae family. Dill can be gown under irrigated condition and rainfed condition. The trial was conducted under irrigated condition to test the performance of dill entries...

A comprehensive assessment was undertaken to identify high-yielding Nigella sativa genotypes. Analysis of diverse germplasm revealed significant phenotypic variation in key agronomic traits, with seed number per capsule, days to maturity, and seed yield per plant exhibiting the broadest ranges. The yield performance of nigella variety AN-1 (1129.36...

Citrus plants are prone to phosphorus (P) deficiency, especially in acidic soil, making them more dependent on root-associated endophytic fungi for growth and development. Beni-Madonna, a hybrid of Citrus nanko × C. amakusa, is a citrus known as “tangor” that is highly popular in China and other parts of the world due to its deep red color and jell...

Agriculture Today

This editorial provides information about promotion of honey bees for pollination services.

This presentation contains information on knowledge generation, knowledge information systems and knowledge diffusion tools in horticulture for sustainable development.

Plant biostimulants are a new category of crop inputs that respond to growing farmer interest in access to new tools. Specifically, there is a demand for tools that improve nutrient use efficiency, helping plants tolerate abiotic stress (i.e., difficult growing conditions including extreme temperatures and drought or water logging), and enhancing c...

This presentation has information on microbial pesticides: concept to commerce. Status and registration procedure for microbial biopesticides have been explained.

This book contains a comprehensive information on the available statistics like area, production, export, import, price and value of output of various spices produced.

Morphological and biochemical characterization of Rhizobium isolates obtained from fenugreek

Presentation was made on event of Launching of Amul honey before Minister of Agriculture Govt of India, New Delhi

Country prospective related to India has been explained on the topic mainstreaming indigenous fruits & vegetables for food and nutrition secure future in the International Year of Fruits & Vegetables.

This presentation relates to diversification of staples to reduce burden on wheat, rice and maize. Millets are the best alternative crops to address food, nutrition and health issues. India will take lead in guiding world for observance of International Year of Millets 2023.

A presentation on bee keeping status in India was made before a high powered committee Bee Development Council for policy decisions.

The new normals of agriculture for excellence in agriculture has been explained. India has attained the status of food grain surplus country and shift has taken place for food to nutrition and also to income security.

The presentation highlights the development of horticulture in India after passing through various phases. India is emerging as leading horticulture producer globally. Research & Development initiatives and adoption of technologies, favorable policy initiatives lead Indian horticulture towards excellence.

The process of registration of biopesticides with Registration Committee of Central Insecticide Board of India has been explained. Next generation preparedness has been elaborated.

Seed certification is a process by which state governments make ensure availability of quality seeds to farmers. This book is an attempt to achieve uniformity in the work of certification of seeds by certification agencies in the whole country.

This presentation depicts review of winter season crops and planning for monsoon season action plan and fixing crop production targets to be achieved

Residues of various crops are considered nuisance but they can be helpful in increasing organic matter in soil and better cycling of nutrients in soil if managed properly. Better management and utilization of crop residues (CR) is necessary for better productivity and quality of crops. Sowing into loose residues is the major issue in adapting the d...

Strategies for agroclimatic zone wise planning has been explained

The urban population in the world will double in 30 years, leading to the challenges for the mankind to meet food and nutritional security, besides the problems of environment. The urban population will increase more in developing countries as a result of the immigration from rural areas, since people flock to the cities with the expectation of bet...

Presentation had a focus on conveying about policy initiatives by Government for enhancing income of farmers

Basal stem rot is one of the important diseases of coconut accounting to severe yield loss in southern India. The disease in Indian subcontinent is reported to be caused by G. lucidum (Leys.) Karst., G. applanatum (Pers.) Pat. and G. boninense. Present status of the disease pertaining to occurrence and distribution in major coconut growing states,...

Tillage influenced SOC and microbial cycling but most effects were observed at 0–5 cm rather than 5–15 cm. Reduced tillage (RT) in a continuous mono-culture increased SOC by 24% compared to conventional tillage (CT) at 0–5 cm, but tillage had no effect at 5–15 cm. Crop rotation increased soil C contents compared to continuous mono-cropping rotation...

This presentation relates to an overview of Indian Agriculture and was made in joint working group of India and Argentina

Most tropical and subtropical fruits, as well as some temperate crops, are sensitive to chilling injuries. These crops are injured after a period of exposure to chilling temperatures below 10 to 15°C but above their freezing points. In the last decade progress has been made in understanding the biochemistry, physiology, and molecular basis of CI. T...

31st session meeting was organized to decide action plan for controlling locust in South West Asian countries.

Achieving food, nutritional and income security is a matter of prime importance for India which employs more than 50 per cent of the total workforce and contributes around 17 percent to the country’s GDP. Food security is thus a multi-dimensional concept and extends beyond the production availability and involves nutritional security for the people...

Lychee or litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) is most popular fruit of South-East Asia, produces leaf flushes, flowers and fruits on terminals of new growth. The reproductive phase is associated with the ability to alternate between the production of vegetative and reproductive buds. The stress factors like water stress, cold winter are the triggering...

Areca catechu L. belongs to the Arecaceae family which comprises many economically important palms. The palm is a source of alkaloids and carotenoids. The lack of ample genetic information in public databases has been a constraint for the genetic improvement of arecanut. To gain molecular insight into the palm, high throughput RNA sequencing and de...

I made this presentation at Joint Working Group meeting at Manilla, Philippines. Highlighted about the agriculture status and opportunities in India.

Farmers’ income can be improved when productivity goes up, cost of production comes down, if agricultural commodities produced get a remunerative price through a transparent price discovery mechanism. It can also happen due to improved income from allied activities to agriculture and non-farm sector or even wage employment during the agricultural o...

Doubling of farmers’ income must be attempted by creating a framework where all related agencies come together and work in harmony, with a maestro conducting that orchestra. In its initial years of reforms started by China between 1978 and 1986, witnessed growth of 14% per annum in farm income. This led to a reduction in poverty by half by generati...

Perennial fruits crops by the virtue of their nutritional qualities have already emerged as a major alternative, cutting short the menacing load on the consumption of traditional monotonous cereal/tuber crop-based diet. Nutrient management based production system of perennial fruit crops is inherently complex to understand due to large variation in...

Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is an important perennial plantation crop and to improve the productivity, the innate soil constraints should be ameliorated. The red, lateritic and sandy coconut soils are suffering with soil acidity, low CEC and poor nutrient reserve. A study on nutrient removal by coconut provides guidelines for the fertilizer input r...

In present study 12-year-old Flordasun peach trees were manual thinned at 10, 15 and 20 cm spacings along the shoot on whole tree canopy at an interval of 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 days after full bloom (DAFB) to know the effect of thinning time and fruit spacing on fruit maturity, yield, fruit size, peel colour and quality attributes over two growing s...

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is an important plantation crop adapted as a mixed crop in palm based cropping systems of India which effectively utilised the land, air and root space. Four decades of cocoa research paved way for identification of potential clones and development of varieties suitable for different agro climatic conditions and tolerant...

The quantification of impacts of variations in temperature, excess and limited moisture conditions is the first step to prepare the horticulture sector for developing adaptation strategies under climate change scenarios. Efforts have been made to study and assess the impacts on individual crops under the major agro-ecological regions and growing se...

Citrus, one of the important fruit trees grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, has less and shorter root hairs in the field, thus, highly dependent on arbuscular mycorrhizas. Citrus rhizosphere inhabits 45 species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), belonging to seven genera like Acaulospora, Entrophospora, Gigaspora, Glomus, P...

This study was carried out to investigate morpho-physiological and productivity characteristics of four genotypes of five years old guava (Psidium guajava L.) trees, grown under hot-arid zone of Rajasthan. Preliminary investigation indicated that all four cultivars of guava could survive except merely 10.0% field mortality in guava cv. L-49. The ma...

This study was carried out to investigate morpho-physiological and productivity characteristics of four genotypes of five years old guava (Psidium guajava L.) trees, grown under hot-arid zone of Rajasthan. Preliminary investigation indicated that all four cultivars of guava could survive except merely 10.0% field mortality in guava cv. L-49. The ma...

Citrus, one of the important fruit trees grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, has less and shorter root hairs in the field, thus, highly dependent on arbuscular mycorrhizas. Citrus rhizosphere inhabits 45 species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), belonging to seven genera like Acaulospora, Entrophospora, Gigaspora, Glomus, P...

Nutritional health and well-being of humans are entirely dependent on plant foods either directly or indirectly. There are silent epidemics of vitamin and mineral deficiencies affecting people in many developing countries. Micronutrient deficiency is affecting over 2 billion people worldwide. The malnutrition is the result of insufficient intakes o...

An investigation was conducted at organic research farm, Department of Vegetable Science, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar to study the effect of intercropping and crop geometry in organic production of broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) during winter season of 2012 to 2014. Three organic manures (FYM, vermicompost and poultry manu...

In Khasi mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) influence of rootstock age (i.e. 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 11, 12, 13, 14 months) and propagation methods (i.e. wedge grafting and T-budding) on graft/bud success, plant survival, scion physiology and root morphology were studied. The wedge grafting performed on six months old rootstock (T2) recorded maximum g...

If agriculture is the main stay towards the emission of greenhouse gases induced climate change, horticultural crops have a much bigger role to play in countering the negative consequences of climate change by providing a better carbon trade and carbon sink. One of the most ominous physiological responses that accrue in response to climate change i...

Good water management using well designed system is critical for sustaining production and quality of produce, more specifically for horticultural crops. If water is applied, when stresses is needed there is crop loss, and if water deficit is experienced at active growth phase or fruit development stages it causes severe loss to production and qual...

Basal stem rot is one of the important diseases of coconut accounting to severe yield loss in southern India. The disease in Indian subcontinent is reported to be caused by G. lucidum (Leys.) Karst., G. applanatum (Pers.) Pat. and G. boninense. Present status of the disease pertaining to occurrence and distribution in major coconut growing states,...

Good water management using well designed system is critical for sustaining production and quality of produce, more specifically for horticultural crops. If water is applied, when stresses is needed there is crop loss, and if water deficit is experienced at active growth phase or fruit development stages it causes severe loss to production and qual...

The task force recommendations for promotion of bee keeping in India has been given with three mini missions.

There has been worldwide changes in seasonal patterns, weather events, temperature ranges, and other related phenomena and all have been analyzed in partial, reported and attributed to global climate change. The negative impacts of climate change will become much more intense and frequent in the future—particularly if environmentally destructive hu...