The present investigation aimed to formulate and evaluate a bacterial consortium capable of metabolizing chlorpyrifos under in vivo conditions. This consortium was also assessed for its potential to promote the growth of vegetables such as cauliflower, spinach, and radish. Bacterial consortia capable of degrading chlorpyrifos were isolated from pesticide-contaminated agricultural soil found within and around the National Capital Region (NCR), New Delhi, India. Subsequently, a compatible and efficient bacterial consortium was combined into an optimized formulation for further evaluation. The consortium was tested under controlled pot culture conditions using chlorpyrifoscontaminated soil and water as the growth media. Moreover, the crop seeds were treated using the bacterial formulation before sowing in the experimental setup. Chlorpyrifos residue levels in soil and water were monitored over time using gas chromatography for quantitative analysis. In addition, a phosphate-solubilizing biofertilizer (PSB) was incorporated into the bacterial mixture for its supplementary effect on plant growth. According to the results, 98–99% degradation of chlorpyrifos occurred at the centralized time point of the bacterial consortium within 10 days. This high degradation rate was consistent in both contaminated water and soil environments. Notably, when the PSB was included in the formulation, 98–99% degradation was achieved within just 5 days. Furthermore, shoot height and biomass increased by about 15% to 20% across all three crops tested in the study. These improvements indicate a significant enhancement in plant growth performance with the bacterial treatment. Therefore, this approach demonstrates dual promise: rapid pesticide degradation and enhanced crop yield. It offers a sustainable and eco-friendly strategy to mitigate chlorpyrifos contamination in agricultural systems.

In the present study, the usability of geothermal and mineral water in agricultural lands was investigated. Geothermal, mineral water and tap water with two wheat and one barley varieties were used, and also six different water groups were formed by geothermal, mineral and tap water and mixing 50% of these water. Field soil mixed with 750 g of animal manure was prepared in the growing containers, and then 6 g of wheat varieties and 5 g of barley variety were planted in them. Germinated wheat and barley were irrigated periodically according to their water needs. Barley and wheat were harvested after 15 days. Chlorophyll size, electrolyte leakage, weight and mineral element levels were determined in the harvested crops. Mineral element concentrations of the samples were analyzed in ICP-AES. In addition, geothermal, mineral and normal water was applied to the soil for three months, and the change between the starting soil was determined. The collected data were evaluated in SPSS 22 Statistical Package Program.

This study investigated and compared current water quality situation of Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) with the non-WASA service area within Lahore, Pakistan. Additionally, study also highlighted the reasons behind population’s rising trend towards bottled water use. For this purpose, a total of 16 sampling points was selected from the source end, consumer taps, and public filtration plants. All collected samples were tested for status of physicochemical parameters (pH, TDS, turbidity, chlorides, Residual chlorine, and Arsenic) and presence of indicator bacteria (Faecal Coliforms) and compared with World Health Organization (WHO) and National Standards for Drinking Water Quality (NSDWQ) standards for drinking water. Moreover, a total of 320 households (120 from WASA and 200 from Non-WASA service area) were surveyed to conduct a standardized consumer survey to elaborate on the reasons behind the increasing trend towards bottled water in the targeted population of Lahore. Results demonstrated that the drinking water quality of the WASA service areas was slightly better as compared to the Non-WASA service area. Results further showed that all tested parameters were present in elevated levels in samples collected from consumer ends as compared to source ends in both service areas. The water supplied in WASA service areas found to have Faecal coliforms in various samples. At Source, the major issue is high level of Arsenic concentration. On the other hand, at outlet of Public Filtration Plants all tested parameters were within WHO guidelines both in both service areas. Moreover, consumer survey revealed that the major reason behind the population of non-WASA’s service areas rising trend towards bottled water use is that they don’t trust water supplying utilities.

Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential and extremely toxic element that destructively impacts agricultural production. Accordingly, developing tolerant-Cd genotypes with low-grain Cd is a promising approach to cope with the pollution problem. The current study aimed at understanding the inheritance nature of Cd tolerance and detect Cd-tolerant bread wheat genotypes with low-grain Cd. Six parents were selected based on their Cd tolerance and were genotyped using triple-RAPD and ISSR markers to investigate their genetic diversity. The selected parents were crossed and the realized F1s were selfed to produce F2 populations and were backcrossed with their own parents to produce BC1 and BC2 populations. Six populations for each cross comprised P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2 were evaluated in two adjacent experiments under non-Cd stressed and Cd-stressed conditions. Significant positive relative and standard heterosis were detected for flag leaf area, leaf chlorophyll content, proline content, Cd content and grain yield/plant under Cd-stressed condition. Desirable heterosis was assigned for Cd content, proline content and yield traits in the 1st and 2nd crosses under Cd-stressed conditions. These crosses produced higher grain yield while accumulated lower amounts of Cd in grains under Cd-stressed conditions. Furthermore, prediction results revealed high transgressive segregates and exceeding F1 with best-inbred lines that have favorable alleles were obtained from 1st and 2nd crosses for high-yielding and low Cd content under Cd-stressed conditions. Both additive and dominance gene effects were involved in controlling Cd content, proline content, and yield traits.

Sugarcane (Saccharum interspecific hybrids) yield is greatly affected by different pests in Pakistan. A total of 336 cane farmers were interviewed and their crops were inspected. Major pests and there percentages were; rat (Bandicota bengalensis) (84.5%), termites (Heterotermes indicola) (61.1%), borer (Bissetia steniellus) and leafhopper (Pyrilla perpusilla) (38.1%). Majority of cane farmers interviewed (65.6%) applied pesticides fipronil (27.3%), imidacloprid (23.6%), malathion (10.7%), carbofuran (3.2%). The farmers (6.2%) applied malathion against the most common pest rat (B. bengalensis) in the area investigated. A significant linear relationship was found between the cane yield and pest infestation (R2= 0.9689) as well as cane yield and pesticide application (R2= 0.9128). The farmers (34.4%) who did not apply any pesticides have achieved the minimum average cane yield of 48.6 t ha-1. The majority (88.89%) of the farmers were small size land cultivators up to 2 hectares. Only 37.21 percent of the farmers owned a bigger land area and were independent in adopting a decision on the pesticide application in their cane fields. A small percentage (11.4%) of the cane farmers were visited by the public agricultural extension department for information and application techniques against pests in their cane fields.

The ability of non-aerated compost teas to suppress Stem rot, caused by Sclerotium rolfsii (P A Sacc.), and to enhance plant-growth was evaluated. Based on the well-cut diffusion method, the compost teas CT3 and CT4 were found to be the most effective against the phytopathogen isolates leading to 68.5 and 56.4% decrease in their mycelial growth, respectively. However, using the poisoned food method, all compost teas exhibited a significant growth inhibitory potential with varying degree depending on their composition and their interaction with pathogen isolates. As for their effects on dry mycelium weight, CT2, CT3 and CT4 teas were the most active leading to 60.8-64.4% decrease in this parameter. Treated on tomato plants, they were found to be the most effective in suppressing necrosis with chitinolytic, proteolytic and lipolytic activities. CT2 was found able to produce the volatile metabolite hydrogen cyanide. The three screened compost teas were found able to produce the indole-3-acetic acid and solubilized the phosphate with positive siderophores production and nitrogen fixation activity. Further investigations are needed on the antagonists involved in the biological mechanisms.

Malaria and measles is a public health problem which causes medical, economic and social implica-tions. It kills more than one million people annually in tropical and subtropical developing countries. Measles is the fifth cause of mortality of under five child in Nigeria. The study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of malaria and measles on the general population of Damaturu, Yobe State, Nigeria. In this study a total of 178 participants were taken for the malaria and 40 participants were taken for the measles. Sociodemographic information such as age, monthly income and type of house were collected by using questionnaire. Data were analysed with SPSS to find association of malaria with tested variables and P-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Out of 178 participants, 80 Males and 98 females are examined for malaria and 11(100%) out of 11 in 1-10 age group, 09 (69.2%) out of 13 in 11-20 age group, 08 (72.72%) out of 11in 21-30 age group, 05 (29.41%) 17 in 31-40 age group, 07 (33.33%) out of 21 in 41-50 age group and 02 (28.57%) out of 07 in more than equal to 51 age group males are malaria positive. While 06 (100%) out of 06 in 1-10 age group, 08 (47.05%) out of 17 in 11-20 age group, 10 (27.02%) out of 37 in 21- 30 age group, 09 (34.61%) out of 26 in 31-4- age group, 05 (45.45%) out of 11 and 00 (00%) out of 1 in more than equal to 51 age group females were malaria positive. out of 10 male children, 4 (40%) were measles positive at Under five Age group and out of 11 Male children, 2 (18.18%) children were positive at more than equal to five Age group. Therefore, it is suggested that the local government, state government and federal government spend more on the awareness of the treatment of these two diseases in Nigeria.

Correlation coupled with regression among yield contributing traits have been very effective and progressive for desirable traits from selection for the improvement and development of wheat genotypes. The correlation and regression in advanced lines of hexaploid wheat were analyzed for nine yield contributing traits at Wheat and Barely Research Institute, Tandojam, Sindh applying four replications in RCBD. The results regarding analysis of variance demonstrated highly significant values in wheat genotypes for all character which were studied resulting in a large amount of genetic variability, hence these genotypes would be extremely beneficial for the future breeding improvement programmes. The interrelationship results indicated that grain yield plant-1 as a dependent attribute was supported by all characters very generously which behaved in a highly significant and positive way with the correlation coefficient of r = 0.5609**, 0.7999**, 0.6989**, 0.7998**, 0.6998**, 0.5633**, 0.5965** and 0.6994**. The regression coefficient has been observed with the highest variance in grain yield plant-1 with the contribution of 63.98% variation by tillers plant-1, followed by spikelets spike-1 (48.97%) and biological yield plant-1 (48.91%) which proved the maximum increase in grain yield was made by these three characters. It was concluded that the identified advanced lines could be utilized in future wheat development programmes to improve yield linked characters.

There are extensive areas of degraded sandy and clay soils in semi-arid regions where organic carbon (SOCm), permeability and moisture are agricultural activities constraints. The contrasting soil texture classes need physical and chemical fertility improvements. For overcoming these constraints, the proposed management was the soil amendments with Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) and 0.39 t ha-1 around 5 weights % (F5) and 0.78 % around 10 weights % (F10) of natural manure or lignite. Their field application had increased the SOCm and the moisture and reduced the permeability of sandy soils. The carbon-oxygen mineralization and dynamism rates caused by the deep penetration of essential air-oxygen quantities in sandy soils remained fast. The high released nutrient concentrations had developed large and short roots and reduced the water and nutrient absorption that limited the plant germinations. However, the SOCm and the permeability increases and the moisture reduction of clay soils had moderately simulated the soil organic carbon mineralization that had released low nutriment quantities. So, the fine and long roots developed in the cropping zone took up their maximum quantity. These processes had favored the best crop productions. Therefore, all added organic carbon sources had improved the soil\'s profitability, particularly the clay soils amended with 10 % manure. However, to minimize the adverse environmental concerns and the acceptable increase of water and nutrient taken up by plant and crops and the best SOCm conservation, the soil amendment with 10 % lignite is advised. To further improve the sandy soil productivity, higher doses need to be tested.

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of Chinese technological trade flows with Central Asian countries (CAC) with a revealed comparative advantage and the gravity model using two assessment techniques, such as the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML), in the 2003–2018 panel data set. Data analysis has demonstrated that the gravity model generated has shown that low-tech, medium-tech and high-tech trade flows boost economic development in China and Central Asian nations, adversely affecting all technology trade flows in geographical distance. The research indicated that exchange rates showed a negative indication in bilateral trade, medium-scale trade and high-tech commerce. In contrast, the low technology trade showed a positive flow between China and Central Asia. Furthermore, the data reveal that openness to trade and membership of the WTO show a good indication. The trade openness policy on both sides thus has a major beneficial effect on trade volumes. It proposed increased liberalization of trade policy and greater involvement in global commerce. In addition, Central Asia and export industries should take additional initiatives to enhance and diversify high-tech exports. A competitive international market provides perfect equality in reciprocal trade interactions.