Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

The critical stage among the options is Early tillering.

Rice is sensitive to water stress at several stages: early tillering, panicle initiation, booting and flowering. Stress during tillering reduces the number of productive tillers and so the number of panicles, which is why early tillering is listed as a critical stage for irrigation.

Crown root irrigation refers to wheat's first critical irrigation, not rice. Sprouting is not an irrigation stage of the transplanted crop, and tasselling (spelt 'Tarselling' in the paper) is the critical stage of maize.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

Pre-flowering is a critical stage for irrigation in Gram.

Gram (chickpea) is a rabi pulse usually grown on conserved moisture. If one irrigation is available, it is given at the pre-flowering (branching to flower initiation) stage, and if two, the second at pod development. Moisture stress then reduces flowering and pod set.

Wheat's first critical stage is crown root initiation, about 21 days after sowing. Potato is most sensitive at stolon formation and tuber initiation, and for mustard the critical stages are usually given as flowering and siliqua formation.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The method that does not exist is Aquatic placement.

Fertilizer placement methods put the fertilizer where roots can use it. Deep placement puts it in the reduced zone of flooded rice soils, contact placement puts it close to the seed, and subsoil placement puts it in the subsoil of strongly acidic or deep-rooted situations. Others include band, plough-sole and pellet placement.

There is no fertilizer method called aquatic placement; the word refers to water, not to a position in the soil, and is the distractor.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

The correct order is Soil preparation - Sowing - Irrigation - Harvesting.

The field is first ploughed, levelled and manured so the seed has loose, aerated soil. Seeds are then sown, and the crop is irrigated as it grows, since watering is needed by the germinating and growing plants. Harvesting comes last, when the crop has matured.

The other sequences break this logic: irrigating before sowing is only an occasional pre-sowing watering, not the standard step after preparation; harvesting cannot come before sowing; and soil preparation cannot be the final step of a cropping cycle.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The crop that is not a commercial crop is Bajra.

Commercial (cash) crops are grown mainly for sale rather than for the farmer's own consumption. Sugarcane and cotton are classic cash crops that feed the sugar and textile industries, and banana is grown on plantations for the market.

Bajra (pearl millet) is a coarse cereal, a food and fodder crop grown largely for subsistence in dry areas. It is classed with food grains, not cash crops.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The main cereal crops of Madhya Pradesh are wheat and paddy.

Wheat is the leading rabi cereal of the state, which is among India's largest wheat producers and is known for its sharbati wheat from districts such as Sehore. Paddy (rice) is the main kharif cereal, grown mainly in the eastern districts such as Balaghat, Mandla and Rewa, with large increases in recent years.

Maize, jowar, bajra and ragi are grown in parts of the state, maize especially in the west and south, but none of these pairs makes up the main cereals.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

Sisal fibre comes from Agave species.

Sisal is a hard leaf fibre extracted from the leaves of Agave sisalana. It is strong and is used for ropes, twines, mats and sacking.

Grewia species give bast fibre and edible fruit (phalsa), Butea gives the flame of the forest and lac host trees, and Hardwickia (anjan) gives timber and a bark fibre, but none is the source of sisal.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

The crop that is not a cereal is pigeon pea.

Cereals are grasses grown for their grain: maize, finger millet (ragi) and sorghum (jowar) all belong to the grass family. Pigeon pea (arhar or tur) is a legume, a pulse crop of the pea family, grown for its protein-rich seeds.

So pigeon pea is the odd one out.

Pulses such as pigeon pea fix atmospheric nitrogen through root nodules, which is why they are grown in rotation or as intercrops with cereals such as maize and sorghum.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The most critical stage is Crown Root Initiation (CRI).

About 20 to 25 days after sowing, wheat forms its crown roots, which anchor the plant and absorb most of its water and nutrients. Missing irrigation at this stage cuts tillering and yield more than at any other stage, so the first irrigation is always timed for CRI.

Tillering, flowering and milk stages also need water, but agronomists rank CRI as the single most critical.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

The world's most troublesome aquatic weed is Eichhornia, the water hyacinth.

Eichhornia crassipes, introduced to India from South America in the nineteenth century, spreads so fast that it chokes lakes, ponds and canals, blocks light, depletes oxygen and harms fish. It is often called the 'Terror of Bengal'.

Wolffia is the smallest flowering plant, a harmless duckweed. Azolla is a useful water fern that fixes nitrogen and is used as biofertiliser in paddy. Trapa is the water chestnut (singhara), grown as a crop.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The first herbicide produced is 2,4-D.

2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) was developed during the Second World War and released commercially in 1946. It was the first successful selective herbicide, killing broadleaf weeds without harming cereal crops, and it is still widely used.

2,4,5-T is a related phenoxy herbicide that came slightly later and is now banned in many countries. Pendimethalin and simazine (spelt 'Semazin' in the paper) are much later herbicides of the dinitroaniline and triazine groups.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

Bajra is a kharif crop.

Pearl millet is sown with the onset of the south-west monsoon in June-July and harvested in September-October. It tolerates heat and low rainfall, which makes it a staple kharif cereal in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and the drier parts of Madhya Pradesh.

Rabi crops such as wheat and gram are sown in winter, and zaid crops such as watermelon and cucumber are grown in the short summer season between rabi and kharif.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

Macaroni wheat is Triticum durum.

Durum wheat has hard, high-protein grains that give semolina, the raw material of pasta such as macaroni, which is why it is called macaroni wheat. It is grown in India mainly in central and peninsular states.

Triticum aestivum is common bread wheat, the main wheat of India. Triticum dicoccum is emmer wheat and Triticum monococcum is einkorn, both ancient hulled wheats grown only on a small scale.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

Poultry manure has the highest content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium among the organic manures listed, which is why it is used as a concentrated manure.

Farm yard manure, town compost and NADEP compost have lower nutrient levels.

Poultry manure is richer than farmyard manure, as the nitrogen and phosphorus in bird droppings are high, and it is used as a concentrated organic manure. Town compost and NADEP compost are lower in nutrients.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

Surface drip is the micro-irrigation system most commonly adopted in India, where emitters are laid on the ground along the crop rows.

Bubblers, micro sprinklers and subsurface drip are used much less widely, since they are more costly or suited to special cases.

In India most drip systems are laid on the soil surface, with emitters near each plant, because they are cheaper and easier to install and maintain than subsurface lines. This is why surface drip is the most common type.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

Oak bark (Quercus robur) is used in the biodynamic preparation BD 505. In biodynamic farming, the numbered preparations 502 to 507 are made from yarrow, chamomile, nettle, oak bark, dandelion and valerian.

BD 504 is made from stinging nettle, 506 from dandelion and 507 from valerian.

BD 505 is made of oak bark packed in the skull of a domestic animal and buried in a wet place over winter, and it is used on the compost. BD 504 is nettle, 506 dandelion and 507 valerian.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

Adaptability is not one of the principles of organic farming. The four principles of organic agriculture are health, ecology, fairness and care, so ‘principle of adaptability’ is not among them.

Ecology, health and care are all principles of organic farming, so options A, B and D are wrong for a NOT question.

The four principles stated by IFOAM for organic agriculture are health, ecology, fairness and care. Adaptability is not one of the four, so it is the answer to a question that asks for the one that is not a principle.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The Rishi Krishi system is linked to Mohan Shankar Deshpande. Sources I found name him as author on a Rishi-Krishi, Deshpande technique of farming and as the originator of a liquid manure called Amrutpani, but I found no independent history of how the system evolved, so the key's attribution is supported only in part.

Subhash Palekar is known for Zero Budget Natural Farming, which is a different system.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The National Programme for Organic Production was launched by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, with APEDA as the implementing agency, in 2001. It provides the standards for organic production and the certification system for exports.

The Ministry of Agriculture runs other organic schemes, and the Ministry of Skill Development and the Ministry of Environment are not responsible for NPOP.

The programme was launched in 2001 under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act and it is run by APEDA under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It sets the standards for organic production and the accreditation of certification bodies.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

Use of herbicides to check weeds is not a characteristic of organic farming. Organic systems prohibit synthetic herbicides and rely on mulching, crop rotation, hand weeding and cultivation to control weeds.

Protecting the long-term fertility of soil, biological nitrogen fixation with recycling of farm waste, and use of natural predators and bio-pesticides are all principles of organic farming.

The idea behind organic farming is to manage weeds without synthetic chemicals, so herbicides are excluded. The permitted weed control methods are cultural and mechanical, such as mulching, crop rotation and hoeing.