Journal of Global Agriculture and Ecology

An Economic Analysis of Horticulture Nurseries in Nagpur District, India

2026-09-05T11:40:09+00:00

Commercial horticultural nurseries play an important role in supplying quality planting material for landscaping, ornamental planting and horticultural production. However, establishing and operating nursery enterprises requires substantial investment in land, infrastructure, planting material, labour and other production inputs. Reliable information on the establishment costs, production costs and profitability of individual floricultural nursery products is therefore essential for assessing their economic viability. In Nagpur district, field-level evidence comparing the economics of major ornamental nursery products remains limited. The present study was undertaken to analyse the economics of selected floricultural nurseries in Nagpur district of Maharashtra, with specific emphasis on establishment costs and the costs and returns of selected nursery products. The study was conducted in Kalmeshwar and Katol tehsils of Nagpur district, covering 60 nursery owners. Primary data were collected through a structured interview schedule and analysed using suitable cost and return measures. The selected nursery crops included hibiscus, rose and bougainvillea. The results revealed that the total establishment cost was highest for rose at Rs. 27,99,943.71 per hectare, followed by hibiscus at Rs. 27,06,460.89 and bougainvillea at Rs. 25,57,468.46 per hectare. Land capital constituted the major component of establishment cost, accounting for 54.44 per cent in rose, 54.14 per cent in hibiscus and 55.64 per cent in bougainvillea. Transport vehicles and shade-net structures were the other major components of establishment investment. The per hectare total cost of production was Rs. 22,05,137.82 for hibiscus, Rs. 24,57,703.82 for rose and Rs. 19,75,503.82 for bougainvillea. Variable costs constituted the major share of total production cost, accounting for 88.03, 89.26 and 86.64 per cent for hibiscus, rose and bougainvillea, respectively. Pots and trays constituted the major variable cost component in all three crops. Rose generated the highest gross returns of Rs. 48,70,121.07 per hectare and net returns of Rs. 24,12,417.25, followed by hibiscus and bougainvillea. The benefit-cost ratio was highest for rose (1.98), followed by hibiscus (1.77) and bougainvillea (1.70). The findings indicate that rose was the most remunerative nursery product among the selected crops, while establishment expenditure was mainly influenced by land capital, transport facilities and protective structures.

Extent of Adoption of ANGRAU Technologies among Paddy Farmers in Anakapalli District of Andhra Pradesh, India

2026-09-26T13:04:34+00:00

This study assessed awareness and adoption of ANGRAU-recommended paddy production and protection technologies among farmers in Anakapalli district, Andhra Pradesh. An ex-post facto design was used, and 60 paddy farmers were selected through a multistage procedure and interviewed using a pre-tested structured schedule. Descriptive statistics, including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and ranking, were used to interpret the data in accordance with the study objectives. Awareness was highest for RGL-2537 (95.0%), followed by BPT-5204 (81.7%) and BPT-3291 (70.0%), while adoption of these varieties was 86.7%, 75.0%, and 65.0%, respectively. The recommended seed rate showed universal awareness and adoption, whereas seed-treatment awareness was 76.66% and adoption among aware farmers was 80.43%. Awareness of weed management was 40.0% for dry direct-sown rice and 73.33% for transplanted rice. For plant protection, awareness was highest for stem borer and thrips management (100.0%), followed by blast management (91.67%) and BPH/WBPH management (86.67%). Rodent-management awareness ranged from 30.0% to approximately 53.3%, while adoption among aware farmers ranged from 36.0% to approximately 54.5%. Major reasons for non-adoption included lack of awareness, lack of interest, financial constraints, and labour-intensive operations. The findings demonstrate substantial practice-specific differences in technology uptake and indicate the need for targeted extension support for comparatively less-adopted weed, disease, and rodent-management practices.

Effect of FYM and Bio-fertilizers on Growth, Yield, Quality and Economics of Potato-Onion Cropping Sequence under Drip Irrigation

2026-10-01T12:12:15+00:00

Potato–onion cropping systems require efficient nutrient and water management to sustain productivity, crop quality, and economic returns. Continuous nutrient removal by both crops can reduce soil fertility when appropriate nutrient replenishment is not maintained. The integrated use of farmyard manure (FYM) and bio-fertilisers under drip irrigation may improve nutrient availability, crop performance, and resource-use efficiency. However, information on their combined direct and carry-over effects in a sequential potato–onion cropping system remains limited. A field experiment conducted during 2020–21 evaluated the effect of integrated nutrient management, specifically farmyard manure (FYM) and bio-fertilisers (Azotobacter + Pseudomonas), on productivity, crop quality, soil health, and overall system profitability in a potato–onion cropping sequence under drip irrigation in semi-arid conditions. Applying 20 t ha⁻¹ FYM to both crops, together with bio-fertiliser inoculation, yielded the best performance across the evaluated parameters. This integrated treatment achieved the highest system productivity, with a potato tuber yield of 250.43 q ha⁻¹, an onion bulb yield of 260.67 q ha⁻¹, and a combined Potato Equivalent Yield (PEY) of 597.98 q ha⁻¹. In addition to increasing physical yields, the organic and bio-fertiliser combination significantly enhanced quality attributes, increasing potato starch content to 14.48%, while onion total soluble solids reached 7.2 °Brix and total phenolic content reached 48.64 mg g⁻¹ GAE. Economic evaluation further demonstrated the financial viability of this approach, as the treatment generated the highest net returns and recorded benefit–cost (B:C) ratios of 2.02 for potato and 2.40 for onion. Overall, combining drip irrigation with targeted organic amendments and bio-fertiliser inoculants provided a high-yielding and economically viable management option for the intensive vegetable cropping system evaluated in this study.

Sustainable Coffee Seedling Production through Rhizophagus intraradices Inoculation and Organic Substrate Management in Motozintla, Chiapas

2026-10-15T13:02:06+00:00

Aims: This study evaluated the morphological and physiological growth of coffee (Coffea arabica) seedlings cultivated with Rhizophagus intraradices and different organic amendments under outdoor nursery conditions in Motozintla, Chiapas, Mexico.

Study Design: The experiment followed a completely randomised design with five treatments and ten replicates.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted outdoors in Motozintla, Chiapas, Mexico, between July and October 2025.

Methodology: Five substrate combinations were compared: soil + mycorrhiza + vermicompost (T1), soil + mycorrhiza + poultry manure (T2), soil + mycorrhiza + mango sawdust (T3), soil + mycorrhiza + fermented coffee pulp (T4), and soil + mycorrhiza as a control (T5). Leaf length, leaf diameter, stem diameter, leaf area, fresh weight, dry weight, and root length were evaluated between 21 and 210 days after sowing.

Results: For most variables measured, treatments that included an organic substrate showed better responses than the control. T4 had the greatest leaf length, leaf area (>330 cm²), and biomass accumulation (12 g fresh weight and 4.0 g dry weight). In contrast, T1 recorded the highest leaf diameter, stem diameter, and root length (>21 cm). Leaf area and biomass in T2 and T3 remained below the values observed in the control.

Conclusion: The response to R. intraradices varied with the quality of the organic matter added to the substrate. Among the materials tested, fermented coffee pulp and vermicompost provided the most favourable conditions for coffee seedling production.

Reprogramming the Plant Holobiont: From Microbiome Assembly to Durable, Eco-Sustainable Disease Defence

2026-10-10T12:02:04+00:00

Plants are no longer understood as autonomous organisms but as holobionts whose associated microbial communities co-determine growth, stress tolerance and disease outcomes. Decades of work on disease-suppressive soils, induced systemic resistance and biological control have established that individual beneficial microorganisms can protect crops, yet the field performance of single-strain inoculants remains inconsistent. This has driven a conceptual shift from introducing individual biocontrol agents towards understanding, assembling and deliberately "reprogramming" whole plant-associated microbial communities to achieve durable disease suppression. This review synthesises evidence across the rhizosphere, phyllosphere, endosphere and seed microbiomes to trace a conceptual progression: microbiome assembly, plant-microbiome-pathogen signalling, microbiome-mediated disease suppression, and microbiome reprogramming towards a resilient holobiont. We critically examine the shift from asking which organisms are present to asking what the microbiome is functionally doing, drawing on keystone-taxa and co-occurrence-network concepts, and we distinguish correlation from demonstrated causal contribution wherever the evidence allows. We organise reprogramming strategies into host-mediated, microbial, soil/agronomic and precision-engineering categories, and we critically evaluate synthetic microbial communities (SynComs), noting that laboratory- and greenhouse-validated consortia frequently lose efficacy under field conditions because of community instability, competitive exclusion by resident microbiota and environmental variability. Omics and computational tools are reshaping this field from descriptive surveys towards predictive, intervention-oriented science, but translation from mechanism to field-deployable products remains the central bottleneck. We conclude that the future of eco-sustainable disease management depends not on replacing chemical inputs with a single microbial substitute, but on the capacity to design and manage functionally redundant, context-adapted microbial communities capable of sustaining plant resilience over time.