Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), is an important arid legume with a good source of energy, protein, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre. Sprouting of legumes enhances the bioavailability and digestibility of nutrients and therefore plays an important role in human nutrition. Improved varieties of grain cowpea viz. Pant Lobia-1 (PL-1) and Pant Lobia-2 (PL-2) and Pant Lobia-3 (PL-3) were examined for sprouting characteristics and associated changes in nutritional quality. Soaking time, sprouting time and sprouting temperature combinations for desirable sprout length of ¼ to ½ inch for cowpea seed samples were standardized. All the observations were taken in triplicate except soaking time, where six observations were taken in a completely randomized design of three treatments. Results revealed that optimum soaking time of PL-1 and PL-2 seed was 3 h whereas PL-3 required 9 h. Sprouting period of 24 h at 25 °C was found to be desirable for obtaining good sprouts. Significant improvement in nutritional quality was observed after sprouting at 25 °C for 24 h; protein increased by 9-12 %, vitamin C increased by 4-38 times, phytic acid decreased by 4-16 times, trypsin inhibitor activity decreased by 28-55 % along with an increase of 8-20 % in in-vitro protein digestibility.

Environmental contamination research has been quite interesting in bioindicators recently. The basic objective of bioindicator research is to find species that can reliably detect environmental disturbances and demonstrate how those disturbances affect other species or biodiversity as a whole. Since they frequently come into contact with the harmful substances found in soil, water, and air, insects are particularly valuable for evaluating how human activities affect the terrestrial ecosystem, the aquatic system, and the atmosphere. In this review article, we’ve emphasized the use of insects as a resource for assessing contaminants and monitoring environmental contamination. Insects have been our main focus since they are key indicators of changes in soil, water, and air quality. The majority of insects, including beetles, ants, honey bees, and butterflies are employed in this study as biological indicators since they are sensitive to even the slightest environmental changes and are also used to monitor different environmental toxins.

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The field experiment was conducted during Rabi season of 2021-22, to study the   effect of combination of biofertilizer and different level of inorganic fertilizers on yield, quality, nutrient content & uptake of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) at pot culture farm of Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry of Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture & Technology, Kanpur (U.P.). The experiment comprises of eight treatments T1 (Control), T2 (RDF 75%), T3 (RDF 100%), T4 (RDF 125%), T5 (Rhizobium), T6 (RDF 75% + Rhizobium), T7 (RDF 100% + Rhizobium), T8 (RDF 125% + Rhizobium) in randomized block design with four replications. The chickpea variety RVG-202 is grown by adopting various agronomic practices. The result revealed that among all the treatments, RDF 125% + Rhizobium (T8) treatment recorded maximum yield, highest nutrient content in terms of % N(3.58 %), % P (1.34 %) and % K (0.69 %) in grain % N(2.38 %), % P (1.35 %) and % K (0.86 %) in stover. Highest nutrient uptake viz. N (65.69 kg ha-1), P (24.58 kg ha-1) and (12.66 kg ha-1) in grain and N (61.14 kg ha-1), P (8.99 kg ha-1) and (47.78 kg ha-1) stover is also associated with the treatment T8 [RDF 125% + Rhizobium]. It is clearly identified that seed inoculated with rhizobium can increase yield, nutrient content and uptake values of chickpea crop.