Comprehensive spatio-temporal benchmarking of surface water quality of Hindon River, a tributary of river Yamuna, India: Adopting multivariate statistical approach.

The Hindon River is the main tributary of river Yamuna and it is a significant source of surface water, which flows through the major cities of western Uttar Pradesh, India. The indiscriminate development of industries and urbanization along river basin coupled with rapid population growths contribute various amounts of pollutant in the river. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the spatial-temporal variability of river water quality (seventeen physicochemical parameters and eight heavy metals) during pre- and post-monsoon seasons for 5 years data at 19 sampling sites along the river stretch. Indices associated with water quality and heavy metals were computed to scale the accurate state of risk associated to its use for drinking and irrigation. During the pre- and post-monsoon seasons, only four sites were found having safe water quality index (WQI) values. The mean heavy metal concentrations are found in order of Zn > Fe > Pb > Cu > Cr > Cd > Ni > Mn. Considering the spatial and temporal distribution, the study benchmarked the water quality of Hindon River for priority attention.

Modified plant architecture integrated with liquid fertilizers improves fruit productivity and quality of tomato in North West Himalaya, India.

India produces around 19.0 million tonnes of tomatoes annually, which is insufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand. A big gap of tomato productivity (72.14 t ha-1) between India (24.66 t ha-1) and the USA (96.8 t ha-1) exist, which can be bridged by integrating trellis system of shoot training, shoot pruning, liquid fertilizers, farmyard manure, and mulching technologies. Therefore, the present experiment was conducted on tomato (cv. Himsona) during 2019-2020 at farmers' fields to improve tomato productivity and quality. There were five treatments laid in a randomized block design (RBD) with three replications; T1 [Farmer practice on the flatbed with RDF @ N120:P60:K60 + FYM @6.0 t ha-1 without mulch], T2 [T1 + Polythene mulch (50 microns)], T3 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha-1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + Liquid Fertilizer (LF1-N19:P19:K19) @ 2.0 g l-1 for vegetative growth + Liquid Fertilizer (LF2-N0: P52: K34) @ 1.5 g l-1 for improving fruit quality], T4 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha-1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF1 @ 4.0 g l-1 + LF2 @ 3.0 g l-1], and T5 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 10.0 t ha-1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF1 @ 6.0 g l-1 + LF2 @ 4.5 g l-1]. The results revealed that tomato plant grown on the raised beds with polythene mulch, shoot pruning, trellising, liquid fertilizers, and farmyard manure (i.e., T5) recorded higher shoot length, dry matter content, and tomato productivity by 20.75-141.21, 18.79-169.4, and 18.89-160.87% as compared to T4-T1 treatments, respectively. The T5 treatment also recorded the highest water productivity (28.39 kg m-3), improved fruit qualities, net return (10,751 USD ha-1), benefit-cost ratio (3.08), microbial population, and enzymatic activities as compared to other treatments. The ranking and hierarchical clustering of treatments confirmed the superiority of the T5 treatment over all other treatments.