studies of rainfall variation generally focus on large areas. for example, in india, the area average monsoon rainfall series of the whole country or meteorological subdivisions are used. this would be of no use for local agriculture, particularly in places where rainfall is very high or very low, especially for crops like small cardamom and vanilla which are very sensitive to soil moisture and...

Sorghum is one of the most important cereal crops in the semi-arid tropics. Several insect pests damage it. The possibility of identifying genotypes with multiple resistance to these pests and transferring the relevant genes into high-yielding varieties and hybrids has been considered as an attractive approach to reducing yield losses. A set of 12 cytoplasmic male-sterile and maintainer lines, ...

V Girijashankar1*, KK Sharma2, P Balakrishna and N Seetharama 1. Centre for Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500 072, Andhra Pradesh, India 2. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India 3. National Research Centre for Sorghum (NRCS), Rajendranagar, Hyderabad 500 030, ...

1 This Gatekeeper Series is produced by the International Institute for Environment and Development to highlight key topics in the field of sustainable agriculture. Each paper reviews a selected issue of contemporary importance and draws preliminary conclusions of relevance to development activities. References are provided to important sources and background material. The Swedish International...