Elementary Agriculture

Education in agriculture is important as this sector caters not only to food security, but also human health. With a major focus on agriculture and to attract youth in agriculture, it is important that the education is made interesting, simple and purposeful. Textbooks are a medium of reaching out to the young minds who are in colleges and universities. The present attempt is a text book on the fundamentals of agriculture, entirely based on the syllabus for educating agricultural graduates and also based on the feedback from students. Chapter 1 describes the history and scope of agriculture, while chapter 2 covers classification of crops. Third chapter includes definitions of soil, soil composition, soil profile, soil development and different properties of soils, and the extent and distribution of the different soil classes of India is given in Chapter 4. The 5th Chapter is aboutclassification of Problem Soils and their distribution and reclamation method. Sixth chapter is on plant nutrition that includes all the functions and deficiency symptoms of plant nutrition and also the classification of nutrients. Fertilizers and manures, and its role in crop production have been dealt in Chapter 7.All aspects of irrigation and rainfed agriculture have been addressed in Chapters 8 and 9, respectively. The 10th Chapter is on Agricultural Engineering that includes implements, tillage, devices and power transmission in enhancement of agricultural productivity. Finally, exemplary Questions-Answers have been included to readily benefit students preparing for competitive examinations.