Civil Service Mains Optional AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURE


PAPER - I

Ecology and its relevance to man, natural
resources, their sustainable management
and conservation. Physical and social en-vironment as factors of crop distribution
and production. Agro ecology; cropping
pattern as indicators of environments. En-vironmental pollution and associated haz-ards to crops, animals and humans. Cli-mate change – International conventions
and global initiatives. Green house effect
and global warming. Advance tools for eco-system analysis – Remote sensing (RS)
and Geographic Information Systems
(GIS).
Cropping patterns in different agro-climatic
zones of the country. Impact of high-yield-ing and short-duration varieties on shifts in
cropping patterns. Concepts of various
cropping and farming systems. Organic
and Precision farming. Package of prac-tices for production of important cereals,
pulses, oil seeds, fibres, sugar, commer-cial and fodder crops.
Important features and scope of various
types of forestry plantations such as social
forestry, agro-forestry, and natural forests.
Propagation of forest plants. Forest prod-ucts. Agro forestry and value addition. Con-servation of forest flora and fauna.
Weeds, their characteristics, dissemination
and association with various crops; their
multiplications; cultural, biological, and
chemical control of weeds.
Soil- physical, chemical and biological
properties. Processes and factors of soil
formation. Soils of India. Mineral and or-ganic constituents of soils and their role in
maintaining soil productivity. Essential
plant nutrients and other beneficial ele-ments in soils and plants. Principles of soil
fertility, soil testing and fertilizer recommen-dations, integrated nutrient management.
Biofertilizers. Losses of nitrogen in soil, ni-trogen-use efficiency in submerged rice
soils, nitrogen fixation in soils. Efficient
phosphorus and potassium use. Problem
soils and their reclamation. Soil factors af-fecting greenhouse gas emission.
Soil conservation, integrated watershed
management. Soil erosion and its manage-ment. Dry land agriculture and its problems.
Technology for stabilizing agriculture pro-duction in rain fed areas.
Water-use efficiency in relation to crop pro-duction, criteria for scheduling irrigations,
ways and means of reducing run-off losses
of irrigation water. Rainwater harvesting.
Drip and sprinkler irrigation. Drainage of
waterlogged soils, quality of irrigation wa-ter, effect of industrial effluents on soil and
water pollution. Irrigation projects in India.
Farm management, scope, importance and
characteristics, farm planning. Optimum
resource use and budgeting. Economics
of different types of farming systems. Mar-keting management – strategies for devel-opment, market intelligence. Price fluctua-tions and their cost; role of co-operatives
in agricultural economy; types and systems
of farming and factors affecting them. Agri-cultural price policy. Crop Insurance.
Agricultural extension, its importance and
role, methods of evaluation of extension
programmes, socio-economic survey and
status of big, small and marginal farmers
and landless agricultural labourers. Train-ing programmes for extension workers.
Role of Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s (KVK) in
dissemination of Agricultural technologies.
Non Government Organization (NGO) and
self-help group approach for rural devel-opment.


PAPER - II

Cell structure, function and cell cycle. Syn-thesis, structure and function of genetic
material. Laws of heredity. Chromosome
structure, chromosomal aberrations, link-age and cross-over, and their significance
in recombination breeding. Polyploidy,
euploids and aneuploids. Mutations - and
their role in crop improvement. Heritability,
sterility and incompatibility, classification
and their application in crop improvement.
Cytoplasmic inheritance, sex-linked, sex-influenced and sex-limited characters.
History of plant breeding. Modes of repro-duction, selfing and crossing techniques.
Origin, evolution and domestication of crop
plants, center of origin, law of homologous
series, crop genetic resources- conserva-tion and utilization. Application of principles
of plant breeding, improvement of crop
plants. Molecular markers and their appli-cation in plant improvement. Pure-line se-lection, pedigree, mass and recurrent se-lections, combining ability, its significance
in plant breeding. Heterosis and its ex-ploitation. Somatic hybridization. Breeding
for disease and pest resistance. Role of
interspecific and intergeneric hybridization.
Role of genetic engineering and biotech-nology in crop improvement. Genetically
modified crop plants.
Seed production and processing technolo-gies. Seed certification, seed testing and
storage. DNA finger printing and seed reg-istration. Role of public and private sec-tors in seed production and marketing. In-tellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues,
WTO issues and its impact on Agriculture.
Principles of Plant Physiology with refer-ence to plant nutrition, absorption, translo-cation and metabolism of nutrients. Soil -water- plant relationship.

Enzymes and plant pigments; photosyn-thesis- modern concepts and factors affect-ing the process, aerobic and anaerobic
respiration; C
3, C
4
and CAM mechanisms.
Carbohydrate, protein and fat metabolism.
Growth and development; photoperiodism
and vernalilzation. Plant growth sub-stances and their role in crop production.
Physiology of seed development and ger-mination; dormancy. Stress physiology –
draught, salt and water stress.
Major fruits, plantation crops, vegetables,
spices and flower crops. Package prac-tices of major horticultural crops. Protected
cultivation and high tech horticulture. Post
harvest technology and value addition of
fruits and vegetables. Landscaping and
commercial floriculture. Medicinal and aro-matic plants. Role of fruits and vegetables
in human nutrition.
Diagnosis of pests and diseases of field
crops, vegetables, orchard and plantation
crops and their economic importance. Clas-sification of pests and diseases and their
management. Integrated pest and disease
management. Storage pests and their
management. Biological control of pests
and diseases. Epidemiology and forecast-ing of major crop pests and diseases. Plant
quarantine measures. Pesticides, their for-mulation and modes of action.
Food production and consumption trends
in India. Food security and growing popu-lation – vision 2020. Reasons for grain
surplus. National and international food
policies. Production, procurement, distri-bution constraints. Availability of food
grains, per capita expenditure on food.
Trends in poverty, Public Distribution Sys-tem and Below Poverty Line population,
Targeted Public Distribution System (PDS),
policy implementation in context to global-ization. Processing constraints. Relation of
food production to National Dietary Guide-lines and food consumption pattern. Food
based dietary approaches to eliminate
hunger. Nutrient deficiency – Micro nutri-ent deficiency : Protein Energy Malnutri-tion or Protein Calorie Malnutrition (PEM
or PCM), Micro nutrient deficiency and
HRD in context of work capacity of women
and children. Food grain productivity and
food security.