In the hilly areas of eastern Gujarat, western Madhya Pradesh and southern Rajasthan, in western India, farmers are very resource-poor and cultivate small and fragmented land holdings. Maize is their main rainy season (kharif) cereal and it is grown as a rainfed crop in low-fertility fields, often on sloping land that is vulnerable to soil erosion. Its productivity is very low, averaging below 1 t ha −1 . New farm technologies to increase this productivity have to be low cost to be attractive to farmers who have limited access to purchased inputs and few means to purchase them. From observations of local farming practices, intercropping of maize with legumes was identified as an attractive option because the only additional input needed is seed of the legume crop. Participatory research was conducted on intercropping of maize with improved varieties of horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum). Many farmers who tried this intercropping adopted it in subsequent years, while others preferred to grow the new horsegram varieties as a sole crop. Farmers reported that less weeding was required in the intercrop as the horsegram smothered weeds. All farmers used the dry stover from the horsegram as a fodder for their animals. Farmers used the whole seed as dal, which provided additional protein in their diet. Farmers also sold the grain, but it fetched a low price in the poorly developed market for horsegram. Previously intercropping had been tried with local landraces, but the acceptance of intercropping was higher with new varieties such as AK-42 that yielded over 60% more grain. Participatory trials in which only one entry was compared with the local variety did not show a difference between AK-21 and AK-42 as in all cases both were preferred over the local variety. When they were directly compared with each other, farmers' perceptions showed a significant preference for AK-42. Variety IVH-2 was found to be better than AK-42: it matured 15 days earlier, better matching the maturity of the maize, had superior grain quality and yielded about the same. The greater uptake of improved horsegram varieties for sole and intercropping is likely to be limited by the lack of seed supply.

The investigation was carried out in tropical sugarbeet at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore to evaluate optimum time of sowing with suitable hybrids. The experiment was conducted in strip plot design. The main plot consists of four times of sowing (15 days interval from 1 st September to 15 th October) and three tropical sugarbeet hybrids (Cauvery, Indus and Shubhra) in sub plot. Higher crop biometrics of tropical sugarbeet was recorded in October 1 st sowing and was on par with 15 th September and 15 th October sowing. The yield characters and yield (72 and 88 t ha -1 during 2005 and 2006 respectively) of tropical sugarbeet and brix reading were higher in 1 st October sowing during both the experiments conducted during 2005-06 and 2006-07. With respect to tropical sugarbeet hybrids, Cauvery performed better in yield (76 and 92 t ha -1 during 2005 and 2006respectively) and Shubhra recorded higher brix reading (20 %). September second fortnight to October second fortnight sowing with Cauvery hybrid performed better for tropical sugarbeet emergence, establishment, yield and quality.

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Mungbean is a major food leguminous crop mainly cultivated in Asia. It is famous for its high protein, carbohydrate, and nutritional content. With the help of microorganisms located in their root nodules, the crop also maintain soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation. This not only allows them to meet their own nitrogen needs, but it also improves the production of succeeding crops. One of the prerequisites for crop improvement is the availability of genetic variability. The capability to select improved genotypes in mungbean is limited by a lack of necessary diversity. Chemical and physical mutagens are frequently employed in Plant Mutation Breeding to boost crop productivity and resistance to diseases, insects, drought, and salt by creating genetic variability in crop plants. Mungbean is an early maturing crop often cultivated on low-fertility land with minimal inputs. In the case of these crops, the selection pressure has been focused on stress adaptation rather than yield. As a result, improving the genetics of such crops to increase yield necessitates genetic reconstitution to generate diverse plant types. Induced mutations can contribute to the regeneration and restoration of diversity that has been lost during the evolutionary process because of various pressures or adaptations. Thus, induced mutation or mutation breeding has a lot of potential for improving traditional agricultural crops like mungbean. In this paper, we look at many forms of mutations identified in mungbean crops by various scientists.