Management of Dairy and Poultry Farms
* Animal husbandry refers to the breeding and rearing of livestock.
* Dairy farming refers to rearing animals for milk and milk products.
* Dairy farm management refers to management methods used to increase the production of milk.
* Proper sheltering, feeding and cleaning of cattle are required to achieve a good yield.
* Poultry refers to the meat of chicken, duck, turkey and geese.
* Poultry farms also employ management practices such as proper breed selection, shelter, feed and healthcare for the rearing of domestic fowls or birds.
Animal Breeding
* Breed refers to a group of animals possessing many similar characters.
* Inbreeding is mating between animals of the same breed which have a common ancestor within four to six generations.
* Continuous inbreeding closely related individuals results in inbreeding depression.
* Out-breeding is breeding between animals belonging to the same breed with no common ancestor, different breeds or different species.
* Artificial insemination is a form of controlled breeding to overcome problems in natural mating.
* Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer Technology (MOET) is employed in animal breeding to stimulate Super Ovulation in females and increase the herd population in a short span.
Bee-Keeping and Fisheries
* Bee-keeping or apiculture is the cultivation of honeybees in apiaries for the commercial production of honey.
* Honeybees act as pollinators by helping crops like sunflower during flowering.
* Fisheries rear, catch and sell aquatic animals such as fish and shellfish.
* Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic animals and plants for food whereas pisciculture refers specifically to fish farming.
* Blue Revolution refers to the dramatic increase in agricultural production.
Plant Breeding
* Plant breeding involves crossing between plants with desired characters to produce offspring possessing the superior characters of both their parents.
* The desirable characters of a plant include tolerance to different types of environmental stress and resistance to microbes and pests.
* The Green Revolution brought about a drastic increase in the production of wheat and rice between 1960 and 2000.
* Conventional or traditional breeding is crossing plants for desirable characters sexually through self or cross-pollination or asexually through grafting.
* Classical breeding uses techniques such as mutation or tissue culture followed by cross-breeding of pure lines and artificial selection.
Plant Breeding for Disease Resistance
* Crop production is affected by diseases caused by attacks from pathogens and pests.
* Conventional breeding involves hybridisation and artificial selection to form diseaseresistant hybrid varieties.
* Mutation breeding involves the use of chemicals or gamma radiations to induce alterations in the genetic makeup of crops.
Uses of Plant Breeding
* “Hidden hunger” refers to poor diet or malnutrition, that is, a deficiency of essential micronutrients , proteins and vitamins.
* Biofortification is breeding of crops to enrich their nutritional value.
* Several biofortified fruits and vegetables are developed that include Vitamin Afortified carrot, Vitamin C- fortified tomatoes, iron and calcium- fortified spinach and protein –fortified beans.
* Microbes like spirulina are used as a food supplement for human beings and a feed supplement in animals.
Tissue Culture
* Totipotency is the ability of plant cells to give rise to a whole new plant.
* Tissue culture uses this property of plant cells for asexual plant propagation in an aseptic environment.
* It is used for propagation of high-yielding, disease-resistant plants in a short span and also to mix two different species of plants that are otherwise sexually incompatible.
* The process of developing a hybrid plant using somatic cells is called somatic hybridisation.