Environment & Ecosystem Science (EES)

This study was conducted to monitor the population dynamics of major insect pest of agriculture ecosystem through light trap at the agriculture farm of GAASC ,Baitadi,during the winter of 2018.The main aim of this study was to determine the status of phototatics insects pest of the farm locality.. Light trap with a 100Watt filament bulb was installed at the site at college boundary, vegetable field and wheat field for trapping purpose. The observation was done every day and data was weekly record their status and occurrences. Overall nine insect species were observed and among them click beetle(Agriotes spp.) population was observed maximum compared to other species.Insects occurrence in vegetable field is dominated by click beetle followed by moths(Pieris canidia)and cabbage semi looper(Trichoplusia spp).The total 289 of 6 different species were found from vegetable fields. Trap installed on Agronomy farm contributes clickbeetle (Agriotes spp.)The most followed by Greenleaf hopper(Nephotettix spp)., Pink borer(Chilo partellus), wasp(Vespa spp.) and grasshopper(Hieroglyphus banian),total 152 of 5 different species were found until 15 week of monitoring. Similarly, trap installed in open field obtained total 176 out of which 68 were click beetle (Agriotes spp.),47 pink borer (Chilo partellus),40 moths (Pieris canidia) and 21 wasps (Vespa spp.).

Every lay farmer as well the commercial growers use chemical pesticides to kill pests and weeds and to get rid of diseases in their farm with aim of increasing production. Though the use of pesticides has some advantages of increase in yield, its haphazard and excessive use also create a serious impact on the environmental components and human health. The present scenario of pesticide use doesn’t seem to be satisfactory, so-called safe pesticides are also showing their ill effects in the long run and the problems such as bio-accumulation, bio-magnification are being magnified day after day. Almost all the corners of the earth and organisms living in it and those who are yet to be born have already been affected by so-called boons to pest control. This study attempts to study the present pesticides use scenario of Nepal and also the ill-effects of pesticides on human health as well as on the environment. The relevant data and information were collected from the thorough study of the journal articles, research papers, reports and various literatures. This paper pleads and sensitizes the readers to get directed toward more holistic, sustainable, natural and safe production and management practices.

Food self-sufficiency is being able to produce its food (mainly staples) to meet consumption needs without buying or importing by an individual or a country. This paper was prepared based on interviews, questionnaires, discussions, reviews in different printed materials, books, research papers, reports of different organizations like the Department of Agriculture, LI-Bird, Forest and Soil Conservation Department, and related different websites. The economy of Nepal is predominated by agriculture where 60% of the total population is engaged in agriculture (14th-year plan) and agriculture contributes 27.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The pandemic of COVID-19 has led people to realize the importance of food self-sufficiency. The import of food and agricultural inputs has become difficult due to the lockdown in the boarders and transportation problems. Being rich in biodiversity it is an opportunity for Nepal to focus more on the under-exploited fruits and vegetables to make them globally recognized by commercial cultivation. In this paper, we have emphasized the techniques for the country to be food self-sufficient at this time of crisis.

The purpose of this study was to estimate biomass and soil organic carbon (SOC) stock in coffee based Agroforestry and Cupressus lusitanica plantation. A total of 20 plots of 10 m x 10 m were established systematically in coffee based Agroforestry and Cupressus lusitanica plantation to sample soil and vegetation data. The biomass of shade tree, coffee shrubs and Cupressus lusitanica was estimated by previous allometric equations.Variation in biomass carbon and SOC between the two land use types were tested using analysis of variance. The average amount of biomass carbon stored in coffee based Agroforestry was 109.96 Mg C ha-1. The proportion of total aboveground biomass carbon to the total biomass carbon stock was averaged 61.67% for coffee based Agroforestry.The average total biomass carbon was 74.24 Mg C ha-1 in Cupressus lusitanica plantation. Coffee based Agroforestry had accounted more SOC than Cupressus lusitanica plantation in 0-40 cm soil depth. Our study concluded that coffee based Agroforestry, compared with Cupressus lusitanica plantation, had generally higher biomass carbon and SOC stocks.

Globally, with the application of over 4 billion tons of herbicides yearly to suppress or kill weeds, the uncontrollable / unregulated use and disposal of these sometimes-recalcitrant chemicals could result in deleterious effects on non-target ecological receptors. This evaluation recorded varying degree of toxic effects on the environmental receptors (onions – Allium cepa L) and (snails – Archachatina marginata). The highest effective concentration (EC50) for onions was recorded in Dragon® (0.042 ± 0.008 mg L-1) while the lowest effective concentration was in Uproot® (2.185 ± 0.52 mg L-1). Similarly, the highest EC50 in the snail test was obtained in Cotrazine® (0.41 ± 0.012 mg kg-1) and the lowest in Striker® (9.51 ± 0.94 mg kg-1). The risk level estimated using the Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment Matrix (ERAM) revealed that the least toxic herbicide were rated E 3 (P;A;E;C) or 15 (P;A;E;C) while the most toxic herbicides were rated E 5 (P;A;E;C) or 25 (P;A;E;C), which was considered medium to high risk to plants (P), animal (A), the environment (E) and community (C). The use, handling and disposal of these lethal herbicides should be prudently managed so as to safe guide non-target species in the environment of application.

Home garden, the name itself clarifies its meaning any garden that is belonging to home which can be anywhere at the front, behind, or in any fallow land. The reason why home garden and its diversity were studied is get access to the ethnobotanical study of the species and knowledge among people regarding the home garden could be more lighten up. A survey was conducted from October (2019) to January (2020). Among the surveyed fifty households, the type of home garden dominated was front type ranging from 45-700m2 whose management and diversity were changing as per the gender. Altogether of 108 species were collected in a home garden belonging to 45 families, 34 species were found to be common. The representative families Leguminosae and Asteraceae rank on top followed by Moraceae, Brassicaceae, Poaceae, and so on. Despite the result concluding the most diversified crops, the home garden of Sunsari district itself carries a wider range of diversity from fruits, vegetables, spices to economically useful species like ornamental plants and fodders. With the studies and knowledge accounted, it can be concluded that pursuing a home garden not only revalues our health and environment but also preserves a hundred ages of traditions.

Fungal endophytes are a special group of symbionts that invade the internal environment of the host organism without causing any pathogenic symptoms. They increase the vigor of the plant while protecting them from several biotic and abiotic stress conditions such as herbivory, disease, and drought. In this study, endophytic fungi were isolated from fig (Ficus carica), a beneficial plant belongs to the family of Moraceae. This study was conducted to determine the potential of fungal endophytes of F.carica as biocontrol agents against selected phytopathogens Ganoderma boninense, Magnaporthe oryzae, and Fusarium verticillioides. Besides, endophytic fungi isolates were also screened to assess their ability as a phosphate-solubilizing agent. Results obtained revealed that a total of 11 fungal endophytes was successfully isolated from leaf, root, and stem samples of F.carica. The cultural-morphological identifications were carried out on the unknown fungal isolates. For the antagonistic test, S2-1 and R3-4 show a promising potential against those phytopathogens with more than 20% Percentage Inhibition Radial Growth (PIRG). Endophyte S2-1 exhibits the competition mechanism, while R3-4 expresses the antibiosis mechanism in suppressing the mycelium growth of phytopathogens. As for phosphate solubilization, 8 of 10 isolates show positive results as phosphate solubilizer with the highest PSI value 3.02±0.05 (S2-4).

A set of fifty bread wheat genotypes that comprised of 49 high temperature tolerant lines from CIMMYT and a local check Gautam were evaluated with an objective to study the character association between yield and yield related components at the research farm of Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur during the wheat season 2016/2017 under late sown condition. The experiment was laid out following Alpha Lattice design with two replications. Grain yield has positive and significant correlations with biomass yield, harvest index, thousand kernel weight, plant height, SPAD1 flag leaf area, SPAD1 and number of grain per spike. Negative and significant correlations were observed between grain yield with days to flowering, days to heading and days to booting. Path analysis revealed that biomass weight has maximum positive direct effect on grain yield followed by harvest index, days to booting, days to flowering, SPAD3, root angle of basket condition, number of root, number of grains per spike, and number of tiller per meter square. On the other hand, days to booting, flag leaf area, physiological maturity, SPAD1, SPAD2, root length, days to flag leaf senescence, plant height, ctd2, and thousand kernel weight showed the negative direct effect on grain yield.

Bacillus cereus is a ubiquitous foodborne pathogen, can cause food poisoning, leading to infections, have two major types of food poisoning emetic and diarrheal. Foods rich in protein such as meat are associated with foodborne outbreaks of diarrhea caused by B. cereus. The aim of this study is to isolate and identify B. cereus from ready to eat (RTE) meat curry from restaurants in Malaysia and to detect hblD pathogenic gene of B. cereus isolates. Mannitol egg yolk polymyxin agar was used as a selective isolation medium. Commercially available kits and boiling methods were used for DNA extraction, samples acquired from restaurants were examined for the presence of Hemolysin BL gene by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Among all isolates, twenty-four of B. cereus isolates detected for HBL enterotoxin production by the discontinuous pattern on HBL sheep blood agar then confirmed by biochemical tests. More than 58.33 % of the isolate showed discontinuous hemolysis pattern on HBl blood agar and 29.16% of the samples were shown positive for hblD gene that can cause diarrhea with the size of 807bp on gel. This study demonstrated that RTE meat curry was a potential source for entero-toxigenic B. cereus and the presence of the hblD toxin genes for the HBL complex in the isolates tested were highly associated. Therefore, these meat curry isolates should be regarded as potential toxin producers.

Pekalongan City, particularly North Pekalongan District, lies adjacently to the Java Sea. This situation shapes the vulnerability of the District to tidal floods, which have been occurring since 2005. Tidal floods negatively affect the community, as well as the inundated environment. Since 2016, the flooding has reached the areas in Pekalongan Barat District, especially Pasirkratonkramat Sub-District. It affected 1,435 households distributed in 13 Community Units. This research analyzed the community perception of the quality of the environment inundated by tidal floods, including the biophysical and the socio-economic environments. It used questionnaire and performed interviews with 93 heads of household as the respondents, as well as field observation that produced qualitative data of environmental quality. The results of this research presented the tidal flood-affected community’s perception of environmental quality, which was determined by education, income, and length of residence in tidal flood-prone locations. Furthermore, the results of community’s perception of environmental quality analyses using measuring instruments and statistical tests, i.e., chi-square test and binary logistic regression, supported the research analysis.