Advances in Research

Red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is one of the main forage species from temperate regions and its centre of origin is located in southern Europe and southern Eurasia. Although red clover is Mediterranean in origin, it is a widely adapted species grown in many climatic conditions around the world. It is a perennial, medicinal herb from legume family and it grows best in calcium, phosphorus and potassium rich soils. This medicinal plant is in symbiotic association with bacteria present in its root nodules, thus the plant is capable of fixing the atmospheric nitrogen into the soil thereby increasing the quality of the soil. Red clover is typically used to treat a number of respiratory ailments such as asthma, bronchitis, and bronchitis, skin disorders such as eczema and psoriasis, inflammatory conditions like arthritis, and to treat women's health problems especially in giving relief from menopausal symptoms. However, the response of Red Clover under abiotic stress conditions is a less explored area of research. The present review highlights the existing potential of Red clover in fighting abiotic stress conditions and also explains the need of developing resistant varieties of this plant to meet the future challenges.

Kachia Local Government Area (LGA) is located at the southern part of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Quantitative and qualitative appraisals were carried out in order to have proper understanding of the aquifer system and ensure sustainable development by using geophysical, geological and pumping test data obtained from 32 producing boreholes across the entire LGA. Hydraulic conductivity, transmissivity and storativity values were computed, piezometric surface map and the basement relief map were prepared, geoelectric layer characteristics were delineated and two geological profile sections were constructed. The hydraulic conductivity values were found to range from 0.021 m/day at Walijo to 1.391 m/day at Iddah-Hanya with an average of 0.42 m/day. The transmissivity values ranged between 0.90 m^²/day at Walijo to 25.37m^²/day at Iddah-Hanya, with average value of 6.31 m^²/day. Storativity values were lowest at Walijo with a value of 89.42 and highest at Iddah-Hanya having a value of 2877 with an average of 929.82. The lowest values of these three aquifer constants were observed to converge at Walijo at the extreme eastern part and they all peaked at Iddah Hanya on the western border of the study area. The piezometric surface contour map showed that static water level is generally deeper around the central part of the study area than at the southern and western parts. The basement relief map revealed that the depth to Basement rock is generally deeper at the central part than at the eastern, western and southern boundaries of the study area. Three-layer geoelectric horizons delineated agreed with the drilled sections. The two profile sections 1 and 2 suggested that the weathered layer constituted the major aquiferous unit, and it occurred within a depth of 1 m to as much as 35 m, except Kurmin-Sara with 80 m thickness. Groundwater prospecting can therefore be targeted to an approximately uniform regolith thickness across the entire study area.

This paper considers the problem of estimating the population mean under double sampling. We have suggested the generalized class of estimators under Lahiri (1951) to Midzuno (1952) and Sen (1952) type sampling scheme and its properties are studied up to the first order of approximation. Further, we compare the proposed sampling strategy with some conventional estimators under the simple random sampling without replacement. On the basis of suitable range information, we give some concluding remarks related to propose sampling strategy. An empirical study is given in support of the present study.

In real-life, most experimental data are presented in frequencies with no underlying metric probably because of some reasons such as less susceptibility to observational errors. Unfortunately, some of these data have been erroneously analyzed resulting to either type I or type II error. The significance of main factor (University) and sub-factor (Faculty) are studied using categorical data in nested classification. The CATANOVA technique used is suitable for mixed design, having some factors crossed and others nested. The study considered frequency data involving response scores of student’s knowledge and control practices of HBV infection using a scale of good, fair and poor. Numerical results revealed that the main factor, University and the sub-factor, Faculty are not significant (p>0.05) in each case. More so, there was poor level of student’s knowledge and control practices of HBV infection which were also found to be significantly (p>0.05) same in Universities.

The weather condition prevailing during the crop season always plays very crucial role in crop production. Off and on crops face aberrant weather like flood that causes total crop failure in low line or flood prone areas. Vagaries of weather spoil the source of income which aggravates the farmer’s poverty. To overcome the problem of crop failure and financial loss in flood prone areas of Gangetic plain in Malda district, vegetable based multi-tier cropping system was propagated in farmers fields on upland situation. The study was conducted with five combinations of horticulture crops at upland situation of 15 farmers fields in Narayanpur village of Malda district of West Bengal for six years from 2014-15 to 2019-20.The farmers are usually growing single climber crop in upland on bower system and most of the land down under remains unutilized. In this situation, multi- tier cropping system is a resilient practice which opens a new door to the farmers for providing more production and income from succeeding crop. The study showed that practice enhanced production, farm income and subsequently increased the benefit cost ratio up to 3.13. Bitter gourd + elephant foot yam cropping system is economically viable and profitable because it provides highest land equivalent ratio and higher Monetary Advantage Index (MAI) value.

A field experiment on Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) was conducted to study and evaluate different germplasms for growth, yield and quality characters under New Alluvial Zone of West Bengal at Instructional Farm, Jaguli, Faculty of Horticulture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal during 2013-14 and 2014-15. The design adopted was Randomised Block Design (RBD) having three replications with seven germplasms namely Rajendra Sonia, Alleppy Supreme, Roma, Pratibha, Kedaram, Rashmi and Midnapur local as check. Among seven germplasms evaluated, the genotype Pratibha was found superior in terms of maximum plant height (100.93 cm), highest number of primary fingers (24.0), highest value for the trait weight of primary fingers (204.10 g) as well as secondary fingers (60.23 g), maximum yield/ plant (369.9 g) and maximum yield (25 ton/ha). Minimum plant height (82.60 cm) and lowest number of primary fingers (9.3) were recorded in case of Midnapur local. Maximum leaf length was recorded in Roma (52.29 cm). In respect of number of mother rhizome/plant, Rajendra Sonia recorded the highest quantity (1.98 nos.) whereas Kedaram recorded the lowest (1.42 nos.). Kedaram also produced minimum trait weight of secondary fingers (33.89 g). In qualitative character, the curcumin percentage was recorded highest with germplasm Alleppy Supreme (5.2%) followed by Rajendra Sonia (4.1%) and it was minimum in Kedaram (3.4%). The germplasms Pratibha and Alleppy supreme recorded with highest oleoresin (11.9%) and  essential oil (7.0%) content, respectively.