The abundance and diversity of rapeseed insect flower visitors were assessed by using insect pan traps, sweep net and visual observations at different blooming stage of rapeseed at Jutpani VDC, Chitwan district, Nepal during 2012-013. The pollinator fauna of rapeseed included twenty one species from six different insect orders. Hymenopteran (77.95%) species were the most abundant insects visiting rapeseed followed by Diptera (12.23%) and Lepidoptera (3.49%). Honeybees were the dominant group of pollinators and among honeybees, Apis mellifera L. was the most dominant one (36.34%) followed by Apis florea F. (12.45%), Apis cerana F. (11.14%) and Apis dorsata F. (5.68%). The higher abundance and diversity of pollinators were observed at 12:00 to 1:00 pm and the diversity was related to the crop blooming stage. Therefore, pollinator's friendly cultivation practices should be followed for conservation and management of insect pollinators for higher production and productivity of rapeseed crop under Chitwan condition. Journal of the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science. Vol. 33-34, 2015, 73-78
Rapeseed is an important cash crop of Nepal and an experiment was conducted to study the effect of pollination on its production in Chitwan during 2012-2013. The experiment was designed in Randomized Complete Block with four replications and five pollination treatments. The rapeseed plots were caged with mosquito nets at 10% flowering except natural pollination. Two-framed colonies of Apis mellifera L. and Apis cerana F. were introduced separately for pollination, and control plot caged without pollinators. Seed set increased by 48.72% with Apis cerana F. and 45.73% with Apis mellifera L. pollination as compared to the control. The highest seed yield was obtained from Apis cerana F. (1.11 mt/ha), followed by Apis mellifera L. (0.88 mt/ha), hand (0.75 mt/ha), natural pollination (0.66 mt/ha) and control (0.13 mt/ha), respectively. This study clearly indicated pollination deficit under natural condition, and therefore, management of honeybee is necessary for higher production and productivity of rapeseed under Chitwan condition.
Ticks cause serious economic losses in livestock production worldwide. A study was conducted in 2017/18 to determine the abundance of tick population on different geographical regions and body parts of cattle. Three study sites were taken from mid hill, inner terai and terai region of Nepal. A total of 45 dairy cattle (15 from each region) were included randomly for the study. Regarding the distribution of ticks in cattle body part, higher number of ticks were recorded on dewlap (38.61%) followed by perineum and udder (25.10%), ear base (15.06%), tail base (9.07%), abdomen (7.34%) and withers (4.83%). Similarly, highest numbers of ticks were recorded in Chitwan (19.46 ticks on an average) cattle followed by Dang (9.13 ticks on an average) and least in Lamjung (5.73 ticks on an average) cattle. This result indicates that higher tick infestation was found in warm, moist, hidden sites with good vascular supply and thin skin in cattle body. Similarly, more tick were recorded in cattle keeping with poor animal husbandry practices.
Vase life is the most important parameter to determine the quality of cut flower, however, due to highly perishable nature is always challenging to vase life. An experiment was conducted at Horticulture Lab, Prithu Technical College, Dangon 2018 in order to find out best concentration of sucrose and citric solution that enhances and prolongs the better flower quality and longevity. Experiment was laid out in completely randomize design (CRD) with nine treatments and three replication. Rose sticks were harvested at flower bud stage and two sticks were kept in each vase solution. 2% sucrose with 15 ppm citric acid solution found longest vase life and this combination has the potential to be used as a commercial cut flower preservative solution to delay flower senescence, enhance post-harvest quality and prolong the vase life of cut rose flowers.
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