In India, agricultural soil has been deteriorated by various on-going practices involving application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and effluents. Presently, Amritsar (Punjab), an agricultural land, is undergoing rigorous cultivation of wheat and rice crops which consequently increased the application of chemical pesticides and fertilizers for high yield. These agricultural practices are ...

Lichens are widely used to assess the atmospheric pollution by heavy metals and radionuclides. However, few studies are available in publications on using lichens to qualitatively assess the atmospheric pollution levels. The paper presents research results applying epiphytic lichens as bio-monitors of quantitative atmospheric contamination with uranium. The observations were conducted during 2....

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) supplementation has been documented as a useful tool to improve the performance of laying birds reared under harsh environmental conditions. However, there is limited information on the use of ascorbic acid as a means of ameliorating the stressful conditions imposed by feed restriction. To this effect a 3 × 2 factorial experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect ...

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the sparing effect of microbial phytase on the need for dietary zinc supplementation in chicks. A maize-soya-bean meal basal diet, containing 33 mg of zinc and 16 mg of copper per kg, supplemented with 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 or 60 mg of zinc as sulphate per kg or with 250, 500, 750 or 1000 units (FTU) of microbial phytase (3-phytase from Aspergillus niger,...

We studied the efficacy of water-soluble extracts from four Ajuga spp on the post-embryonic development of two exopterygota (sucking insect) species. To allow comparison between different Ajuga species, results are expressed in terms of quantity of plant extracted per litre of test solution. Crude methanolic extracts of all Ajuga plants tested, with the exception of A genevensis, showed conside...