PG Thesis
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Item Economic analysis of seed production of select vegetables in Palakkad district(Department Of Agricultural Economics, College Of Agriculture , Vellanikkara, 2023-05-25) Anupama Rajeevan; Chitra ParayilSeed is regarded as the critical input in agriculture for increasing and sustaining agricultural production. It is estimated that the quality of seed accounts for 20-25 per cent of productivity (Anonymous, 2013). Use of quality seed is of utmost importance in order to realize the maximum utilization of other inputs viz., fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides and other improved agronomic practices. Quality and timely seed supplies are vital in maintaining vegetable production as well as availability for ensuring food security in developing countries. The production of vegetables has been touching new records every year, making it the most favoured agricultural commodity. Vegetable production during 2017-18 recorded an increase to 184 million tonnes from 10.3 million ha area, whereas it was less than 20 million tonnes during the period of independence. This manifold increase needs to be made consistent to meet the demand of 1.5 billion people by 2030 which could be attained by proper and timely utilization of different inputs involved in crop production (Mohan et al., 2022). Therefore, quality seed production plays a major role in Indian agriculture by providing food, nutritional and economic security and more importantly, producing higher returns per unit area and time. The study was based on primary data collected from VFPCK vegetable seed farmers of Chittur and Nenmara blocks of Palakkad district owing to their highest number in the respective blocks. The crops selected for the study were bitter gourd, snake gourd, ash gourd and pumpkin due to their higher proportion in area and production to the total vegetables in the study area. A total of 52 sample respondents each were randomly selected for bitter gourd and snake gourd and 40 each were selected for ash gourd and pumpkin. This accounted to a total sample size of 184 seed farmers from the study area. The cost of cultivation for seed production of four vegetables were worked out using tabular and percentage analysis. Human labour accounted for the highest percentage (50.9 in bitter gourd, 50.25 in snake gourd, 37.02 in ash gourd and 32.25 in pumpkin) to total cost in all the selected vegetables. The total cost of cultivation was found to be highest in bitter gourd with ₹2,70,669ha-1 followed by snake gourd (₹2,57,343ha-1), ash gourd (₹1,58,813ha-1) and pumpkin (₹1,45,621ha-1). The benefit cost ratios were found to be stable with 2.55 for bitter gourd, 2.24 for snake gourd, 1.96 for ash gourd and 2.02 for pumpkin. Also, the major operational cost in seed production for the four crops was found in manure application followed by fertilizer application and land preparation. The determinants of production of quality seeds were analyzed using multiple linear regression where the seed yield was regressed with the different parameters like fertilizers, manures, plant protection, human labour and experience of the farmer. In bitter gourd, manures, plant protection and experience of the farmer were found as the major determinants of quality seed production while in snake gourd it was manures, fertilizers and experience of the farmer. Fertilizers, human labour and experience of the farmer were found to affect the quality seed production in ash gourd. Besides these, fertilizers and experience of the farmer were found to contribute to production of quality seeds in pumpkin. The efficiency of the inputs involved in the seed production of the vegetables under study were analysed using Cobb-Douglas production function and quantity of manures and fertilizers were found to significantly influence the seed yield in bitter gourd and snake gourd. The ratio of MVP to MFC for manures and fertilizers in bitter gourd was found to be 0.70 and 0.58 respectively while in snake gourd it was 0.75 and 0.71 respectively which indicated the overutilization of the resources. In ash gourd and pumpkin, fertilizer was found to be the factor significantly influencing the seed yield with a value of 0.75 and 0.61 respectively indicating overutilization of the resource. The analysis of the constraints in seed production of the vegetables was done using Garrett ranking technique. The major constraint identified which limited the seed production in the selected vegetables in the area was climatic variability followed by the incidence of pests and diseases where mosaic was identified as the major disease and fruit fly as the major pest. The requirement of a higher isolation distance was also another factor that constrained the seed production of the selected vegetables in the study area. It can thus be concluded that the development of climate resilient and pest and disease tolerant varieties would help the farmers to reap higher benefits by overcoming the vagaries of weather and challenge of pests and diseases incidence. Also, the development of high yielding variety seeds should be taken up in order to reduce the use of hybrid seeds which are popular among the farmers currently and are relatively costlier, thus the cost of cultivation of vegetables could be brought down sizably.Item Breeding for shattering resistance in rice (Oryza sativa L.)(Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 2018) Anju M Job; Biju, SItem Evaluation and characterisation of promising hybrids of long pepper (Piper longum L.)(Department of Plantation Crops and Spices, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 2017) Sruthy, K; Sujatha, V SPiper longum L., commonly known as long pepper, belongs to family Piperaceae. The species has originated in South Asia. Piper longum is an important medicinal plant used in more than 300 ayurvedic preparations. Inspite of the importance of the species, „Viswam‟ is the only variety released so far. As a part of a KSCSTE funded project, hybridization studies were carried out at the Department of Plantation Crops and Spices, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara to develop high yielding types in Piper longum. In the preliminary evaluation trials, four hybrids were found promising. The present study entitled „evaluation and characterisation of promising hybrids of long pepper (Piper longum L.)‟ was conducted with the objective of evaluating these promising hybrids at different shade levels for growth, yield and quality and also to characterise them using molecular markers. The research was conducted in three experiments viz., evaluation of hybrids in pots at different shade levels, field evaluation of selected hybrids and molecular characterisation of promising hybrids and parents. Morphological characterisation of the accessions was done using IPGRI descriptor for Piper nigrum with necessary modifications. Variations were observed among accessions in shape of leaf, immature and mature spike color as well as shape of spike. Characters like plant height, number of primary branches per plant and time taken for production of first lateral were significantly different among hybrids. Flowering and fruit set were higher at zero per cent and 25 per cent shade compared to 50 per cent shade level. Field planted genotypes of P. longum showed significant difference in number of primary branches, internodal length of orthotropic as well as plagiotropic shoots and leaf area. Characters like pedicel length, spike length, spike girth and yield in terms of number of spikes per plant, fresh weight of spikes per plant and dry spike yield per plant also differed significantly. Among the hybrids evaluated in the field, Pl 9 followed by Pl 63 were found to be promising. They were significantly higher yielders compared to other hybrids, female parent and Viswam. Essential oil content was found to be uniform (0.8 per cent) in all the accessions except Pl 141 (0.83 per cent). Pl 9 showed maximum oleoresin (15.2 per cent) and piperine (3.47 per cent) content than other genotypes. For molecular characterisation using RAPD, 30 decamer primers were screened. From these ten best primers were selected. Six primers showed polymorphism between the male and female parents. The hybrids Pl 9 and Pl 63 were closely related with 92 per cent similarity. Pl 140 was found different from the rest of the three hybrids and it was grouped along with the parents. Among the accessions studied, Viswam showed highest variability from others. Among the hybrids evaluated, Pl 9 and Pl 63 were found to be promising in terms of yield. Pl 9 was superior in quality. These hybrids could be further evaluated in multi-location trials to explore the possibility of releasing as high yielding hybrids in future.