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Parasitic Plants in African Agriculture brings together for the first time in a single volume, the ecology, biology, damage, and control of all groups of African parasitic plants including both the relatively few parasites introduced to the continent as well as those native parasites that have spread from within Africa. The book covers the well-known witchweeds and broomrapes but also groups and species that have received less attention including mistletoes, dodders, rice vampire weed, and other species posing threats. The book distinguishes between stem and root parasitic weeds and between holoparasites and (facultative or obligate) hemiparasites. Based on their research and experience collectively spanning six decades, the authors provide an authoritative and state-of-the-art overview of the distribution, biology and impact of these highly specialized weeds and include recommendations for their management. Since parasitic plants in African agriculture primarily affect smallholder farmers, these weeds are explicitly discussed within a context of resource limitations and global changes. Readers are informed on all parasitic plant species relevant to African agriculture and the impact these plants have on crop production and livelihoods of smallholders in a changing world. Current and future management strategies are outlined in terms of their principles and effectiveness as well as their feasibility and affordability for farmers, all of which determine farmer adoption. The final chapter synthesises some of the relevant findings and statistics regarding parasitic weed distribution and their host crops and discusses implications in terms of future crop protection concerns in African agricultural systems. Key features: · Authoritative text based on extensive field and laboratory work. · First comprehensive state-of-the-art overview of parasitic plants and their management in Africa. · Highly illustrated with photos, graphs and species distribution maps. · Reviews previous basic and applied work, with relevance to smallholder farming systems. This book will be a valuable reference for students, researchers, extension workers, development officers, national agriculture researchers, plant pathologists, food security specialists, weed scientists, agronomists and botanists.
The present book is based on twenty five excellent scientific contributions of seventy researchers from topmost research organizations. The book begin with plants used in Sowa-Rigpa system of food and medicine, followed by traditional uses of plants as medicine among Khasi tribe living in northeast India. This compilation contains several research techniques highlighting methods and analysis of documented data, and procedure for scientific validation of findings. Methods for assessing traditional knowledge of highly threatened plants such as Hodgsoniaheteroclita, pharmacological applications of family asteraceae, ethnobotany of family apiaceae, plants used in managing leucorrhea, plants as animal care, phytochemistry of Arisaemajacquemontii, Andrographispaniculata, Blumealacera, Boerhaaviadiffusa, Hemidesmusindicus, Pterocarpussantalinus, Rauwolfiaserpentina, Rauwolfiatetraphylla, and several other ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological parameters used in studying current science is described in this book. Besides, it is followed by several research topics focused to the clinical arena, plants used in relation to cancer, diabetes, skin disorders and many other aspects relates to animal and human health care. Todays food supplements derived from plants are of high demand, and this compilation also highlighted several plants used as nutraceuticals. It has been observed that herbs contain many bioactive compounds with powerful antioxidant properties as evidence from the scientific data, and few research on lianas, lichens and role of allylisothiocyanate as a bioprotective agent also discussed added more value to this compilations. Focused theme such as ethnobotanical trends and techniques, phytochemistry, biological activities, ethnopharmacology and clinical studies is adding and contributing a lots value to this book in discovering leads for medicine formulations.
This book was incorporated with general information about weeds with need based data on losses caused by weeds in agriculture and allied fields which include livestock, horticulture crops etc. and also national level loss in terms of reduction in food grain production in Indian economy. As management of weeds being a core area in crop production, it was dealt in detail on weed biology, weed ecology and also weed survey including sampling techniques. This was followed by various weed control methods specific to crops belonging to agriculture and horticulture. Of the weed management practices, integrated weed management was also discussed as well highlighting important crops grown in India as to follow the same by the farmers and extension workers for recommendation to the needy people. This book also comprises of herbicide history and its classification and characteristics with suitable examples. In addition, mode of action of herbicides, herbicide mixture, combinations, rotations, and their interaction were also given as separate chapter. In the recent decade, development of herbicide resistant crops are getting momentum world over, considering its potentiality, information on the same was also given in detail with suitable findings. Weed shift and its management and economic analysis of weed management were another chapters included in this book.
