Fungicides mancozeb and carbendazim caused 100% reduction in mycelial growth of Alternaria brassicae over control in vitro while 1% (w/v) aqueous bulb extract of Allium sativum and leaf extract of Acacia nilotica caused significant reductions. In dual culture, GR isolate of Trichoderma viride performed the best among the test isolates of Trichoderma, causing 81%, 82% reduction in mycelial growth of A. brassicae over control. Performance of isolates SI-2, P and SI-1 of T. viride were at par (P < 0.01) with that of GR isolate. Spraying of A. brassicae at different ages of the mustard host plant identified 75 days after sowing (d.a.s.) as the most critical age of the mustard plant for development of Alternaria blight severity on the crop with 45 d.a.s. being the next most important one.

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A field experiment was conducted in sandy clay loam soil during winter season of 2012-13. The lowest weed dry weight and the highest nutrient content were recorded under 80 mm CPE. Significantly the highest grain and straw yield, total nutrients uptake, and the highest consumptive use of water (57.8 cm), rate of water use (4.52 mm/day), water use efficiency (87.3 kg/ha-cm) and soil profile moisture was extracted with irrigation at 40 mm CPE. Application of sulfosulfuron recorded significantly lowest weed biomass and the highest nutrient content and their uptake, grain and straw yield, and maximum consumptive use of water (51.5 cm), rate of water use (4.02 mm/day), water use efficiency (91.3 kg/ha-cm) and soil profile moisture extraction over metribuzin and it was at par with metsulfuron-methyl. Grain (6.57 kg/ha) and straw yield (12.3 kg/ha) will be reduced by an increased in unit dry matter production in weeds.

Indian fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) varieties were biometrically studied for seed yield and yield contributing traits to assess genetic variability, character association and genetic divergence. Highly significant differences between varieties for all the studied traits were observed. Pooled results illustrated high estimates of PCV along with GCV for number of branches per plant, test weight, number of pods per plant, number of nodules per plant, plant height and seed yield per plant. High heritability along with genetic advance was recorded for plant height and test weight. Association studies showed highly significant positive correlation and high direct effect of test weight, plant height and number of pods per plant on seed yield. Diversity analysis grouped the set of 17 varieties into two clusters and there was lack of parallelism between genetic and geographic diversities. Intra cluster distance was the highest in cluster I than cluster II. Test weight (37.50%) contributed the maximum to total divergence, followed by plant height.

Reducing the carbon footprint and increasing energy use efficiency of crop rotations are the two most important sustainability issues of the modern agriculture. Present study was undertaken to assess economics, energy, and environmental parameters of common diversified crop rotations (maize-tomato, and maize-toria-wheat) vis-a-vis traditional crop rotations like maize-wheat, maize + ginger and rice-wheat of the north-western Himalayan region of India. Results revealed that maize-tomato and maize + ginger crop rotations being on par with each other produced significantly higher system productivity in terms of maize equivalent yield (30.2-36.2 t/ha) than other crop rotations (5.04-7.68 t/ha). But interestingly in terms of energy efficiencies, traditional maize-wheat system (energy efficiency 7.9, human energy profitability of 177.8 and energy profitability of 6.9 MJ/ha) was significantly superior over other systems. Maize + ginger rotation showed greater competitive advantage over other rotations because of less consumption of non-renewable energy resources. Similarly, maize-tomato rotation had ability of the production process to exploit natural resources due to 14-38% less use of commercial or purchased energy sources over other crop rotations. Vegetable-based crop rotations (maize + ginger and maize-tomato) maintained significantly the least carbon footprint (0.008 and 0.019 kg CO2 eq./kg grain, respectively) and the highest profitability (154,322 and 274,161 Rs./ha net return, respectively) over other crop rotations. As the greatest inputs of energy and carbon across the five crop rotations were nitrogen fertilizer (15-29% and 17-28%, respectively), diesel (14-24% and 8-19%, respectively) and irrigation (10-27% and 11-44%, respectively), therefore, alternative sources like organic farming, conservation agriculture practices, soil and water conservation measures, rain water harvesting etc. should be encouraged to reduce dependency of direct energy and external carbon inputs particularly in sub-Himalayas of India.