Purpose Intensive agriculture activities in small holder farming systems are declining over all soil nutrient status. The present study is conducted to compare the soil health and plant growth attributes under rice cultivation among different organic amendments. Recycled waste of rice-wheat agrosystem is utilized to determine optimal sustainable solution for hilly areas. Methods Randomly blocked design experiment was conducted with rice plants, each amended with organic inputs including rice straw residue (T1), rice biochar (T2), rice compost (T3), wheat straw residue (T4), wheat biochar (T5), wheat compost (T6), mix of wheat + rice compost (T7), green manure (T8) and control (no amendment). Soil samples were studied at each growth phase while plant growth attributes were measured at the harvesting stage of the crop. Results T6 and T7 have shown significantly higher magnitude of soil organic carbon, microbial biomass carbon, microbial quotient, available nitrogen, and enzymatic activities (dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatase and urease) than biochar (T2 and T5) and crop residue amendments (T1, T4 and T8). An increase of up to 47% was obtained in cumulative growth attributes (plant height, total biomass, and a number of tillers, spikes, and spike length) of rice plant in T6 amendment. The principal component analysis revealed two components responsible for 54.17% of the variance in the organically treated soil. Conclusion The experimental results imply that composting of crop residues could be the most reliable practice to improve soil nutritional quality as well as crop growth for sustainable rice-wheat cropping system in the hilly area.

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Background: Increasing elderly population became a big concern to health professionals. Loneliness, lack of socialization and depression is quite frequently reported in elderly population. Lack of evidence on impact of socialization and loneliness on depression necessitate this survey. The current work focused on level of socialization, loneliness and depression among elderly residing in old age homes.Methods: The cross-sectional survey includes 100 purposively selected elderly from selected old age homes, Uttarakhand. Elderly were interviewed by using University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness scale, Geriatric depression scale (GDS) and Eysenck personality inventory (EPI) sociability subscale of extroversion. Appropriate statistics was applied to generate results.Results: Findings revealed a significant relationship of loneliness with depression (r=-0.740, p<0.01) and sociability (r=0.195, p<0.01). Similarly, sociability and depression were found dependent on each other (r=-0.354, p<0.01) in elderly.Conclusions: Elderly residing in old age homes need due attention and care to get rid of these silent psychological problems. Timely medical care and measures to improve socialization may help to anticipate mortality and morbidity and protect the vulnerable population.

Irrigation of agriculture field by untreated wastewater is a common practice in the water scarce regions in India. Increasing water crisis has forced the farmers to use untreated or partially treated wastewater in their agricultural fields. In this study, agricultural soil irrigated with textile effluent was examined at five different sites on the basis of proximity to the source and analysed for physicochemical and microbiological properties. Further, the co-relation of physicochemical properties with soil enzyme was also studied. The results revealed that soil respiration and microbial biomass carbon reduced by 53.8% and 65.9%, respectively in the contaminated site as compared to control site, emphasizing the deleterious impact of effluent on the study site. Additionally, the bacterial population and dehydrogenase enzyme reduced by 41.6%, and 71%, respectively in the effluent affected soil as compared to the control site. Soil organic carbon showed a strong positive correlation (p ≤ 0. 01) with soil enzyme activity. Other physicochemical and microbiological properties of the affected soil indicated negative impact on both soil quality and microbiota.

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