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Anand Agricultural University, Anand

Anand Agricultural University (AAU) was established in 2004 at Anand with the support of the Government of Gujarat, Act No.(Guj 5 of 2004) dated April 29, 2004. Caved out of the erstwhile Gujarat Agricultural University (GAU), the dream institution of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Dr. K. M. Munshi, the AAU was set up to provide support to the farming community in three facets namely education, research and extension activities in Agriculture, Horticulture Engineering, product Processing and Home Science. At present there seven Colleges, seventeen Research Centers and six Extension Education Institute working in nine districts of Gujarat namely Ahmedabad, Anand, Dahod, Kheda, Panchmahal, Vadodara, Mahisagar, Botad and Chhotaudepur AAU's activities have expanded to span newer commodity sectors such as soil health card, bio-diesel, medicinal plants apart from the mandatory ones like rice, maize, tobacco, vegetable crops, fruit crops, forage crops, animal breeding, nutrition and dairy products etc. the core of AAU's operating philosophy however, continues to create the partnership between the rural people and committed academic as the basic for sustainable rural development. In pursuing its various programmes AAU's overall mission is to promote sustainable growth and economic independence in rural society. AAU aims to do this through education, research and extension education. Thus, AAU works towards the empowerment of the farmers.

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1995 - 19962
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Subject: Agricultural Meteorology × End date: 1996 × Start date: 1995 × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    DYNAMIC MODELING OF DAILY WATER USE BY SUMMER PEARL MILLET ' (Pennisetum americanum L.)
    (AAU, Anand, 1995) Bodapati, Papuji Rao; Savani, M. B.
    Crop water use is a complex function of the climatic conditions, stage of the crop development and the soil water content. Models have been developed earlier using various approaches and levels of details to improve the prediction of evapotranspiration. Functional models with some empiricism can be used for routine applications than the mechanistic models. Transpiration from the pearl millet was found to be strongly influenced by leaf area than by stomatal conductance. Field experiments during the summer season of the years 1994 and 1995 were conducted with pearl millet cv. GHB-30. The experiments were laid out in split-plot design, with three dates of sowing as the main plot and four irrigation levels as the sub-plot treatments which were replicated four times. The results obtained in this investigation revealed that, air temperature had a profound influence on the growth and development of summer pearl millet. The optimum date of sowing was found to be February 15th , which would provide optimum environmental conditions for the growth and development of the crop. Different dates of sowing did not show any significant effect on the grain yield. Irrigating the crop at 25% depletion of available soil moisture gave the highest grain and biomass yields but its WUE was lower than that for the other irrigation levels. Pearl millet required about 310 GDD in summer season to build considerable GLAI and about 800 GDD to attain the maximum GLAI. A second-order polynomial was developed for estimating GLAI using the accumulated GDD. The FAO Kc, values had over-estimated ET rates and a second-order polynomial was developed to estimate daily Kc values from the accumulated GDD for non-stressed pearl millet. The rate of ET in pearl millet was found to decrease with an increase in soil moisture deficit and approached zero at a soil moisture depletion of 65% of the available soil moisture. PLANTGRO and MCD models when evaluated against the field data collected through this experiment, predicted ET reasonably better for nonstressed treatments than for stressed treatments. Of the two models, the MCD model predicted better for stressed condition than the PLANTGRO model. The functional relations for the PET estimation and root water uptake in the MCD model needed substantial modification. The separation of the PET in the PLANTGRO model did not suit the summer pearl millet. A one-day time step model BAJRAWAT had been developed in the 'C' language during the course of the present study, and was made User-friendly. Irrigation amount and the PET being its main driving forces, the partitioning of PET into soil evaporation and transpiration had been accomplished in BAJRAWAT by GLAI. The actual evaporation and transpiration depended on the availability of water in the surface soil and in the root zone and also on the depth of root penetration. The evaporation was assumed to take place from the surface soil only and the soil was further divided into four layers, from which water was assumed to have been removed by transpiration and drainage. Infiltration was assumed to have been taking place depending on the amount and the location of water already in the soil layers. The transpiration was computed as a function of GLAI and the available moisture in the root zone. The development of GLAI was considered to be controlled by thermal time and a moisture stress factor. The BAJRAWAT model when validated along with PLANTGRO and MCD models predicted ET better than the latter two models. The relative transpiration of summer pearl millet was found to be more closely associated with relative dry matter yield than with the relative grain yield
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    CROP WEATHER INTERACTION AND PLANT STAND ENVIRONMENT IN RELATION TO PRODUCTIVITY OF TWO DIVERSE PIGEONPEA (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) GENOTYPES
    (AAU, Anand, 1996) PATEL, N. R.; MEHTA, A. N.
    Pigeonpea (Cajanus caJan (L.) Mi lisp.) is a major pulse crop, usually grown under rainfed environment in the semiarid tropic (SAT) to supplement the protein-deficient human diets. Pigeonpea cultivation in rainfed condition can not be assured of success unless grown with climatological consideration of particular region. Although effect of weather on yields is complex, a possible understanding of crop weather interaction is an essential aid to crop management. Also, the optimization of structure of crop production environment in pigeonpea is an important way towards better utilization of natural resources. The experiments during kharif 1993 and 1994 were conducted comprising three sowing dates as main plot and combination of two genotypes and two row spacings as sub plot treatments in split plot design with four replications. The results obtained during the course of study indicated that weather played a significant role in deciding yield potentiality of GT-100 and BDN-2 genotypes. However, weather variables have affected the growth and yield different to both genotypes in different phenophases of growing period. Crop duration in GT-100 and BDN-2 was markedly increased due to extended vegetative phase in response to Tower air temperatures. Whereas, leaf area development and crop growth rate were enhanced by comparatively higher temperatures. Rainfall received during late reproductive period is also seemed to be a factor for increased crop duration, leaf area index and crop growth rate and consequently better partitioning into seeds. The results regarding the seed yield and total biomass revealed that early sowing date D1 (30th June) produced significanlty the highest seed yield as well as total biomass in pigeonpea. Further, any delay in sowing caused marked reduction in both seed yield and total biomass in pigeonpea. Higher yield in early sowing was due to accelerated vegetative and reproductive growth caused by uniform rainfall distribution and comparatively higher temperatures during reproductive period. The genotype GT-100 had registered more seed yield compared to genotypes BDN-2. Higher seed yield in GT-100 genotype under rainfed condition could be attributed to less terminal water deficit and efficient use of water towards reproductive strucutres due to early maturity and determinate growth habit of GT-100. Also, the pigeonpea seed yield and biomass were increased as the row spacing decreased from 90 to 60 cm. Because narrow row (60 cm) crop having greater plant stand had created an environment which led to better utilization of resources like photosynthetically active component of radiation and water during reproductive period for increase in yield of pigeonpea. The results regarding the canopy temperature based indices revealed that canopy air temperature differential and accumulated SDD exhibited significantly negative correlation in later reproductive phenophases in both GT-100 and BDN-2, indicating the need of protective irrigation either at flowering or podding to both genotypes in rainfed condition. The correlation of seed yield with weather parameters and agrometeorological indices indicated that the favourable effect of early sowing on seed yield in GT-100 and BDN-2 could be attributed to lower evaporation, maximum temperatures and vapour pressure deficit in the post vegetative phase and higher evaporation, maximum temperatures and vapour pressure deficit in the later reproductive phase alongwith low hours of bright sunshine and higher night temperatures throughout the growing season. Besides, extreme day or night temperatures had adverse influence on productivity of both genotypes throughout the growing season. Over and above, positive correlations of seed yield with CDD, Accu.HTU and Accu.PAR indicated that higher ODD after primary branch initiation and accu.HTU and accu. PAR in later reproductive phases (P4 or Ps) had favourably influenced the seed yield in GT-100 and BDN-2. However, indeterminate genotype BDN-2 responded well to accu.PAR and accu.HTU due to long duration and photo periodically sensitive genotype. The prediction model based on BSS and MaxT in the phenophase P2 , MinT in both P3 and Pe phenophases and TR in both Pa and PB phenophases was found suitable with good accuracy (R2 = 0.96) for predicting the seed yield of QT-100 at about 50-55 days prior to crop harvest. Likewise, model based on MaxT in phenophase P4 and MinT in phenophase Pe was found appropriate with R2 = 0.78 for predicting seed yield in BDN-2 at about 30-40 days before maturity. Thus, an agronomic strategy such as sowing of short duration genotype GT-100 by the end of June in 60 cm apart rows based on crop-weather relationship was found most appropriate for securing maximum seed yield of pigeonpea under rainfed condition in middle agroclimatic zone of Gujarat State.