The agricultural food system needs to provide access to enough healthy and affordable food for the growing population and mitigate its impact on the planet for future generations. Emerging technologies can help farmers increase yields.The book presents theoretical and applied aspects of nanotechnology and biotechnology. It also includes topics on management and food security.

Water Scarcity and Sustainable Agriculture in Semiarid Environment: Tools, Strategies and Challenges for Woody Crops explores the complex relationship between water scarcity and climate change, agricultural water-use efficiency, crop-water stress management and modeling water scarcity in woody crops. Understanding these cause- and effect relationships and identifying the most appropriate responses are critical for sustainable crop production. The book focuses on Mediterranean environments to explain how to determine the most appropriate strategy and implement an effective plan; however, core concepts are translational to other regions. Informative for those working in agricultural water management, irrigation and drainage, crop physiology and sustainable agriculture. - Focuses on semi-arid crops including olive, vine, citrus, almonds, peach, nectarine, plum, subtropical fruits and others - Explores crop physiological responses to drought at plant, cellular and/or molecular levels - Presents tool options for assessing crop-water status and irrigation scheduling

Functional Diversity of Mycorrhiza and Sustainable Agriculture is the first book to present the core concepts of working with Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to improve agricultural crop productivity. Highlighting the use of indigenous AM fungi for agriculture, the book includes details on how to maintain and promote AM fungal diversity to improve sustainability and cost-effectiveness. As the need to improve production while restricting scarce inputs and preventing environmental impacts increases, the use of AMF offers an important option for exploiting the soil microbial population. It can enhance nutrient cycling and minimize the impacts of biotic and abiotic stresses, such as soil-borne disease, drought, and metal toxicity. The book offers land managers, policymakers, soil scientists, and agronomists a novel approach to utilizing soil microbiology in improving agricultural practices. - Provides a new approach to exploiting the benefits of mycorrhizas for sustainable arable agricultural production using indigenous AMF populations and adopting appropriate crop production techniques - Bridges the gap between soil microbiology, including increasing knowledge of mycorrhiza and agronomy - Presents real-world practical insights and application-based results, including a chapter focused primarily on case studies - Includes extensive illustrative diagrams and photographs

It is a comprehensive treatise on Water Resources Development and Irrigation Management. For the last 30 years the book has enjoyed the status of an definitive textbook on the subject. It has now been thoroughly revised and updated, and thus substantially enlarged. In addition to the wholesale revision of the existing chapters, three new chapters have been added to the book, namely, ‘Lift Irrigation Systems and their Design’, Water Requirement of Crops and Irrigation Management’, and ‘Economic Evaluation of Irrigation Projects and Water Pricing Policy’.

Sustainable agriculture embodies many concepts in its attempt to integrate all the aspects of farming systems into a holistic system. This book explores the processes that occur within the components of a sustainable system and shows where we can build upon our existing knowledge to develop the concepts of sustainable agriculture into the new conventional agriculture. Well-known researchers examine a variety of aspects, including production goals, environmental considerations, and economics, to build a knowledge base that allows readers to see where changes in agriculture must be made and how challenges can be met. They compare existing systems against definitions of sustainability and pinpoint those areas where improvements can be made in current systems to further the concepts of sustainability.

The volume contents aspects as crops i.e. Clusterbean, Mothbean, Cowpea, Horsegram, Mungbean, Rice bean, Indian bean, Winged bean and other minor pulses grown in arid and semi-arid regions.