Agrotechniques in Industrial Crops
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter 2021

Mulch prevents moisture loss, maintains soil temperature, suppresses weed growth, facilitates microbial growth, prevents soil erosion and compaction; thus, maintains soil fertility. Mulching is recommended in potato production for its soil moisture conservation potentiality. In general, organic mulches like water hyacinth, rice straw, wheat straw and rice husk are widely used as mulch material in potato production. To explore the consequences of using various mulch materials on potato, particularly in yield and grading an experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka. Five potato varieties viz., Asterix, Lady rosetta, Courage, Diamant and BARI TPS-1 were considered and different treatments were no mulch, water hyacinth, rice straw and rice husk. Randomized complete block design (RCBD) was used to design the experiment and three replications was done to maintain better estimation. Tuber yield and tuber size were measured after harvesting and then grading was done according to the sizes to compare the variations among the treatments. Different potato varieties and/or mulch materials was seen to generate a significant change on maximum yield and quality contributing parameters like marketable yield, seed potato, french fry and chips potato in field condition. Diamant produced the highest amount of tuber, marketable and seed potato yield over other five varieties. On the other hand, Courage showed the highest non-marketable and non-seed tuber production while giving a good amount of chips potato comparing other varieties. Rice straw showed the best performance among the three mulch materials, when comparing tuber yield, marketable yield and seed potato, as opposed to no mulch condition performed better in chips potato production only.

Releasing new adapted oilseed rape cultivars among the available resources of rapeseed would be a valuable method to increase the cultivar diversity in the tropical regions. Low adaptable and high yield cultivars resources of oilseed rapes are now available in the tropical regions of Iran. The current research aimed to identify new high yield and adaptable genotypes adaptable across various tropical regions. To this end, 20 new genotypes and a check variety (Dalgan) were cultivated in the five tropical regions of Iran based on a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications during the 2019 to 2020 cropping season. The experimental sites are composed of five locations in Iran, including Gorgan, Sari, Rasht, Borazjan and Zabol. During the growth season, several phenological and quantitative traits were recorded. Combined ANOVA revealed significant genotype by environment interaction for all studied quantitative traits. Days to start flowering and days to end flowering showed the highest heritability. Correlation analysis showed a significant positive relationship between yield and flowering period, the number of sub-branches and also the number of pods per plant, but a negative and significant correlation with the days to maturity. Path analysis showed that the days to maturity had the most negative direct effect on yield and the days to start flowering, while the number of sub-branches had the most positive direct effect on yield. Canonical correlation showed that yield is correlated positively with phenological traits. The principal component analysis showed that the two first components covered 68.07% of all data variations which 12 genotypes were correlated with these two components. Cluster analysis categorized evaluated genotypes into three main groups. Finally, eight genotypes were selected in the current study, which had high yield and adaptability in the tropical regions of Iran.

Fertilizer consumption management is one of the main factors in the successful cultivation of medicinal plants. Using nature-compatible fertilizer and suitable for optimum plant growth can have favorable effects on the plant's quantitative and qualitative indices. Farmyard manure (FYM) is one of the manure resources used in sustainable soil management systems. Therefore, to evaluate the effect of manure on coriander yield and its essential oil, a field experiment was conducted based on a randomized complete block design with three replications under Kermanshah weather conditions in 2017. The experiment treatments were 0, 15 and 25 t/ha of manure (FYM0, FYM15, FYM25, respectively). The evaluated traits included the number of umbel per plant, number of seeds per umbel, 1000-seed weight, grain yield, essential oil percentage and essential oil yield. The results showed that the effect of manure on yield and yield components was significant while the essential oil percentage and yield were not significantly affected by manure fertilizer. The highest grain yield (527.6 kg/ha) and 1000-seed weight (10.1 g) were related to fertilizer levels of 25 t/ha and the lowest ones were observed in non-use of manure. It seems that manure through improving physical and chemical properties of the soil led to increasing coriander yield and yield components.

Stevia, as an anti-diabetic medicinal plant, is estimated to be about 300 times sweeter than sugar cane. Low seed germination is a major problem in stevia propagation.  Artificial seeds (ASs) technology is a valuable method for it’s rapid and massive propagation. In this study, the effective factors on production, the produced plantlet adaptation and keeping of the ASs produced from encapsulated lateral buds were efficiently optimized for the first time. The results showed that 2.5% sodium alginate with 1% calcium chloride was the best composition for coating the ASs. The bigger lateral buds (2-3 mm) with MS medium resulted in the highest percent and rate of germination. Germination and growth of the ASs were increased using 1 mg l-1 BAP with 1.5 mg l-1 Kn in the pre-culture environment. The findings indicated that transmission of the ASs-plantlets to cocopeat   seedbed increased the growth characters. Keeping the produced ASs in the MS medium had a significant (p <0.05) and positive effect on germination characters. Among the treatments for keeping artificial seeds in 90 days, the treatment of liquid paraffin at 4oC showed the best response for regrowth. In this research, the possibility of routine and massive production of ASs by encapsulating the lateral buds has been reported in stevia. Therefore, using this new protocol, the rapid and fast micro-propagation of this plant could be achieved through lateral buds for inexpensive and commercial purposes in the future.

Using the AquaCrop model, this research simulated the grains and biological yields of soybean cultivars (M9, Zan and Williams) under different irrigation treatments and future climatic conditions. To this end, whether data of the LARS-WG model were used as input data related to 1970-2010 period in Pars abad of Moghan Plain using AOGCM of HadCM3 based on scenarios of AR4 (A1B, A2 and B1) and NCAR based on scenarios of AR5 (RCP2.6 and RCP 8.5) to study periods of 2011-2030 and 2046-2065. Results showed, compared to the historical period, the statistical periods of 2011-2030 and 2046-2065 would show increases in average monthly minimum temperatures for all scenarios. These periods would also reveal decreases in average monthly maximum temperatures as well as average monthly precipitations for scenarios of RCP8.5, A2, A1B, RCP2.6, and B1, as well as scenarios of B1, RCP2.6, RCP8.5, A2, and A1B, respectively. According to the findings of RMSE and NMRSE, the AquaCrop was a good model for performance evaluation and simulation. The values of grain and biological yield would increase more for A1B and RCP8.5 than for the other scenarios during future periods. These findings indicate that soybean is an acceptable plant for the future climate of Pars abad of Moghan. In conditions of sufficient water and deficient water, Williams and Zan, respectively, exhibited lesser growth reduction and higher grain and biological yields than M9.

In order to investigate the effect of nitrogen and cytokinin on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of thyme, a three-year factorial experiment was conducted at Razi University based on a randomized complete block design with 3 replications. Factors included nitrogen levels (0, 50 and 100 kg N/ha) and cytokinin concentrations (0, 100, 200 and 400 μM). The results of analysis of variance showed that the interaction effect of nitrogen × cytokinin on plant height, number of branches, leaf, stem and whole plant dry weights, essential oil percentage and yield was significant (p ≤0.01). With increasing the amount of nitrogen and cytokinin, all the studied traits (except harvest index) increased significantly compared to the control. The highest plant height and number of branches were obtained in the treatment of 100 kg N/ha × 400 μM cytokinin. The treatment of 100 kg N/ha × 100 μM cytokinin resulted the highest production of dry weights of leaf (3287 kg/ha), stem (3110 kg/ha) and whole plant (6398 kg/ha); aproximately 60.5, 59.8 and 60.9% more than the control treatment, respectively. Also, the highest percentage of essential oil (2.45 %) was obtained by applying 50 kg N/ha × 400 μM cytokinin. Application of 100 kg N/ha and foliar application of 200 μM resulted in the highest essential oil yield (77.60 kg/ha). In general, the results of this experiment showed that the quantitative and qualitative yield of thyme can be increased by consuming the appropriate amount of nitrogen and cytokinin.