Rice is known as the grain of life, and is synonymous with food for Asians. In addition to being a staple food and an integral part of social rites, rituals and festivals in almost all Asian countries, it has a medicinal value too, which was clearly recognized by the medicine systems of the region centuries ago. Rice is the main constituent of life-saving oral rehydration solutions (ORS) and has been used for this purpose since time immemorial.
Farmers' indigenous method of management of potato blight by selecting the appropriate varieties as per the production situation characteristics in the existing constrained conditions in the Meghalaya hills for their benefit is a successful example of informal research and large-scale application of the results in the real field conditions.
This study represents a comprehensive analysis and scientific validation of our ancient knowledge about the effect of ethnopharmacological aspects of natural products' smoke for therapy and health care on airborne bacterial composition and dynamics, using Biolog microplate panels and Microlog database.
In recent decades, the introduction of fertilizer and irrigation responsive high yielding dwarf varieties of rice have resulted in more widespread and intensive use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. The indiscriminate use of such chemical agents led to a wide array of problems and has forced mankind to consider safer ways of crop production and protection. Many such approaches are, in fact, practices that our ancestors had employed for centuries.
In ancient India, agriculturists were quite aware of the relation between soil properties and crop production. Several systems of soil classification were in vogue. Ancient Indian scriptures contain elaborate injunctions regarding the use of various kinds of manures for crop production.
The tropical monsoon rhythm for over centuries obviously occasioned the development of water works which facilitated wet rice cultivation in pre-modern Southeast Asia.
Surapala's Vrikshayurveda and Chakrapani Mishra's Vishvavallabha recommend the use of kunapa (liquid manure) for nourishment of trees and plants.
Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is a cucurbitaceous vegetable for which India is the secondary center of diversity and endowed with rich variability especially in the fruit characters.
Farmers's wisdom of soil taxonomy and fertility management dynamics is based on trial and error, problem solving and group approach to manage the natural resources. The farmers' knowledge of defining the soil taxonomy and fertility management practices is compatible to their adaptive skills and rich source of location-specific ecological information.
