Growth Dynamics of Rice: Effects of Sustainable Farming Practices on Plant Height and Plant Density under Sodic Soil Conditions

This study investigated the effects of sustainable farming practices and cropping systems on the growth dynamics of rice, with a focus on plant height and density under sodic soil conditions in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The experiment was conducted for two consecutive years (2023--24 and 2024--25) at Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture & Technology, Ayodhya, India, following a split-split plot design with three replications. The treatments included four farming practices: 1. Biochar-based ecological farming (BBEF), 2. Climate-Resilient Organic Farming (CROF), 3. Low-Input Natural Farming (LINF), and 4. Conventional farming (CF), three cropping systems; (1. Rice–Wheat–Mungbean, 2. Rice–Mustard–Sesbania, and 3. Rice–Barley–Mentha), and two rice varieties (1. DRR Dhan-50, and 2. Kalanamak). The results indicated that farming practices significantly influenced plant height at critical stages. The greatest plant height was consistently recorded under the CF × Kalanamak treatment, which was up to 44% taller at harvest than the LINF × DRR Dhan-50 treatment. BBEF and CROF with Kalanamak exhibited competitive growth, attaining heights within 10–13% of the CF, highlighting the potential of sustainable systems to increase vegetative growth. The plant density remained statistically uniform across the treatments and stages, suggesting that establishment is governed more by sowing practices than by postsowing management. The findings underline that while conventional farming maximizes early growth in sodic soils, sustainable practices supplemented with organic amendments and resilient varieties can offer comparable establishment without compromising ecological sustainability. These insights advocate for integrative soil management approaches in sodic environments and emphasize the need for long-term assessments of yield, soil health, and resilience. &nbsp

Economic Analysis Based on Benefit Cost Ratio Approach for Rice Crop in Combination with the Bio-Inoculants and Chemical Fertilizers

A field experiment was conducted during kharif season of 2022 to evaluate the effect of different NPK levels and bio-inoculants on growth, yield and economics of NDR-2065. Factorial Experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design involving three NPK levels i.e. control, 60% RDF, 80% RDF and 100% RDF in combination with three levels of bio- organics viz.  BGA + PSB, Azolla + PSB and BGA + Azolla + PSB along with seven treatment combinations replicated    thrice. The total per ha-1 paddy and straw yield of rice varieties amounted a  sum  of  ₹ 122721  for  T5 (80% RDF + 500kg Azolla ha-1 Soil application + PSB),  ₹ 116048  for  T2 100% RDF (150, 60, 40 N2, P2O5, K2O kg ha-1), ₹ 111108 for  T3 (80% RDF + 10 kg BGA ha-1 Soil application + PSB), ₹ 107709 for T6 (60% RDF + 500kg Azolla ha-1   Soil application +PSB) and ₹ 86580 for T1 under control. The Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was higher for T5 having value of 2.0 and least for T1 with a value of 1.3. The treatment combination T2, T6 and T3 presented a close value of Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) with respect to each other viz. 1.8, 1.7 and 1.7 respectively

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Not Available: A field study was conducted to evolve a suitable in - situ rainwater harvesting practice for resource conservation and augmenting growth of aonla in agroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region. The treatments (farmer's practice of aonla planting with 0.027 m3 pit (control), pit filled up to 0.75 m with 1 m3 pit, crescent shaped micro - catchment with 1 m3 pit and V - shaped micro - catchment with 1 m pit) were laid out in RBD in four replications in runofm × 14 m at 2% slope. In inter - spaces, black gram - Indian mustard crop sequence was practiced. Results showed highest runoff (38.9%), soil loss (3.79 tha - 1 ) and nutrient loss (Organic carbon, N, P andK), lower grain yield in black (221 kg ha - 1) and Indian mustard (1082 kg ha ) and low growth of aonla (height 1.83 m and girth 1.3 cm) were recorded farmer's practice. However, lowest runoff (23.3%), soil loss (1.97 tha - 1 ) and nutrient loss, higher grain yield of black gram (Ha - 1 ) and Indian mustard (1580 kg ha ) and higher growth of aonla (height 2.21 m and girth 1.5 cm) were obtained shaped micro - catchment. Based on the present findings, V - shaped micro - catchment could be a suitable in - situ rainwater conservation practice for resource conservation and enhancing yield of intercrops and growth of aonla under aonlaagroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableA field study was conducted to evolve a suitable in-situ rainwater harvesting practice for resource conservation and augmenting growth of aonla in agroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region. The treatments (farmer's practice of aonla planting with 0.027 m pit (control), pit filled up to 0.75 m with 1 m3 pit, crescent shaped micro- catchment with 1 m3 pit and V-shaped micro-catchment with 1 m3 pit) were laid out in RBD in four replications in runofm × 14 m at 2% slope. In inter-spaces, black gram - Indian mustard crop sequence was practiced. Results showed highest runoff (38.9%), soil loss (3.79 tha ) and nutrient loss (Organic carbon, N, P and K), lower grain yield in black (221 kg ha-1 ) and Indian mustard (1082 kg ha-1 ) and low growth of aonla (height 1.83 m and girth 1.3 cm) were recorded farmer's practice. However, lowest runoff (23.3%), soil loss (1.97 tha-1 ) and nutrient loss, higher grain yield of black gram ( ha-1 ) and Indian mustard (1580 kg ha-1 ) and higher growth of aonla (height 2.21 m and girth 1.5 cm) were obtained shaped micro-catchment. Based on the present findings, V-shaped micro-catchment could be a suitable in-situ rainwater conservation practice for resource conservation and enhancing yield of intercrops and growth of aonla under aonlaagroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region.Not Availabl

Not Available

Not AvailableA field study was conducted to evolve a suitable in-situ rainwater harvesting practice for resource conservation and augmenting growth of aonla in agroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region. The treatments (farmer's practice of aonla planting with 0.027 m3 pit (control), pit filled up to 0.75 m with 1 m3 pit, crescent shaped micro-catchment with 1 m3 pit and V-shaped micro-catchment with 1 m3 pit) were laid out in RBD in four replications in runoff plots of 21 m × 14 m at 2% slope. In inter-spaces, black gram - Indian mustard crop sequence was practiced. Results showed that highest runoff (38.9%), soil loss (3.79 tha-1) and nutrient loss (Organic carbon, N, P and K), lower grain yield in black gram (221 kg ha-1) and Indian mustard (1082 kg ha-1) and low growth of aonla (height 1.83 m and girth 1.3 cm) were recorded under farmer's practice. However, lowest runoff (23.3%), soil loss (1.97 tha-1) and nutrient loss, higher grain yield of black gram (334 kg ha-1) and Indian mustard (1580 kg ha-1) and higher growth of aonla (height 2.21 m and girth 1.5 cm) were obtained under Vshaped micro-catchment. Based on the present findings, V-shaped micro-catchment could be a suitable in-situ rainwater conservation practice for resource conservation and enhancing yield of intercrops and growth of aonla under aonla-based agroforestry system on sloping lands in red soils of Bundelkhand region.Not Availabl

An efficient read approach for memristive crossbar array

Resistive random access memories (ReRAM) have drawn attention of researchers due to their unique properties with applications in in-memory computing, which allows storage and computation in the same unit. This mitigates one of the major limitations in current computing architectures, where for each computation we require to move data from memory to processor or vice versa, which incurs immense amount of energy overheads. Among the various technologies for implementing ReRAM, memristor is considered to be one of the most desirable candidates due to its small size, low power consumption, and high data retention. Such ReRAM systems are often fabricated in the form of crossbar for compact layout. However, they suffer from various challenges, one of the major ones being the sneak-path problem during reading of cell values. The read operation is mostly disturbed by sneak-path currents that can result in incorrect reading of the cell. This paper presents a new approach for reading the cell values in memristive crossbars, which is capable of avoiding erroneous read operations caused by sneak-paths. It also supports parallel operations whereby multiple memristor states can be read in a single cycle. A straightforward approach for reading all the cells in an n×ncrossbar, where the read operation is performed sequentially, requires O(n2)cycles, whereas the proposed approach requires O(n)cycles

Efficient grouping approach for fault tolerant weight mapping in memristive crossbar array

The ability of resistive memory (ReRAM) to naturally conduct vector–matrix multiplication (VMM), which is the primary operation carried out during the training and inference of neural networks, has caught the interest of researchers. The memristor crossbar is one of the desirable architectures to perform VMM because it offers various benefits over other memory technologies, including in-memory computing, low power, and high density. Direct downloading and chip-on-the-loop approaches are typically used to train ReRAM-based neural networks. In these methods, all weight computations are carried out by a host machine, and the computed weights are downloaded in the crossbar. It has been seen that the network does not deliver the same precision as promised by the host system once the weights have been downloaded. This is because crossbars contain a significant number of faulty memristors and suffer from cell resistance variations because of immature manufacturing technologies. As a result, a cell may not be able to take the exact weight values that the host system generates, and may lead to incorrect inferences. Existing techniques for fault-tolerant mapping either involve network retraining or employ a graph-matching strategy that comes with hardware, power, and latency overheads. In this paper, we propose a mapping method to tolerate the effect of defective memristors. In order to lessen the impact of faulty memristors, the mapping is done in a way that allows network weights to cover up faulty memristors. Further, this work prioritizes the different faults based on the frequency of occurrence. The mapping efficiency is found to increase significantly with low power, area and latency overheads in the proposed approach. Experimental analyses show considerable improvement as compared to state-of-the-art works

A descriptive study to assess knowledge related to hypertension and its impact upon exercises and sleep pattern among adults from communities of Uttarakhand

INTRODUCTION: Hypertension nowadays is a major community health problem. It is high prevalence, which becomes an important area of research which is also a major possibility for circulatory diseases and other complications. It is a silent killer, which does not show any warning sign until a severe medicinal crisis occurs. The study aims to assess the knowledge regarding hypertension and its effect on the amount of exercise and sleep among adults at risk of hypertension from both rural and urban communities of Uttarakhand. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A descriptive cross-sectional research design with the total sample size was calculated as 542 adults at risk of hypertension. A purposive sampling method was used for sample selection in this study. A semi-structured questionnaire regarding knowledge related to hypertension and amount of exercise and sleep patterns was administered as tools for data collection. Analysis was done by using SPSS 23.0 version software, descriptive statistics with the use of frequency %, inferential statistics with Chi-square test, and P value ≤ 0.05 considered as significant. RESULTS: Majority (58%) of them were male, living with a nuclear family with very poor educational status. It showed that whenever they have free time, only then they were performing simple work without having any experience with regular exercise and yoga. Less than half of them (45%) were having good knowledge about increased blood pressure is a disease, medical management, and how to prevent it. Knowledge regarding hypertension showed significant association with less amount of exercise (use of a motored vehicle to going to job/work) (p value = 0.0001*) and satisfactory pattern of sleep among adults at risk of hypertension (p value = 0.001*). CONCLUSION: In this study, a lack of education and very poor knowledge regarding the management of hypertension found to be associated with less amount of exercise but satisfactory sleep among adults at risk of hypertension