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ABSTRACT. Low sustainability is an inherent character of tropical

Domestication of novel crops from the wild is a key process that ensures food security by addressing adaptability to changing environments. These wild plants offer broader and unique health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Salinization resulted in a drastic reduction of arable land and freshwater intended for cultivation. Thus, the global food production is currently under a risk of meeting the demands. Salt‐tolerant plants (i.e., halophytes) are potential food candidates that can be used to increase the productivity of salinized land and also to enhance the diversification of food production. Salicornia can survive under hypersaline and extreme climatic conditions and deliver tender shoots and dried seeds that can be used as a food with a unique taste, texture, and therapeutic benefits. Although Salicornia is not equally popular among all the food cultures globally, it has been consumed over centuries, and it is now making its way to the shelves of supermarkets in some countries such as the United States, UAE, South Korea, and Mexico. Despite being an underutilized crop, Salicornia possesses an array of chemical compounds or basic derivatives that can enhance antioxidant, anti‐obesity, antidiabetes, anti‐inflammatory, cardioprotective, and neuroprotective properties of human nutrition. The presence of considerable amounts of nutritional elements and various functional bioactive phytochemicals have opened up avenues of using Salicornia as a functional food. The present paper reviews the recognition of Salicornia as a functional food and a potential cash crop in saline agriculture to enhance agricultural productivity and also to diversify the current food supply chain.

Substantial losses are common due to various reasons of durable crops during storage, which threatens economy, health and food security. Despite the frequent reports on post-harvest losses of paddy and other cereals throughout Sri Lanka, a comprehensive study has not been conducted in Anuradhapura district in recent past to assess storage losses of aforesaid commodities. Objectives of this study were to find out main types of durable crops stored following harvest, and their quantitative and qualitative losses incurred during storage period at the household level in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka. Data were collected throughout Anuradhapura district representing all 22 divisional secretariats. The main stored commodities were paddy, maize and greengram. The storage period varied from 4 to 12 months. The storage losses of Nadu and Samba rice varietal types respectively were highest in Palagala and Kekirawa, whereas losses were minimum in Rambewa and Galenbindunuwewa. The main qualitative losses were the presence of damaged seeds, grain flour/dust, grains without kernel and faecal matter. The study highlights that severe quantitative and qualitative losses occur during storage of rice, maize and greengram, and appropriate remedial measures are needed to be developed to minimize the said losses ensuring food security.

This study provides an in-game prediction of the winner for Twenty20 (T20) cricket by focusing on the matches played in the Indian Premier League. For the analysis, data were collected from 812 completed matches played between 2008 and 2020. Initially, several candidate features were identified, and then the LASSO method was applied as a feature selection technique to identify the most important set of features. Based on the identified important features, predictions are provided for each stage of a match where a T20 match can consist of a maximum of 240 stages. For each stage, three classification models were formed using Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression and Support Vector Machines. The prediction accuracy was used for evaluating the findings of the study, and the prediction accuracy of each model indicates the ratio between the number of correctly predicted instances and the total number of predicted instances. Naive Bayes demonstrated prediction accuracies ranging from 53.08% to 91.76% between the first and the 240th stage of matches, whereas the accuracy of Logistic Regression varied from 56.92% to 97.65%. In comparison, Support Vector Machines also displayed comparable outcomes with a prediction accuracy of 55.00% at the first stage, and 90.59% at the 240th stage. Furthermore, a strategy generator that assists the competing teams in the second innings to devise winning strategies, is presented in this study alongside an interactive web-based application for making in-game predictions, and for assisting the end users (players and coaching/managing staff) in decision making, based on the generated winning strategies.

The future of food crop production is uncertain due to the negative effects of global warming. Cowpea is grown in warm environments including in Sri Lanka, where less is known about the potential acclimation of ecophysiological and agronomic traits to increasing temperatures. We evaluated the acclimation potential of yield components and ecophysiological traits of three recommended cowpea genotypes to the seasonal variation in growth temperature in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. This study was conducted at the Faculty of Agriculture, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, in two consecutive seasons with average daytime temperatures of 30.4°C and 33.2°C. Three genotypes, Dhawala, Waruni, and MI-35, were tested in this study, and their rates of leaf photosynthesis and respiration at the 50% flowering stage and final yield parameters were measured at their respective average growth temperatures in both seasons. The total yield per hectare showed an average decrease of 16%, 17%, and 22% in the Dhawala, Waruni, and MI-35 genotypes at high average growth temperature, respectively. These reductions were associated with the reduction in the number of seeds per pod, hundred seed weight, and number of pods per plant, suggesting that there could be an among-genotype variation in flower abscission, fertilization, and biomass partitioning during the season in which the average growth temperature was high. In the season with high average growth temperature, genotype Dhawala showed an increased carbon gain per unit carbon loss and increased water use efficiency compared to MI-35 and Waruni genotypes. Therefore, genotype Dhawala is a better candidate than MI-35 and Waruni genotypes in the face of global warming, which may be considered in further breeding programs and market preferences. More work is proposed to examine the patterns of biomass partitioning and radiation use efficiency in three cowpea genotypes at elevated temperatures.

Narrow Brown Leaf Spot (NBLS) caused by Cercospora janseana is a common disease of rice causing severe yield loss. In order to identify the factors favourable for disease development under field conditions, a study was carried out during the 2017/2018 Maha and 2018 Yala seasons. Effects of mineral N fertilizer, weed control, and seed rate on the incidence and severity of NBLS disease were determined. Two levels of mineral N, i.e., Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka (DOF) recommended level and half of the DOF level were used with weedy and weed-free conditions, under four different seed rates, 100 kg/ha, 125 kg/ha, 150 kg/ha and 175 kg/ha. NBLS incidence was significantly higher (p<0.0001) in the Maha season compared to the Yala season. In the Maha season, mineral N fertilizer by weed interaction was significant on disease severity. In the Yala season, the disease incidence was significantly (p<0.05) higher in weedy conditions and fertilizer, weed and seed rate interaction and fertilizer and seed rate interaction were significantly (p<0.05) higher. The lowest disease severity was recorded in both seasons with the 100kg/ha seed rate, 100% fertilizer and weed-free conditions. When the weedy conditions prevailed in the field in Maha season, a disease severity scale value of 2 was observed at the highest frequency. Although only the weed condition affects NBLS incidence, it was found that the seed rate, fertilizer and, weed condition interaction was critical to control the severity of NBLS in paddy cultivation.