FARMER'S HIGH HOPES FOR A GOOD MONSOON

Monsoon arrives over the West Bengal state on June 10 and takes around 3-4 days to cover the entire state. As of June 11, the southwest monsoon has advanced into parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka after its onset over Kerala on June 1, according to the IMD. It has also covered parts of west central, east central, north west and north east Bay of Bengal.

IMD predicts that the monsoon winds will progress further into Goa, the remaining parts of Tamil Nadu and the north eastern states. It will also cover the central Arabian Sea and northern Bay of Bengal. After that, the monsoon will move into Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal and Sikkim by tomorrow, June 12.

Rains bring a lot in their way.While they bring hope to the farmer, a question mark hangs. Would it rain through the season, and rain enough and rain just in time for the sowing, to promote good crop growth and later a good harvest?

The monsoon forecast is critical to India's food production and GDP growth - deficient rains could adversely impact farmer incomes and thereby drag down rural demand and consumption. This could hurt overall economic growth, especially at a time when agriculture is expected to be the only bright spot for India in 2020-21. While manufacturing is expected to be hit partially because of Covid-19 and the lockdown, the services sector- aviation, travel and tourism - is not expected to recover at least in the first half of 2020-21.

India is the world's biggest producer of sugar, cotton and pulses, the second largest producer of wheat and rice. The success of these crops is largely determined by the June-September southwest monsoon, which delivers about 70% of the country's annual rainfall.

Our farmers face difficulties every season like bad weather, crop failure, locust attack and many more but now these factors all come at a single time. The pandemic has certainly taken a toll on agriculture with farmers being unable to sell their crops due to lockdown. The locust attacks deemed to be one of the worst in years and cyclones Amphan have addede to the woes as the next crop cycle approaches.

Today, the IMD issued a forecast of thunderstorms at 30-40 kmph in isolated areas of West Bengal, Odisha on the last day of the last week. According to the forecast, heavy rains have started in the south bengal districts of West Bengal since this morning. According to meteorological sources, heavy to very heavy rains are likely in various parts of India in the next 48 hours, by June 13.

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CONSERVATION OF MANGROVE

The SUNDARBAN, largest mangrove ecosystem in the world. Limited scientific knowledge on the spatial ecology of the mangroves in this world heritage ecosystem has been a major impediment to conservation efforts. In West Bengal, Sundarban extend over 4260 square km. across the south and north 24 parganas. A large part of the sundarbans, was severely battered due to cyclone Amphan on May 20.

Since 1927, the Indian Forest Act has been applied to the mangrove forest of Sundarbans, which has been declared as a reserved area. The Environment (protection) Act, 1986 has had a crucial role in the conservation and management of mangrove ecosystem. Discovery India have partnered with Govt. of West Bengal to save the world's only mangrove tiger habitat. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the state govt. will plant 5crore mangrove trees in Amphan-hit Sundarbans region within one month.

Reasons to protect mangrove forest for the future:

• Carbon sinks

Mangroves absorb carbon at a rate two to four times greater than mature tropical forest and store three to five times more carbon per equivalent area than tropical forest. Research shows that coastal mangroves outperform most other forest in their capacity to store carbon.

• Water quality

Mangroves are essential to maintaining water quality with their dense network of roots and surrounding vegetation, they filter and trap sediments, heavy metals, and other pollutants. This ability to retain sediments flowing from upstream prevents contamination of downstream waterways.

• Sustainable development

Mangrove forest in Sundarbans have an untapped potential for sustainable revenue generating initiatives including ecotourism, fishing and other recreational activities.

• Biodiversity

Sundarbans is known for its wide range of fauna including 300 bird species, 250 fishes, 350 species of vascular plants and the Bengal tiger and other threatened species such as estuatine crocodile and the indian python.

• Coastal defence

The sturdy root systems of mangrove trees help form a natural barrier against violent storm surges and floods. River and land sediments is trapped by the roots, which protects coastline areas and slows erosion. This filtering process also prevents harmful sediment reaching coral reefs.

Sundarbans mangrove forest is extremely productive ecosystem, providing critical services that benefit all of us. Protecting natural ecosystems like mangrove forests not only helps preserve biodiversity, it also helps preserve a vital resource for local communities.

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PRECISION INJECTION SYSTEM FOR PLANTS

While the human world is reeling from one pandemic, there are several ongoing epidemics that affect crops and put global food production at risk. Bananas, oranges are already under threat in many areas due to disease that affect plans circulatory system and that cannot be treated by applying pesticides.

A new method developed by engineers may offer a starting point for delivering life saving treatments to plants ravaged by diseases.

Diseases which are difficult to detect early and to treat, given the lack of precision tools to access plant vascularature to treat pathogens and to sample biomarkers. The team decided to take some of principles involved in precision medicine for humans and adapt them to develop plant-specific bio-materials and drug delivery devices.

This method uses an array of microneedles made of silk-based biomaterial to deliver nutrients, drugs or other molecules to specific parts of the plant.

One of the microneedle patches, applied to the citrus tree

The microneedles which is the researchers call phytoinjectors, can be made in a variety of sizes and shapes, and can deliver material specifically to a plant's roots, stems, or leaves, or into its xylem (the vascular tissue involved in water transportation from roots to canopy) or phloem (the vascular tissue that circulates metabolites throughout the plant). In lab tests, the team used tomato and tobacco plants, but the system could be adopted to almost any crop. The microneedles can not only deliver targeted payloads of molecules into the plant, but they can also be used to take samples from the plans for lab analysis.

The work started in response for U.S.D.A to address the citrus greening crisis. The disease infects the phloem of the whole plant, including roots, which are very difficult to reach with any conventional treatment. Most pesticides are simply sprayed or painted onto a plant's leaves or stems, and little if any penetrates to the root system. Such treatments may appear to work for a short while, but then bacteria bounce back and do their damage. So, its needed something that can target the phloem circulating through a plant's tissues, which could carry an antibacterial compound down into the roots. Thats just what some version of the new microneedles could potentially accomplish.

Microneedle patch has been trailed on tomato plant

They used biotechnology tools to increase silk's hydrophilicity (making it attract water), while keeping the material strong enough to penetrate the plant's epidermis and degradable enough to then get out of the way.

They tested the material on their lab tomato and tobacco plants, and were able to observe injected materials, in this case fluorescent molecules, moving all the way through plant, from roots to leaves. In their experiment with tobacco plants, they were able to inject an organism called Agrobacterium to alter the plant's DNA- a typical bioengineering tool, but delivered in a new and precise way. The team continues to work on adapting the system to the varied needs and conditions of different kinds of plants and their tissues.

Source- Massachusetts institute of technology

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