Background: Chickpea plays a greater role in national food and nutritional security and sustaining the economy of the farming community in a variety of ways. As a result of stagnated production and continuous increasing in population, the per capita availability of pulses has decreased considerably. Since very little scope exists for horizontal expansion of area, the alternative seems to be by adopting innovative agronomic practices like nipping, selection of proper seed rate and variety for a set of agro-climatic conditions to overcome from decreasing production potential. In view of above consideration, the present investigation entitled “Response of seed rate and nipping on different chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) varieties in arid irrigated western plain zone” was carried out. Methods: The field experiment was conducted at SKRAU, Bikaner during two consecutive Rabi seasons of 2016-17 and 2017-18. The experiment was laid out in split-plot design with three replications, assigning 36 treatments consisting of three varieties (GNG-1581, GNG-1958 and GNG-2171) and three seed rates (48, 64 and 80 kg/ha) as main plot treatments and four levels of nipping practice (control, nipping at 30, 45 and 60 DAS) as subplot treatments. Result: Variety GNG-1581 had significantly shorter plant stature with higher number of branches/plant (13.94), pods/plant (40.14), seeds/pod (1.78), seed yield (2142 kg/ha), whereas, variety GNG-1958 showed significantly higher plant height (52.53 cm) and straw yield (3720 kg/ha). Number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant and seed index were found significantly higher in the seed rate of 48 kg/ ha. Maximum plant population, plant height, seed yield (2111 kg/ha.), straw yield (3657 kg/ha) were recorded with the seed rate of 80 kg/ ha but on par with the seed rate of 64 kg/ha. Nipping had a significant effect on growth, yield attributes and yield of chickpea. The highest number of branches/plant (13.32), pods/plant (39.61), seed/pod (1.78), seed index (19.16 g), seed yield (2121 kg/ha) and straw yield (3695 kg/ha) were obtained when nipping was practiced at 45 DAS.

A field experiment was conducted during winter season 2016-17 and 2017-18 to study the effect of seed rates and nipping on chick pea varieties. Role of seed rates and nipping was the most important determinant in boosting growth and yield of chickpea varieties. Among varieties, GNG -1958 recorded significantly higher growth parameters viz., dry matter accumulation, crop growth rate, relative growth rate, leaf area index, chlorophyll content and straw yield of chickpea followed by GNG -1581 and GNG -2171. Significantly higher seed yield was recorded by GNG -1581. Further, growing of chick pea by using an 80 kg ha-1 seed rate was recorded significantly highest dry matter accumulation, crop growth rate, relative growth rate, index, seed, and straw yield, followed by a seed rate of 64 kg ha-1 and 48 kg ha-1. Nipping practices show a significant effect on growth and yield of chickpea. Nipping at 45 DAS observed that higher dry matter accumulation, leaf area index, chlorophyll content, net assimilation rate, seed and straw yield as compared to control (No nipping), nipping at 30 DAS and 60 DAS.

A set of instruments to measure several physical, microphysical, and radiative properties of the atmosphere and clouds are essential to identify, understand and, subsequently, forecast and prevent the effects of extreme meteorological events, such as severe rainfall, hailstorms, frost events and high pollution events, that can occur with some regularity in the central Andes of Peru. However, like many other Latin American countries, Peru lacks an adequate network of meteorological stations to identify and analyze extreme meteorological events. To partially remedy this deficiency, the Geophysical Institute of Peru has installed a set of specialized sensors (LAMAR) on the Huancayo observatory (12.04° S, 75.32° W, 3350 m ASL), located in the Mantaro river basin, which is a part of the central Andes of Peru, especially in agricultural areas. LAMAR consists of a set of sensors that are used to measure the main atmosphere and soil variables located in a 30-meter-high tower. It also has a set of high-quality radiation sensors (BSRN station) that helps measure the components of short-wave (SW) (global, diffuse, direct and reflected) and long-wave (LW) (emitted and incident) irradiance mounted in a 6-meter-high tower. Moreover, to analyze the microphysics properties of clouds and rainfall, LAMAR includes a set of profiler radars: A Ka-band cloud profiler (MIRA-35c), a UHF wind profiler (CLAIRE), and a VHF wind profiler (BLTR), along with two disdrometers (PARSIVEL2) and two rain gauges pluviometers. The present study performs a detailed dynamic and energetic analysis of two extreme rainfall events, two intense frost events, and three high-pollution events occurring on the Huancayo observatory between 2018 and 2019. The results show that the rainfall events are similar to the 1965–2019 climatological 90th percentile of the daily accumulated rainfall. The results also highlighted the patterns of reflectivity in function of height for both events, which is measured by highlighting the presence of convective and stratiform rainfall types for both events. The first intense rainfall event was associated with strong easterly circulations at high levels of the atmosphere, and the second one was associated with the presence of strong westerly circulations and the absence of BH-NL system around the central Andes. The first frost event was mainly associated with continuous clear sky conditions in the few previous days, corresponding to a radiative frost event. The second one was mainly associated with the intrusion of cold surges from extra-tropical South America. For both events, the energy budget components were strong-lower in comparison to the mean monthly values during early morning hours. Finally, for the high pollution events, the study identified that the main source of aerosols were the forest fires that took place in Peru with certain contributions from the fires in the northern area of Bolivia.

A field experiments was carried out during 2018-19 and 2019-20 at Agronomy Research Farm, CCS HAU, Hisar. To compute the temperature based agrometeorological indices for Indian mustard sown under different growing environments along with Split plot design. Two sowing environments imposed through different sowing dates (2nd week of November and 4th week of November) and two irrigation levels (One irrigation at flowering stage and No post-sown irrigation) in main plots and four fertilizer levels (87.5%, 100%, 112.5% and 125% RDF) in subplots and replicated thrice. Crop sown during 2nd week of November had significantly higher agrometeorological indices (GDD, HTU, Tphoto, Tnycto and TIDR) values over 4th week of November sowing. Among irrigation levels, one irrigation performed better with respect to agrometeorological indices. Among fertilizer levels, application of 125% RDF exhibited significantly higher agrometeorological indices followed by 112.5%, 100% and 87.5% RDF. The seed yield and biological yield were highly significantly co-related with the accumulated GDD (0.95** and 0.95**), HTU (**0.83 and 0.83**) Tphoto (**0.96 and 0.96**), Tnycto (**0.953 and 0.951**) and TIDR (0.970** and 0.970**) clearly suggesting thereby the significant effect of these indices on the mustard crop. These indices can therefore very well used as indicators of crop performance, once these relationships are quantified and tested.

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