Manish Das’s research while affiliated with Indian Council of Agricultural Research and other places

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 quality. Therefore, it is imperative to manage the water which answers, when, where and how to draw maximum efficiency and productivity. Therefore scheduling based on plant water balance in consonance with soil and climate is appropriate. The water has to be applied to root zone to save the losses. Since lot of losses is caused during the conveyance, it is essential that appropriate delivery system is used which enhance the efficiency. Initiatives were taken to apply water in such a manner which can provide maximum output. When, where and how water should be applied has been worked out. Among various methods tried drip irrigation has proved successful in exhibiting high water productivity by saving irrigation water from 25-60% in various orchard crops and vegetables with 10-60% increase in yield as compared to conventional method of irrigation. It is one of the latest methods of irrigation which is becoming popular in areas with water scarcity and salt problems. The fertigation has become the state of the art in orchard crops and vegetables because nutrients can be applied to plants in the correct dosages and at the time appropriate for the specific stage of plant growth. Fertigation requirement in fruits (mango, banana, grapes, papaya, and pomegranate, citrus and strawberry), vegetables (tomato, chillies, brinjal, okra, potato, muskmelon, cucumber) and ornamental crops (rose, carnation, gerbera) and plantation crops (coconut, arecanut and coffee) have been standardized to improve the nutrient and water use efficiency which increased from 120 to 290%.

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 human activities continue unabated, warned categorically by a number of experts in a wide range of scientific disciplines and interests. Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are not immune to the effects of climate change like all other living members of the biosphere. Clear signals are coming on climate change impact which is causing noticeable effects on the lifecycles and distributions of the world's vegetation, including wild MAPs across the world. This in turn causing some MAPs endemic to geographic regions or ecosystems which could put them at risk and are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Such serious issues and challenges are a continuous concern with regard to the survival and genetic integrity of some MAPs and are being discussed within various forum and platform. Further, such issues of climate change will definitely pose a more prominent or immediate threat to MAP species than other threats, however, scientists do not know whether climate change has the potential to exert increasing pressures upon MAP species and populations. Climate change impact may have a tremendous possible effect on MAPs particularly significant due to their value within traditional systems of medicine and as economically useful plants. At this stage, the future effects of climate change are largely uncertain more so with MAPs, but current evidence suggests that these phenomena are having an impact on MAPs and that there are some potential threats worthy of concern and discussion.