Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, has been pro-active in using the space technology in agricultural sector. The Ministry, since early 80s has been funding various projects, under which Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has developed methodologies for crop production forecasting, Minister of State for Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Parshottam Rupala said in the Lok Sabha Tuesday.

The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has established a Centre, called Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre, in 2012, for operationalisation of the space technology developed by ISRO for crop production forecasting. The Department has another centre called Soil and Land Use Survey of India, which uses satellite data for soil resources mapping. Currently, the Department is using space technology for its various programmes and areas, such as, Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land-based Observations (FASAL) project, Coordinated programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using geoinformatics (CHAMAN) project, National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS), Rice-Fallow Area Mapping and intensification, geo-tagging of infrastructure and assets created under Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and crop insurance, Rupala informed the lower house of the Indian Parliament.
The space technology helps getting fast and accurate information about the crop situation in the country. It provides digital data, which is amenable to various analysis. Due to its synoptic view, it provides images of the whole country in a very short duration. Hence, this data can be used for various programmes, which need information on crop type, crop area estimates, crop condition, crop damages, crop growth among various other related things, the minister added.
Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare had launched KISAN [C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoinformatics] project in October 2015. The project envisaged use of high-resolution remote sensing data for optimum crop cutting experiment planning and improving yield estimation. Under this project, pilot studies were conducted in four districts of four different states; Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The study provided many useful inputs for smart sampling, yield estimation, optimum number of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) among others which were used to define standard operating procedures for use of satellite data in the revised guidelines of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY), Rupala further added.

The Department is carrying out a large number of pilot studies, through government and non-government agencies for use of space technology in optimising CCEs, a major requirement for PMFBY. The Department is also using satellite remote sensing data for monitoring agricultural situation of 29 double risk districts, the minister said.

Producers often save seed as a way to save money in planting the next year’s crop—a practice known as brown-bagging. But experts say this activity may be having an opposite effect than the one intended by reducing yields and income. Additionally, AgriLife Research wheat development teams benefit directly from additional funding through royalties generated from authorized sales of certified seed, said Rick Vierling, Ph.D., manager of Texas A&M AgriLife Foundation Seed.

About 10 percent of seed sales and royalties are typically reinvested into plant breeding efforts each year. In return, wheat producers benefit through the introduction of new varieties with better yields, improved disease and pest resistance, and additional advancements in technology. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show the U.S. wheat seed industry loses up to $677 million per year to brown bagging. This means as much as $68 million annually is lost toward reinvestment in developing new varieties, according to the Seed Innovation and Protection Alliance.

There are multiple benefits and risks involved with certified seed and brown-bag seed, Vierling said. And, Texas A&M AgriLife has published a brochure to better educate growers about the differences. Vierling said the problems caused by brown-bagging are not limited to producers, but also to the researchers developing new varieties to stay on top of the latest pest and disease issues.

Certified seed is required to pass through field inspections and testing to minimize weed seed contamination and seed-borne disease, as well as verify the identity of the variety, he said. The Texas Department of Agriculture is responsible for inspecting seed production fields.

On the other hand, brown-bagged seeds are untested and can lead to impure seed, lower yields and reduced end-use quality, Vierling said. While there is a lower upfront cost, there is a considerable risk of reduced end-use quality or contamination with weed, diseased and smaller seeds. Additionally, the vigor of the seeds can be reduced.

But crop yields stagnate, land allotted for agriculture does not increase, and climate change remains a looming threat, raising concerns about the capacity of the region to remain a large net exporter. In a recent study published in Nature Food, an international team of researchers, including those from the major rice-producing nations in Southeast Asia, estimated the difference between yield potential and average farmer yield across the six countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The initiative was led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the U.S. and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines and multi-institutional collaborators.

Results from the project are available via the Global Yield Gap Atlas a collaboration between the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Wageningen University designed to estimate the difference between actual and potential yields for major food crops worldwide. “Over the past decades, through renewed efforts, countries in Southeast Asia were able to increase rice yields, and the region as a whole has continued to produce a large amount of rice that exceeded regional demand, allowing a rice surplus to be exported to other countries,” said lead author Dr. Shen Yuan, a postdoctoral research associate at Huazhong Agricultural University in China. “The issue is whether the region will be able to retain its title as a major global rice supplier in the context of increasing global and regional rice demand, yield stagnation and limited room for cropland expansion.”

Researchers suggest a number of interventions needed to close the gap, including improvement of crop management practices, such as the use of fertilizer and irrigation, nutrients, water and pest management as well as mitigation of production risks in lowland rainfed environments.

So far, little is known about how microplastics interact with higher-order terrestrial plants. Recent studies have shown that microplastics are taken up in the roots of agricultural plants such as wheat. As part of a cutting-edge interdisciplinary project by Berlin-based art studio, Studio Austen, the research team from the IGB and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) has now shown for the first time that longer-lived woody plants absorb and store microplastics in their tissue.

Birch trees (Betula pendula Roth.) already been used to remediate contaminated land because they sequester and store industrial pollutants and heavy metals in their tissues, which subsequently allows the colonization of microbial communities that break down polyaromatic hydrocarbons. This tree species’ roots grow close to the soil surface, where microplastic pollution has been shown to be highest, making them a good choice for the study. The researchers labelled microplastic beads (5–50μm) with fluorescent dye and added them to the soil of potted trees. After five months, they examined root samples using fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy. They found fluorescent microplastic in different sections and layers of the root system. The percentage of root sections with microplastic particle ranged from 5 to 17 percent in the experimental trees.

“The uptake rate of microplastics and the effects on the short- and long-term health of the trees still need to be studied. But this pilot study suggests birch has real potential for long-term soil remediation solutions—including reducing the amount of microplastics in soil and possibly water,” said Kat Austen, the lead author of the study who heads Studio Austen and is project coordinator at IGB for citizen science project ACTION. Over 400 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year. It is estimated that one third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwaters. Most of this plastic disintegrates into particles smaller than five millimetres, referred to as microplastics, and breaks down further into nanoparticles, which are less than 0.1 micrometre in size. In fact, terrestrial microplastic pollution is much higher than marine microplastic pollution an estimate of four to 23 times more, depending on the environment. Sewage, for example, is an important factor in the distribution of microplastics.

In fact, 80 to 90 percent of the particles contained in sewage, such as from garment fibres, persist in the sludge. Most of the sewage sludge is incinerated in Germany. Globally, however, it is also partly applied to fields as fertilizer, meaning that several hundred thousand tons of microplastics end up in our soils each year. This is why the microplastic concentrations on field soil are also particularly high just as they are on roadsides, because tire abrasion is another significant source of microplastics.

“Salinity is a major threat to modern agriculture,” says Mostafa Abdelrahman of the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS). “It is now estimated to affect somewhere between 20 and 50% of irrigated agricultural land worldwide as a result of irrigation with brackish water, inefficient drainage systems and global climatic changes.” To cope with high salinity levels, plants  reprogram metabolic pathways in various subcellular compartments. However, how plants regulate these cellular processes has not been well understood until now. Abdelrahman and his co-workers have now found that cellular signaling molecules known as cytokinins play a key role in regulating the metabolic pathways that control the levels of some metabolites that impart tolerance to salinity.

The researchers focused on mutations in two sets of genes coding for proteins that are involved in cytokinin signaling. They used two powerful systemic analysis techniques—transcriptomics and metabolomics—to tease out the connection between mutations and cytokinin activity. Transcriptomics involves analysing entire transcripts produced by the genome in order to identify gene-expression profiles under specific circumstances. On the other hand, metabolomics involves analysing the levels of a wide range of metabolites present in a cell.

Through this two-pronged analysis, the researchers found that mutations that almost completely disrupt the normal molecular signaling processes performed by cytokinins alter the levels of some lipid- and flavonoid-related metabolites, making Arabidopsis plants significantly more tolerant to a salty medium. While Arabidopsis is not a crop plant, these insights into the role of cytokinins in regulating its responses to environmental stresses may lead to new approaches for combating the problem of increasing salinity in soils worldwide. “Genetic manipulation of cytokinin signaling might provide a promising avenue for developing salt-tolerant crops to help ensure global food security in this era of climate crisis,” notes Lam-Son Phan Tran, who led the team and is also at CSRS.

The team now intends to investigate the genetic manipulation of cytokinin signaling in major cereal crops using genome editing, as a promising strategy for developing salt-tolerant cereal crops while maintaining superior productivity.

Sugrafiftytwo, an ultra-early ripening green seedless grape variety with a sweet Muscat flavour and firm crisp texture, and Sugrasixty, a midseason ripening red variety with large berries and a tropical aroma with overtones of mango, are the fruit of a 13-year collaboration between Cornell AgriTech and Sun World. Through the partnership, the royalties from the commercialization of the varieties developed by both organizations will continue to flow back to and support the Cornell Grape Breeding and Genetics Program, which is led by Bruce Reisch, professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“With the right varieties, the Eastern table grape industry might consider expanding,” Reisch said. “That could drive economic development  through tourism, farm markets and home enthusiasts. Many home growers are interested in doing something new.” Reisch credits Cornell’s partnership with Sun World for making the development of these new varieties possible. Sugrafiftytwo and Sugrasixty are the first grape varieties resulting from the partnership, which began in 2009.

The new flavours were developed through crossbreeding at Cornell that took advantage of its collection of germplasm the genetic material  in grapes that controls the expression of certain traits. Although all breeding collections include germplasm, Cornell’s is special; since 1888, scientists at Cornell AgriTech have built expertise in breeding table and wine grapes suited to New York state’s climate and grower needs.

For the past 42 years, Reisch has focused on developing improved genetic and trait-marker technology to mine the genetic diversity of wild and native American grape species; and speed the release of new varieties with desirable traits like powdery mildew resistance, cold-hardiness and early ripening.

However, crop residues are also used for bioenergy production and livestock feeding. Therefore, it is important to determine which type of residues management can ensure soil health and meet our needs for plant production. It is unclear how the quantity and frequency of residue retention influences soil ecosystem. It is hoped that an optimal combination of straw returning quantity and frequency will help achieve a win-win balance between straw returning and soil health and economic benefits. A research team led by Liang Chao and Bao Xuelian from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently conducted a 10-year experiment in China Mollisol to assess how the frequency and quantity of stover mulching affected the bacterial community, soil health, and crop productivity. The experiment consisted of two-level frequencies and two-level quantities of maize stover mulching.

The researchers found that frequency, rather than quantity, of stover mulching had a significant effect on the structure and functions of bacterial communities and maize production in agricultural soils. High frequency of stover mulching resulted in high bacterial community α-diversity, which was dominated by copiotrophs, associated with complex intense networks and more metabolic potential functions. Low frequency of stover mulching encouraged oligotrophs-dominated bacterial communities, which were related to simple networks and more potential functions that involved cell processes.

Besides, high frequency of stover mulching improved soil fertility and productivity by providing high nutrient availability and sustaining active bacterial communities. When the stover quantity was limited, using small quantities for multiple additions could regenerate more stable and active bacterial communities, thereby improving soil fertility, according to the researchers.

These findings highlight frequency of retaining residues in agricultural management should be considered, which can improve the efficiency of plant residues utilization. And they provide a theoretical basis for specifying sustainable farmland practice for the next generation.

Currently, the main challenge for the agri-food industry is the sustainable production of healthy food in line with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other national and European policies. Both from an economic point of view and also to contribute towards feeding a growing population with dwindling resources, it is important to take the productivity of agricultural systems into account. In this context, this study evaluated the effect of a sustainable agricultural practice, deficit irrigation on “Sunchocola’ tomatoes, characterized by their intense reddish-green colouration. Deficit irrigation  consists of reducing water use while trying not to affect production. The decision on how to reduce irrigation is made on the basis of plant measurements, which enable earlier and more precise management of water stress. In this sense, the study proposes to reduce irrigation in the most resistant crop stage, controlling the level of stress in the plant, so as not to affect tomato quality and production.

Specifically, the effect of this practice on productivity, commercial quality and the content of healthy compounds (carotenoids and phenolic compounds) was studied. The results show that there were no significant changes in the commercial quality of the product (colour, size, weight, firmness, sugars). Likewise, although the content of phenolic compounds decreased slightly, the presence of carotenoids tripled. This result is of great nutritional importance since the consumption of carotenoids is associated with a reduced risk of various diseases as well as cosmetic benefits.

Considering that the tomato is one of the most important crops worldwide, the efficient transfer of these results and those of other similar studies to farmers could contribute significantly to global irrigation water savings and to the production of tomatoes with a higher content of compounds that are of great importance for health and cosmetic reasons.

To estimate yields, researchers employed the Aqua Crop model—a crop-growth simulation developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—to assess the effect of environment and management on crop production, predicting yield response to water. The study site is representative of agricultural management practices in the region and represents the most densely irrigated area in the Central Plains, which is a subregion of the Great Plains. Corn is susceptible to environmental factors such as increased air temperature, increased radiation, vapor pressure deficit and humidity change, according to lead researcher Suat Irmak, professor and head of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in the College of Agricultural Sciences. He and his team noted that irrigated yields will be impacted much less than rainfed yields.

“In our study, depending on the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and associated level warming, we saw declines in rainfed corn yields ranging from 2.2% to 21.5%,” he said. “Under those same greenhouse gas concentrations, the range of declines was lower for irrigated yields—from 3.7% to 15.6%, due to irrigation technologies providing more stable crop growth conditions under water- and temperature-stress.”

Global climate is very likely to warm by 2.16-3.42 degrees Fahrenheit from now to 2040, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Irmak explained. The global mean surface temperature was 1.78 degrees F higher during the period 2001–20 than during the pre-industrial period of 1850–1900, the United Nations panel found. In findings recently published in Agricultural Water Management, the researchers reported that, based on their modelling results, rainfed yields will decline up to 40 bushels per acre, whereas irrigated yields are projected to decline only 19 bushels per acre. Additionally, rainfed corn yield will be more variable than yields from irrigated corn under most of the global circulation m

Wei, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, served as the lead author on the paper and said that while previous studies have focused on parts of this issue—such as considering foods that have lower environmental impacts and offer higher nutrition levels—this study wanted to incorporate local dietary preferences to see if the proposed shifts would actually be feasible.

“We wanted to take the local preferences and the cultural acceptance into consideration because that will increase the chances that sustainable diets will actually be accepted,” said Wei.

Working with Davis, assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment’s Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Department of Plant and Soil Sciences and a resident faculty member with UD’s Data Science Institute, Wei examined how country-specific shifts in cereal  supply, which currently accounts for more than 40% of dietary calories, protein, iron and zinc world-wide, could contribute to more sustainable diets.

While cereals are not consumed as widely in the United States, western Europe and Australia, they play a vital nutritional role in many other countries. “Regions facing food security challenges include the Middle East, Africa and South Asia,” said Wei. “These areas are also the ones that consume large proportions of cereals, so sustainable dietary shifts on cereals can have larger impacts in these places.”

The researchers identified two shifts in particular that would be locally acceptable and help to increase nutrition while lowering the environmental impacts of crop production. This includes incorporating more drought-tolerant cereals—such as maize, sorghum and millet —and increasing the share of whole grains.