The study highlights the importance of integrating organic resources, such as vermicompost and biofertilizers with inorganic fertilizers to sustain coconut yields and manage costs. The experimental trial was conducted from 2016 to 2020 in a 47-year-old East Coast Tall coconut garden at Coconut Research Station in South India. The research evaluated four nutrient management treatments viz., T₁ (75% Recommended Dose of Fertilizer (RDF) + 25% N organic), T₂ (50% RDF + 50% N organic), T₃ (100% N organic) and a control (100% RDF). Intercrops included black pepper (Piper nigrum), banana (Musa acuminata) and cocoa (Theobroma cacao). Organic manure significantly improved soil physical properties, water retention and overall soil health. The T₂ treatment achieved the highest yields for coconut, cocoa, banana and black pepper. The added soil health parameters supported to these findings, with T₂ showing the highest fungal (15.27 × 10³ cfu/g of soil) and bacterial populations (17.25 × 10⁵ cfu/g of soil), along with a significant earthworm population (26/m²), indicating enhanced soil ecosystem health. Additionally, soil moisture content was highest under T₃ (100% organic) across various depths, followed by T₂, highlighting the critical role of organic matter in improving soil moisture conservation. The economic feasibility analysis, including a net present value (NPV), benefit/cost ratio (B/C ratio) and an internal rate of return (IRR), revealed T₂ to be the most economically viable nutrient management strategy. This study highlights the economic benefits of intercropping coconuts using an integrated nutrient management (INM) approach, demonstrating its superiority over traditional monocropping practices.

Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transmission of localized information and services has increased towards making farming socially, economically and environmentally sustainable by Digital Agriculture. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has initiated a lot of efforts in digitizing agricultural information to reach the stakeholders. A few expert systems were developed to help farmers and specialists to diagnose plant diseases. The TNAU Banana expert system is one such mobile app, where a farmer can get all solution and information on banana cultivation in just one touch. An experiment was conducted with 40 banana farmers of Kanyakumari district who form the respondents for the study. This paper analyses on Knowledge gain with the support of the TNAU Banana Expert system, which showed significant positive change. The number of technologies adopted above the average adoption level after demonstration was eleven. It was adopted by only 12.5% of farmers before using the App, while it was 62.5% after the demonstration. The overall increase in Knowledge gain over the existing level was 53.05%.

Coconut is an important plantation crop in India. Many diseases severely impact coconut trees in the current climate change scenario, declining the vigor and yield of palms and deteriorating the quality of nuts on the trees. Basal stem rot caused by Ganoderma spp. is one of the most destructive diseases of coconut. Ganoderma can endure an extended period in the soil as a soil-borne pathogen. Chlamydospores are formed under unfavourable conditions, helping the pathogen's survival and spread of the disease. Rain and irrigation water also contribute to the spread from one field to another. This study assessed coconut consortia's efficiency in combating the basal stem rot disease at the field level. The experimental trial was conducted at Tittuvillai village of Thovalai panchayat, Kanyakumari district, from 2021–2022 to 2023–2024 for three consecutive years with four treatments and seven replications. The palms exhibiting the typical symptom were selected, and the experiment was started in 2021. A total of 28 palms displaying basal stem rot symptoms were randomly selected for the experiment. Four treatments were imposed, and the details of treatments include T1: Drenching of Coconut consortia (TNAU Cococon) @ 2 liters/palm along with application of mycorrhizae @ 100 g/palm at quarterly interval, T2: Drenching of Coconut consortia (TNAU Cococon) @ 2 litres/palm and root feeding with hexaconazole (0.2%) at quarterly interval, T3: Drenching of Bordeaux mixture 1% and T4: Control (Untreated). Among the four treatments, soil drenching of coconut consortia (TNAU Cococon) @ 2 liters/palm followed by root feeding with hexaconazole (0.2%) at quarterly intervals effectively reduced the disease index from 21.74 to 15.96 and enhanced nut yield from 67.14 to 90.00 nuts per palm per year in three years under field conditions.

Trends and Technological Skills Assessment of Flower Cultivation in the Southern Districts of Tamil Nadu

Rice crops are being affected by destructive pathogens that cause disease. The climatic variations make the plants more vulnerable to different biotic stresses. Severe limitations are experienced in rice-growing regions due to fungal diseases such as blast and sheath blight. Synthetic chemicals are used extensively to treat plant diseases, which are more harmful to animals, plants and humans. Endophytes are adaptable, beneficial microorganisms that offer environmentally friendly solutions for disease control by symbiotic or mutual associations and live within and between plant cells, helping to increase nutrient availability in plants. The endophytes improve plant growth by production of plant hormones such as indole-3-acetic acid, auxin and gibberellic acid. This also induces systemic resistance by activating the ethylene, jasmonic acid and salicylic acid cycle to increasing peroxidase (PO), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) during abnormal physiological processes which happens during pathogen infestation. It also produces secondary metabolic substances such as iturin, surfactin, zwittermycin A, 2,4 diacetyl phloroglucinol, etc., that have antibacterial and antifungal properties, which help to manage plant diseases. Utilizing bacterial endophytes as bio inputs on a large scale aids in the eco-friendly management of plant diseases, thus increasing productivity. This review paper highlights bacterial endophytes' role in managing rice's emerging fungal diseases by induction of systemic resistance, plant growth promotion, siderophore production, antibiosis, biostimulant and nutrient solubilization activities.

Climate-resilient crops and varieties have been recommended as a way for farmers to cope with or adapt to climate change, but despite the apparent benefits, rate of adoption by smallholder farmers are highly variable. Kanyakumari being rice belt of the erstwhile Travancore State has certain indigenous varieties suitable for the high rainfall zone. The cultivation of indigenous red rice varieties like samba was the priority of the district. These tall and lodging varieties with low yield and lesser response to the inputs, was slowly replaced with high yielding new varieties ASD 16, TPS3 and TPS 5. These white bold variety with good cooking quality and high yielding ability has become the ruling variety replacing traditional samba in the district. A study on the spread effect of the climate resilient rice variety was taken up with specificity on finding the varietal acceptance and replacement pattern since the release of a new variety. The study focused on TPS 5 with respect to varietal acceptance and area expansion due to its stress tolerance in water logged conditions. This variety has replaced 69.55% of the total area cultivated. The major factor behind the sudden expansion of area was due to its non-lodging character and performance in SRI method which yielded on and average of 6 t/ ha and 5.4 t/ha in natural farming situations in the district. The crop survived the submerged condition with lesser damage in yield.