Vegetable transplanting is a labourious and timeconsuming field operation when performed manually. The semi-automatic vegetable transplanters are cumbersome to operate due to limitations on manual feeding rates of seedlings which vary with respect to work duration and skill of the operator. Automation in the field of vegetable transplanters has provided opportunities for savings in labour and time required for transplanting operation in open field and controlled environmental structures, i.e. shade nets or polyhouse. The advent and recent advances in transplanting technologies suggest ample scope of working on automated seedling pickup and drop mechanisms using robotics. Use of seedling pickup mechanism in automatic transplanters can repeatedly extract single seedling automatically from the seedling pro-tray with the help of a pair of pins or forks and drop at predefined location. In general, these systems comprise either a machine vision system or end-effector mechanism for extracting the seedling; gripper and a manipulator; indexing drum-type seedling removal device with ejector; or a pick-up system, feeding system and a planting system. Such automated systems have helped ease the transplanting operation and efficient planting of seedlings by maintaining the accuracy, precision and effectiveness in planting seedlings with minimum human intervention. This study highlights the research gaps and developments in smart transplanting technologies used in the field of vegetable cultivation.

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Fruiting bodies of 6 mushrooms including Agaricus bisporus, Hyspizygus ulmarius, Pleurotus florida PF-01, Pleurotus florida PF-01 R5, Pleurotus platypus and Pleurotus sajor-caju PSC-04 were analyzed for antioxidative enzymatic profile during low temperature storage. Colour, rehydration ratio and moisture were taken as indices of accessing their shelf-life/marketability, of which, colour contributed significantly while rehydration ratio and moisture did not change considerably during storage. Mushrooms were stored at 5 and 10 °C and activities and isozyme profile of antioxidative enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POX) were analyzed after every 48 h interval till the fruiting bodies remained marketable. SOD activity increased generally at 5 and 10 °C while POX activity first increased and then decreased under similar conditions. Isozyme profile of SOD and POX did not show any new isozyme during storage, the only difference was in the intensity of bands.

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Sixty days old mung beans Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek were treated with soil applied paclobutrazol, at the rate of 500 µg per 10 inch pot. After seven days of application, the plants along with untreated controls were transferred to the dark for induction of senescence. The treated plants exhibited higher chlorophyll content and activity of catalase (CAT) compared to controls. In contrast, control leaves had higher activity of peroxidase (POX) and a higher content of malondialdehyde (MDA), while superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity remained unchanged. Upon transfer to dark, chlorophyll content declined in both control and treated plants but the decline was much faster in control. The activity of CAT decreased significantly in controls while POX activity and MDA content remained higher in control than in treated plants. Paclobutrazol delayed the dark-induced senescence in attached mung bean leaves in association with the maintenance of higher activity of CAT, low activity of POX, and low MDA contents. The variation in SOD activity was not discernible with senescence levels.

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