Sustainable food production is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century in the era of global environmental problems such as climate change, increasing population and natural resource degradation including soil degradation and biodiversity loss. Climate change is among the greatest threats to agricultural systems. Green Revolution though multiplied agricultural production several folds but at the huge environmental cost including climate change. It jeopardized the ecological integrity of agroecosystems by intensive use of fossil fuels, natural resources, agrochemicals and machinery. Moreover, it threatened the age-old traditional agricultural practices. Agriculture is one of the largest sectors that sustain livelihood to maximum number of people and contribute to climate change. Therefore, a climate-smart approach to sustainable food production is the need of hour. Traditional agriculture is getting increased attention worldwide in context of sustainable food production in changing climate. The present article advocates traditional agriculture as a climate-smart approach for the sustainable food production and also deliberates the correlation between climate change and agriculture.

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Trichoderma spp., are saprophytic fungi that can improve plant growth through increased nutrient acquisition and change in the root architecture. In the present study, we demonstrate that Trichoderma asperellum T42 mediate enhancement in host biomass, total nitrogen content, nitric oxide (NO) production and cytosolic Ca2+ accumulation in tobacco. T42 inoculation enhanced lateral root, root hair length, root hair density and root/shoot dry mass in tobacco under deprived nutrients condition. Interestingly, these growth attributes were further elevated in presence of T42 and supplementation of NO3- and NH4+ nutrients to tobacco at 40 and 70 days, particularly in NO3- supplementation, whereas no significant increment was observed in nia30 mutant. In addition, NO production was more in tobacco roots in T42 inoculated plants fed with NO3- nutrient confirming NO generation was dependent on NR pathway. NO3- dependent NO production contributed to increase in lateral root initiation, Ca2+ accumulation and activities of nitrate transporters (NRTs) in tobacco. Higher activities of several NRT genes in response to T42 and N nutrients and suppression of ammonium transporter (AMT1) suggested that induction of high affinity NRTs help NO3- acquisition through roots of tobacco. Among the NRTs NRT2.1 and NRT2.2 were more up-regulated compared to the other NRTs. Addition of sodium nitroprusside (SNP), relative to those supplied with NO3-/NH4+ nutrition and T42 treated plants singly, and with application of NO inhibitor, cPTIO, confirmed the altered NO fluorescence intensity in tobacco roots. Our findings suggest that T42 promoted plant growth significantly ant N content in the tobacco plants grown under N nutrients, notably higher in NO3-, providing insight of the strategy for not only tobacco but probably for other crops as well to adapt to fluctuating nitrate availability in soil.

Keywords:tropical dry forests / deciduousness / wood density / leaf mass per area / leaf strategy index Abstract • In seasonally dry tropical forests deciduousness (leaflessness) is an important strategy of trees to survive in water stress period during summer. Deciduousness is a reflection of interacted effect of seasonal drought, tree characteristics and soil moisture conditions.• The present study aims to document the diversity in leaf pheno-phases in terms of duration of deciduousness (which is reciprocal to growing season length), wood density, leaf mass per area (LMA) and leaf strategy index in 24 important tree species growing in the Vindhyan dry tropical forest in India.• On the basis of phenological observations, the tree species were categorized into two main groups: leaf exchanging species exhibiting overlapping periods of leaf fall and leaf flush, and deciduous species whose timings of leaf flush and leaf fall differ resulting in a time lag (deciduousness) between the completion of leaf fall and initiation of leaf flush. Presence of wide range of deciduousness duration (from ca. a week to 7 months) among dry tropical trees indicates large variations in their growing season length. In the tree species studied, as the duration of deciduousness increased, leaf flushing period decreased significantly but leaf fall period showed little variation.• Differing deciduousness in tree species exhibited substantial differences in their leafing (vegetative growth) pattern, as reflected by ratio of durations of leaf flush to leaf fall (leaf strategy index). Across different species, duration of deciduousness was significantly positively correlated with leaf strategy index, and significantly negatively correlated with both wood density and LMA.• Wide variations in deciduousness, leaf strategy index, wood density and LMA in the 24 species investigated indicate considerable functional diversity in tree species growing in Vindhyan dry tropical region. Variation in seasonal duration of deciduousness among species is reflections of differences in tree functional traits like stem wood density, leaf strategy index and LMA. Mots-clés :forêts tropicales sèches / défoliation / densité du bois / masse de feuilles par unité de surface / index de stratégie de la feuille Résumé -La diversité des défoliations et les traits phénologiques d'arbres clés de la forêt sèche tropicale indienne.• Dans les forêts sèches tropicales saisonnières, la défoliation est une stratégie importante des arbres pour survivre dans les périodes de stress hydrique durant l'été. La défoliation est un reflet de l'interaction entre la sécheresse saisonnière, les caractéristiques des arbres et les conditions d'humidité du sol.• La présente étude vise à documenter la diversité des phénophases des feuilles en termes, de durée de la défoliation (qui est réciproque à la durée de la saison de croissance), de densité du bois, de masse foliaire par unité de surface (LMA) et d'indice de stratégie des feuilles chez 24 importantes espèces d'arbres poussant dans la for...

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