Background: Tomatoes are now one of the most popular nutrient-dense vegetables in terms of acreage, production, yield, commercial use, and consumption that add to the Bangladesh economy and ultimately reduce poverty. With this view, a lab investigation was carried out to analyze the effects of tomato (Sofol and Roma VF) verities on different post-harvest managements to extend shelf life as well as reduce post-harvest losses.Results: This study confirmed that the fruit quality attributes (color, firmness, weight loss, chilling injury, total soluble solids, pH, disease incidence, disease severity, and dry matter content) were increased whereas moisture content, vitamin C, and titratable acidity decreased with the increases in storage duration. The high quality attributes such as color, firmness, weight loss, chilling injury, total soluble solids, pH, disease incidence, disease severity, and dry matter content increased, whereas moisture content, vitamin C and titratable acidity decrease of tomato were observed in Roma VF while Sofol variety had high weight loss, moisture content, titratable acidity, and vitamin C. Moreover, the highest shelf life (17 days) was recorded in Sofol than Roma VF (15 days). On the 16th day of storage, maximum disease severity (41%) and disease incidence (71%) were observed at an earthen cooling pot, whereas a significant reduction in disease severity (1%) and disease incidence (8%) were recorded in tomatoes stored at 10^oC temperature. Weight loss was the lowest (4%) in Sofol when kept at unperforated low-density polyethylene (LDPL) plastic bag as compared to Roma VF treatment (11%). Considering the physiological process, held at the low temperature (10^°C and 15^°C) and increased shelf life as well as reduced the diseases of tomatoes.Conclusions: The investigator concluded that the findings of this study will be helpful with specific regard to long and medium-term storage, quality control, transportation, and advertising, and will also be beneficial to tomato growers of Bangladesh.

Background: Climate change and increasing demand in non-agricultural sectors profoundly affect the availability and quality of water resources for irrigated agriculture. The FAO AquaCrop simulation model provides a sound theoretical framework to investigate crop yield response to environmental stress. This model has successfully simulated crop growth and yield as influenced by varying soil moisture environments for crops. Integrating crop models that simulate the effects of water on crop yield with targeted experimentation can facilitate the development of irrigation strategies for high yield procurement and improving farm level water management and water use efficiency (WUE) under climatic condition of District Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. Results: This study was based on completely randomized block design with three treatments including T1 (30% soil moisture depletion), T2 (50% soil moisture depletion) and T3 (70% soil moisture depletion) with three replicates. In order to determine the crop water requirements under desired treatments, the gypsum blocks were used for computing the daily soil moisture depletion. The result shows that total volume of water applied to crop under T1, T2 and T3 was 9689, 5200 and 2045 m³ ha⁻¹, respectively. As a result, the grain yield under T1, T2 and T3 was 13.2, 12.1 and 14.3 t ha⁻¹, respectively. These results advocate that total yield of crop under T1 and T2 was less as compared to T3. The T3 gave higher yield and WUE compared than other treatments. On the other hand, results revealed that the simulated sunflower yields showed a good agreement with their measured under T3. The simulated grain yield was 15.5 t ha⁻¹, while the measured yield varied from 12.1 to 14.3 t ha⁻¹. This study suggested that WUE under T3 was more as compared to T1 and T2. The results showed that the T3 gave the highest crop yield in relation to WUE and optimize yield of sunflower crop under water scarcity. Conclusion: The Aquacrop model could very well predict crop yield and WUE at T3 under experiential region for sunflower production.

Background: Garlic (Allium sativum L.) has been used as a medicine throughout ancient and modern history; it has been taken to prevent and treat a wide range of conditions and diseases. In Bangladesh, the demand for garlic increases day by day, but on the other hand, due to a shortage of land, production of garlic is not up to the mark. However, to solve the problem, a pot culture experiment was conducted at the net house of the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period of November 2007 to March 2008 to examine the effect of potassium (K) on the growth, yield, nutrient content, and its uptake by garlic. Results: In this study, six levels of K viz. 0, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 250 kg ha⁻¹ were used as treatments. All the parameters, i.e., plant height, number of leaves plant⁻¹, fresh and dry weights of leaves (g plant⁻¹), fresh and dry weights of bulb (g plant⁻¹), bulb diameter, and number of cloves bulb⁻¹ significantly varied due to different doses of K application. The maximum total yield and size of garlic bulb were obtained with potassium application at 200 kg ha⁻¹. Potassium at 200 kg ha⁻¹ produced the highest fresh and dry weights of bulbs and leaves, diameter, moisture content, number of cloves, and yield as compared to the other treatments. The uptake of nutrients like N, P, K, S, Ca, Mg, B, and Na significantly varied due to the application of different doses of K. The highest contents and nutrient uptake of N, P, K, S, Ca, Mg, B, and Na were found with potassium application at 200 kg ha⁻¹. Conclusions: The overall results suggested that the yield of garlic increased with increasing potassium fertilizer, where K application at 200 kg ha⁻1 is suitable for obtaining maximum yield.

The most important factor impacting wheat production is water stress that occurs during the reproductive growth stage. Therefore, the plant responses and water productivity as affected by drought priming were investigated during Rabi seasons 2021 and 2022. The field trials were conducted in the research field of the Department of Irrigation and Drainage, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam. The Hamal-BNS wheat variety was subjected to differing irrigation water regime levels (40%, 50% and 60% of soil water holding capacity, SWHC) after being subjected to drought priming, irrigation water recovery (water closure period) and drought priming. There were six treatments: (1) DPP-40 (drought priming plants at 40% of SWHC), (2) DPP-50, (3) DPP-60, (4) CTP-40 (controlled treated plants at 40% of SWHC), (5) CTP-50 and (6) CTP-60. During the experiment period, soil moisture content was significantly affected by the different treatments at various growth stages of wheat. The results indicated that winter wheat pre-exposed to drought priming attained a stress imprint that improved the subsequent deficit water levels which occurred during the later plant growth stage as demonstrated by the progress of test weight, grain yield, plant level water use efficiency and irrigation water use efficiency as well as relative yield compared to CTP-50 (control treatment). Under the irrigation water regime levels during the post-anthesis period, primed wheat plants sustained grain yield and higher relative yield than wheat plants without priming due to the better irrigation water regime for drought-primed wheat plants. Similarly, primed wheat plants consumed 18.3% less irrigation water as compared to non-primed plants, which significantly increased plant level WUE and irrigation WUE and decreased dry biomass and root development of drought-primed wheat plants. Therefore, to conserve fresh water for other field crops and increase water productivity in the Sindh province, it is recommended that drought priming is used during the early growth period of wheat plants as a successful irrigation method.