Indian Journal of Agriculture Business

 Brucellosis is one of the major bacterial disease that affects almost all livestock species and it poses an important zoonotic threat in humans of all ages. In India, ovines and caprines are an important source of livelihood for majority of the agricultural people. Increased demand for meat, dairy and dairy products resulted in excessive farming practices and lead to the spread and transmission of the disease. In sheep and goat the disease is characterised with abortions and infertility. Serological and molecular tests were employed for the diagnosis of disease in ovineand caprine. Prevention is done by mass vaccination of suspected and infected animals. But, In humans the disease is difficult to diagnose and it is time taking process and requires laboratory testing for confirmation and it necessarily requires awareness within humans to take preventive measures in controlling the spread of disease.

Keywords: Brucellosis; Ovine; Caprine; Abortions; Zoonotic; Serological and Molecular Diagnosis.

 A field experiment was conducted to study the efficacy of organic bio-inputs developed by an agricultural biotechnology research institute: for summer cucurbits in loamy sandy soil of Terai plains of Garhwal, irrigated by the Ganges:, during the summer season of 2013. The vegetables experimented on were: Lagenaria siceraria  (bottlegourd) and Momordica charantia (bittergourd). The experiment was conducted at the experimental field of Patanjali Bio Research Institute (PBRI),located in Padartha village, Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, India. The experimental design had one control, four treatments and two crops - bitter gourd and bottle gourd The experiment was laid out in a modified Latin Square design (LSD): with four treatment plots replicated twice, for each crop.. The control plots were replicated four times for both the crops... Seed was procured from a neighbouring village agro input outlet, to simulate actual farming conditions. Two experiments were conducted: the first around germination, and the second around yield of vegetables. In the germination experiment: all the experimental plots received soil treatment of granular compost mixed with amino acid, humic acid, cow urine, and some nutrients. The four soil treatments, consisted of increasing dosage of powdered organic compost ,inoculated with beneficial microbes, mixed with amino acids, with added micronutrients. Using the statistical test of significance of proportions, all the treatments, and the control plots showed significance. However higher dosage seems to have had relatively lesser germination count. Beyond a certain limit, addition of these biological inputs could be counterproductive for germination of summer cucurbits. A pest attack by red pumpkin beetle (Aulacophora foveicollis), was successfully treated with neem oil extract. In the yield experiment, all the four treatments received organic NPK. The first treatment (T1) added amino acid liquid; the second treatment ( T2) added vitamin, amino acid growth promoter and Humic acid; the third treatment ( T3) added amino acid liquid, vitamin and amino acid based growth promoter, and the fourth treatment (T4) added amino acid liquid, Humic acid, vitamins and amino acid based growth promoter. One way ANOVA (analysis of variance), did not show significance at 10% level of significance. There was a big range of variation in the yields of treatment plots. However incremental analysis, of treatments, again seemed to reveal that the lowest combination of inputs had the highest yields, for both the crops. The preliminary learning seems to indicate that the agricultural economics “Law of Diminishing returns” seems to hold?

 Vibriosis is an important infectious venereal disease of cattle. It is a cause of infertility and abortion and is caused by the bacterium Campylobacter fetus and is spread by infected bulls when they mate susceptible cows and heifers. In this present study two buffaloes reported of repeat breeding with cervical discharges were presented to the clinics. Cervical discharges were collected and subjected for cultural isolation, microscopical examination and antibiogram. Gram negative slender rods with a characteristic flying sea gull winged appearance bacteria were observed microscopically upon Gram’s staining and dilute carbol fuschin and and the organism was isolated on MaConkey agar. Phenotypic characterization by demonstration of motility, comma shaped pink coloured rods and biochemical characterization tests like oxidase, catalase were positive and negative for indole, nitrate reduction and sugar fermentation tests suggesting firmly for confirmation of campylobacter infections.

 Dairy entrepreneurship obviously demands knowledge and access to various raw materials, market, consumer standards, value additions etc for the products to be manufactured which indeed needs various entrepreneurial traits for accomplishment. In this context, the study was conducted with 90 dairy farmers in three mandals of Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh to assess the entrepreneurial behavior. The data was collected through personal interview of the respondents with the help of pre-tested interview schedule. Entrepreneurial behavior was assessed by the deployment of statements under the heads of 9 entrepreneurial attributes such as innovativeness, achievement motivation, decision making ability, risk orientation, co-ordinating ability, planning ability, information seeking behavior, cosmopoliteness and self confidence. The results revealed that majority of the dairy farmers were possessing medium entrepreneurial behaviour with respect to all attributes.

Keywords: Dairy Farmers; Enterprise; Entrepreneurial Traits; Entrepreneurial Behavious Index.