NICRA PROJECT BY Dr.SUNIL KUMAR BOYA

Submitted by:-B.SUNIL KUMARTVM/2015-024DEPT OF LPM,SVVU.

Guided by:-Dr.J.SURESH,Proffesor,Dept. Of LPM,College of veterinary science,Tirupati,SVVU.

Objectives:

• To enhance the resilience of Indian agriculture covering crops, livestock and fisheries to climatic variability and climate change through development and application of improved production and risk management technologies.

• To demonstrate site specific technology packages on farmers’ fields for adapting to current climate risks.

• To enhance the capacity building of scientists and other stakeholders in climate resilient agricultural research and its application.

• . The project is comprised of four components.

1) Strategic research on adaptation and mitigation2) Technology demonstration on farmers’ fields to cope with current climate variability3) Sponsored and competitive research grants to fill critical research gaps4) Capacity building of different stake holders

Strategic Research:

• To begin with, the project is focusing on crops like wheat, rice, maize, pigeonpea, groundnut, tomato, mango and banana; cattle, buffalo and small ruminants among livestock and both marine and freshwater fish species of economic importance.

• The major research themes are:• Vulnerability assessment of major production zones• Linking weather based agro-advisories to contingency

planning

• Assessing the impacts and evolving varieties tolerant to key climatic stresses (drought, heat, frost, flooding, etc.) in major food and horticulture crops.

• Continuous monitoring of greenhouse gases in open field conditions in major production systems

• Evolving adaptation and mitigation strategies through enhancing water and nutrient use efficiency and conservation agriculture.

• Adaptation strategies in livestock through nutritional and environmental manipulations.

Technology Demonstration:

• The technology demonstration component deals with demonstrating proven technologies for adaptation of crop and livestock production systems to climate variability.

• The project is implemented in 131 districts involving over one lakh farm families across the country.

• These districts are selected based on the following criteria besides the strength of the KVKs:

• Drought proneness based on 30 years rainfall data (Source : IMD)

• Cyclone proneness based on frequency as recorded by IMD/State Disaster Management agencies.

• Flood proneness based on IMD data and NDMA maps.• Vulnerability to heat wave and cold wave based on

IMD grid data on temperatures.• Actual incidence of floods and droughts as recorded

by AICRPAM centres

Sponsored and competitive grants:

• Under this component, critical researchable issues like impact on plant pollinators, fisheries in estuarine habitats, hail storm management, hill and mountain eco-system, small ruminants and socio economic aspects of climate change etc. are provided research grants.

Capacity building :• Since climate change is an emerging area of science,

capacity building of young scientists on simulation modeling, high through put phenotyping, greenhouse gasses measurement, etc. is being taken up through training programs organized in India and sponsoring scientists abroad.

• Simultaneously, more than 100 training programs have been organized across the country covering 50000 farmers to create awareness on climate change and variability

Key Features:• Installation of the state-of-the-art equipment like flux

towers for measurement of green house gases in large field areas to understand the impact of management practices and contribute data on emissions as national responsibility.

• Rapid and large scale screening of crop germplasm including wild relatives for drought and heat tolerance through phenomics platforms for quick identification of promising lines and early development and release of heat/drought tolerant varieties.

• Comprehensive field evaluation of new and emerging approaches of paddy cultivation like aerobic rice and SRI for their contribution to reduce the GHG emissions and water saving.

• Special attention to livestock and fishery sectors including aquaculture which have not received enough attention in climate change research in the past. In particular, the documentation of adaptive traits in indigenous breeds is the most useful step.

• Critical assessment of different crops/zones in the country for vulnerability to climatic stresses and extreme events, in particular, intra seasonal variability of rainfall

• Thorough understanding of crop-pest/pathogen relationship and emergence of new biotypes due to climate change.

• Integrated simulation modelling for research, development and policy support

• Simultaneous up-scaling of the outputs both through KVKs and the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture for wider adoption by the farmers

Impact and Adaptation Strategies in Livestock and Poultry:

• One of the key impacts of change in climate is on livestock and also this sector contributes to the same. Research on livestock covering cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig and poultry production systems is an important activity under NICRA. They include

• Identification of differentially expressed proteins in Sahiwal cows during summer season.

• Molecular characterization and SNP identification of heat shock protein 90 gene in Murrah buffalo.

• Expression of Melanocortin-receptor (MC1R) & Physiological adaptation to Thermal Stress in Cattle.

• Insight into temperature adaptations of Tharparkar and Karan Fries cattle through thermal imaging during summer season.

• Supplementation of vitamin C and amelioration of heat stress.

• Water foot prints of milk production.

• Identifying unique climate resilient traits in Ongole breed of cattle (CRIDA).

• Impact of climate change on important vector borne and zoonotic diseases and vectors.

• Identification of the unique traits in indigenous pigs and poultry which make them resilient to climate change and development of database: (ICAR NEH)

• Evaluation of adaptability in poultry under variable climatic conditions.

• Expression of HSP 27, 90 and 105 genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) during thermal Stress in Tharparkar and Karan Fries cattle

Research Highlights(2012-13)

Elevated CO2 and GHGs emission from rice (IARI)

• Elevated carbon dioxide (ambient + 500±50 ppm) significantly increased methane emission from soil under different cultivars of rice.

• This led to an increase in the global warming potential (GWP) of rice soil from 12 to 18%.

• The highest increase in emission was observed in the traditional Basmati cultivar (Tarawadi). There was a no significant difference in nitrous oxide emission under elevated CO2.

Greenhouse gas mitigation with conservation agriculture:

• In direct-seeded rice (DSR), methane emission was considerably reduced compared to transplanted puddled rice.

• Residue incorporation (1-3 t ha-1) reduced nitrous oxide emissions (8%).

• The DSR reduced methane emission by 64% and 78% in rice-wheat and rice-winter maizesystems.

Studies on enhancing energy use efficiency (CIAE, CRIDA)Water, energy and CO2 nexus - study of irrigation efficiency under wells

in Andhra Pradesh (CRIDA)

To produce 1 unit of electrical energy requires 0.5 kg coal (Reddy,Y.K.,2011) and the corresponding CO emission is 2.38 kg of CO2

e/kg of coal.

2

Bacteriocins and methane mitigation potential:

• Bacteriocins (Pediocin34 and Enterocin99) significantly decreased methane emissions from in vitro fermentation of wheat straw and concentrate mixture (50:50).

• Pediocin with concentration (P1:1.2lakhAU/ml) has a potential for mitigation of enteric methane production in livestock

Heat Stress Reponse in Large Ruminants (NDRI)

• Identification of Melanocortin-1 Receptor (Mc1r) Gene in Indian cattle and buffalo breeds.

• Heat stress and gene expression in dermal fibroblast of Zebu and crossbred cattle.

• Shows that heat stress induces higher expression of HSP genes in Zebu than Crossbred cattle.

• Constitutive form of HSP up regulated to higher level in Zebu than crossbreds inducible form of HSP’s are affected more in crossbred resulting into greater capacity to tolerate higher heat load.

• Global gene expression studies wereperformed on indigenous cattle (Tharparkar) by using bovine gene chip Microarray.

• 460 genes was found to be altered in heat stress, among 250 down regulated and 210 genes up regulated.

• Out of 460 genes only 26 genes were found to be stress related.

Disease resistance in indigenous livestock in relation to seasonal variation (IVRI)

• Bio-samples (blood & faecal) were collected twice a year.

• Preliminary results of haematological investigations indicated that cortisol and NOx level are comparatively higher in Murrah buffaloes.

• Parasitological investigations indicated that strongyle worm infection was most prevalent in buffaloes.

• No blood protozoan infection was recorded in Murrah buffaloes while ND buffaloes showed Theileria orientale infection in carrier status.

Stress management in sheep (CSWRI)

Ameliorative measures to combat water stress in sheep:• In arid areas Feeding of @ 1 kg Opuntia/ animal/day

compensated mild water restriction up to 1 L without any significant effect on feed intake in adult sheep during summer.

• It provide 0.88 L of water, N retention and also meets nutrient requirement of the animals.

Broiler diet and heat stress tolerance in poultry (PDP)

:}Supplementation of betaine increased the activity of antioxidant enzyme (GPx) and feed efficiency in broilers. • Fortification of diet with extracts of Tulasi plant and

Amla fruit significantly reduced lipid peroxidation and enhanced the activity of anti-oxidant enzyme (GPx) in broilers during summer season.

Heat stress and semen quality in poultry:

• Evaluation of semen quality of DahlemRed males incubated at normal and high temperature (2oC higher than normal) during29 and 39 weeks of age.

• It is revealed that the males from higher incubation temperature (HT) group had significantly (P<0.05) higher sperm concentration with less abnormal sperm percentage.

• An insemination trial (100 million sperms/bird) on respective group females for five weeks indicates higher hatchability in HT group.

• The results indicate that exposure of eggs to higher incubation temperature (2oC higher than normal) improves the semen quality

FOUR CLIMATIC ZONES OF INDIA

Assessment of flooded areas during Cyclone

continuous rains of more than 150mm during 2-3 days following the Neelam Cycloneduring 1st week of November resulted in flooding of large tracts of cropped areas incoastal districts of AP.

Research Highlights(2013-14)

Impact and Adaptation Strategies in Livestock and Poultry

• The major focus was on understanding the impact of climatic factors on production, reproduction, behaviour and understanding unique traits in indigenous cattle and identification of cost effective adaptation strategies.

• The salient findings are

Heat Stress Response in Large Ruminants (NDRI)

• Heat stress and expression of heat shock factors (HSFs), heat shock proteins(HSPs) and melanocortin–receptor (MC1R) in indigenous and crossbred cattle and buffalo breeds.

• MC1R was expressed in Karan Fries, Tharparker, Sahiwal,Kankrej and Gir breeds of cattle

• Real time expression analysis revealed that the expression of MC1R gene was relatively up regulated at the culture conditions of 40˚C when compared to control (37˚C) , 25˚C and 44˚C.

• Expression was relatively high in Tharparkar breed of zebu cattle when compared to the Sahiwal and Karan Fries.

Identification of genes and proteins in relation to heat stress by transcriptome &proteome in buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).

• Total 55 proteins were identified with high confidence in the buffalo serum.

Impact of heat stress on developmental competence of bubaline (Bubalus bubalis)oocytes.

• Studies on the effect of heat stress on the maturation of oocytes indicate that the blastocyst production rate is better in the oocytes matured at 38.5˚C compared to the oocytes matured at 40.5˚C and 41.5˚C.

• Total cell number in the blastocysts produced in the control group was higher than that in the heat stressed group and and also decrease in the cleavage divisions was observed.

Thermal profiling of cattle and buffaloes during different seasons:

• Using FLIR tool software revealed the difference in the isotherms during different seasons.

• Eyes were the hot spot having the maximumtemperature when the threshold limit of temperature was selected 27 C.

• Insulation isotherm detected the insulation breakage from the legs at around 15–18 C which showed the insulation deficiency and when the insulation level falls below a preset value of the energy leakage that depicts vasoconstriction.

Disease resistance in indigenous livestock in relation to seasonal variation (IVRI)

Prevalence of vector borne parasitic Diseases of large ruminants in relation to climate change:

• Tharparkar cattle show low prevalence of GI parasites during winter season and high prevalence of strongyle worm infection in summer.

• While in case of Murrah buffalo prevalence of strongyle worm and amphistomes infection was almost similar in summer and winter season (≤ 15%).

• Strongyles infection was most prevalent in goatand sheep (almost 100% prevalence, except Bellary goat).

Stress management in sheep (CSWRI)

Selenium-yeast supplementation and physiological adaptability of Malpura ewesunder heat stress: G1-6- heat stress 1.Cortisol level was higher

G2-6-heat stress and Selenium-yeast supplementation 1.Plasma glucose level.

2.glutathione peroxidase activity. } increased.3.Estrogen level was higher 4.Estrous response and duration was longer.

• It may thus be concluded that supplementation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown in selenium enriched media provided resilience to counter heat stress in Malpura ewes.

Propagation and cultivation of Azolla (Azollapinnata) in semi-arid regions as a biotic and protein supplement:

• Azolla (25% cp )could successfully incorporated as a biotic feed source in the diet of native Malpura lambs during summer nutritional scarcity and can replace 10% of concentrate.

Amelioration of climatic stress through shelter management:

• A study was conducted to see the effect of different types of shelter on physiological response, growth performance, blood biochemical and endocrine profile of lambs under hot semi-arid environment.

Heat stress and performance of goat (CIRG)

Amelioration heat stress using different anti stress agents: • An experiment was conducted on 40 male

Jammunapari and Barbari goats ( 6 to 9 months of age) for 77 days.

5 comparable groups• stall fed (G1) • allowed for control grazing (G2) without

supplement• supplemented with herbal anti-stress powder

(G3)• Vitamin E (G4)• liquid anti stress (G5)

• Higher body weight gain in stall fed animals than the grazed.• Concentration of HSP 70 in the plasma was less in

animals supplemented with herbal powder and it seems to be most effective against heat stress than liquid form and Vit-E.

Barbari kids• positive effect of herbal powder and Vit-E+Selenium against cold

stress in goats, as lower units of HSP-27 was observed in supplemented kids during peak winter season.

Ameliorative measures to combat Heat stress in poultry (PDP)

• An experiment was conducted to study the effect of supplementing organic form of Zn, Se and Cr at different concentrations on performance, anti-oxidant activity and immune responses in commercial broiler chicken.

• Better FCR and activity of SOD increased was recorded in groups fed diet supplemented Zn, Se and Cr compared to those groups fed the CD.

Development of climate resilient practices to enhance tolerance to heat stress in commercial and backyard poultry

• Supplementation of customized electrolyte mixtures (Heat Care) or fortification of practical poultry diets with organic mineral mixture (Red-Ox).

• Body weight gain was improved by 3.10 % and the feed cost (per kg live weight gain) was lowered by 6.2 %.

RAIN WATER HARVESTING

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