No abstract

Background: Replenishing the lost nutrients through the use of various soil amendments is vital in order to maintain soil fertility for sustained productivity in jhumlnd. Integrated Nutrient Management, can boost the upland rice productivity in jhumland by building up the lost soil nutrients. Methods: The study was conducted to evaluate the impact of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of upland paddy (Oryza sativa L.) in Lai-Lad, Jirang Block of Ri-Bhoi District, Meghalaya, India; during 2019 and 2020. Randomised block design with 12 treatments was applied for the trial with 3 replications. Result: Application of 100% recommended doses of fertilizers + farmyard manure + Azospirillum lipoferum + phosphorus solubilizing bacteria + potassium mobilising bacteria + Glomus + zinc solubilizing bacteria (T10) significantly increased plant growth in both years of cultivation. Grain yield, harvest index and benefit cost ratio of upland paddy were at par among the treatments and were higher in 2nd cropping year. Integrated nutrient management could increase the growth characters, maintain sustained yield and economic profitability of upland paddy in hilly terrains of north-east India, under jhum cultivation.

The allelopathic potential of aqueous leaf extracts of Flemingia semialata Roxb. a leguminous herbs was used to examined its effect on growth and yield of Zea mays L. and Oryza sativa L. at different concentrations in laboratory bioassays. The extracts show both inhibitory and stimulatory effect on the test crops. Significant stimulatory effects were observed in 50 and 75 per cent concentration for root length and 25 per cent for shoot length in maize. Stimulatory effect on the root length of rice were observed at lower concentrations, however inhibitory effect were observed on the shoot length whereby the inhibitory effect increases with increase in the concentration of extracts. The inhibitory effect on biomass yield was observed at lower concentration in maize but inhibitory effect was more pronounced in rice at higher concentrations. Aqueous leaf extract of Flemingia semialata Roxb. performed better in maize than in rice.

Timber demand and supply gap has widened over the last few decades across different regions of the world. Indian scenario is no different. In the last decade though India’s forest cover has increased at a very slow pace, in north eastern part of India, there is a loss of forest cover at an alarming rate. This is a cause of concern for this region which is already depending only on handful of quality timbers for the structural and commercial purposes. Under this scenario, few alternative options should be looked at like exploring promising indigenous fast-growing species, or exploring some lesser-known timber species available naturally in the forest. Therefore, wood quality parameters of such timber species should be tested so as to know the specific utility of these timbers. In this study of Mizoram, wood quality parameters of five underutilized timber species were assessed and three out of five species have shown considerable quality as compared to Teak and many other mainstream species. Few selected properties are highlighted in this paper to indicate possible utility of selected species to reduce the gap in demand and supply of wood as raw material. We focused mainly on anatomical properties, gross features and cell constituents of these species in this paper. The properties observed for lesser-known species are compared with twenty Indian mainstream timbers. The results have indicated that there is a need for further expanding the scope for exploring more such species so that timber requirement of the region is meted out.