Crop cultivation in controlled environment is significantly increasing all over the world due to erratic climatic conditions and climate change. Under controlled environment, the plant pathogens particularly from seed borne infections, develop very quickly infecting the crop and causes substantial losses. Control of these pathogens and diseases with pesticide application in controlled environment has its own limitations due to persistance of pesticidal residues over a long period owing to its non depletion in the controlled environment. Traditional homa treatment as non-chemical treatment was used to manage the fungal pathogen Alternaria solani in tomato and potato crop and bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria in tomato crop under controlled polyhouse condition. It was observed that homa therapy effectively reduced the incidence of early blight disease of potato and tomato and bacterial blight disease of tomato in polyhouse and it also reduced the environmental pathogenic microflora around 70 per cent. Thus homa therapy can be used as an alternate solution for chemical pesticides in protected cultivation and also be used in integrated pest management.

The experiment on twenty six tapioca genotypes was laid out to evaluate their performance in terms of root yield. The genotypes significantly differed in respect of root yield plantper plant. The highest root yield (t ha-1) was recorded by the genotype H-226, a hybrid between a local cultivar and Malayan introduction M-4. H-226 was followed by H-97 which is a hybrid between a local variety and a Brazalian selection. It can be concluded that a significant variation in root yield could be seen in different tapioca genotypes due to their differential behavior in respect of growth, number of roots/plant and yield/plot (kg).  Tapioca genotype H-226 gave the maximum root yield of 37.21 (t ha-1) with SVI (0.82) and B:C ratio of 3.16

The present investigation on evaluation of varietal performance of various potato varieties under Pune Conditions was initiated in Oct 2012. Potato tubers of Kufri Lauvkar, Kufri Badshah, Kufri Pushkar, Kufri Surya, Kufri Khyati, Kufri Ashoka, Kufri Jyoti, Kufri Pukharaj were planted on ridges and furrows. The results revealed that Kufri Surya recorded significantly higher total tuber yield (20.67 t/ha) followed by Kufri Pukharaj (18.45 t/ha). However percent plant emergence and foliage senescence were found non-significant. Whereas results in respect of yield depicted that the variety Kufri Lauvkar produced the lowest tuber yield of 16.23 t/ha. Tuber dry matter (19.69%) was recorded to be the highest in Kufri Surya which was significantly superior in comparison to the remaining varieties. The least incidence of late blight (9.69%) was recorded on Kufri Khyati which was at par with K. Surya (9.74%). The least incidence of early blight (10.29%) was recorded on K. Lauvkar which too was at par with K. Surya. Keeping this in view K. Surya may be recommended as promising variety for Pune region

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