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Pines play a significant role in forest biodiversity globally and generate huge forest litter. Dry pine needles due to low ignition temperature and high frictional force with the ground catch fire quickly. Annual forest fires in the northern states of India greatly impact the Indian economy besides causing huge loss to biodiversity, livelihood, and environment. Pine needles are also considered unfit for fodder consumption due to presence of tannins. Although the presence of softwood lignin in pine needles makes it difficult to degrade easily, the presence of holocellulose (68.5%) containing 45–51% cellulose makes this biomass a potential substrate to be used in pulp-making industries for low-grade paper sheets. The good fiber length of pine needles (1.3–1.4 mm) with a diameter of 30–32 μm, maybe considered important property for paper making. The use of pine needles in the pharmaceutical and food industries are due to the presence of secondary metabolites (α-pinene, β-pinene, caryophyllene etc.). The various other potential applications of pine needles are for producing bio-ethanol (yield, 3.98%; purity, 94%), biogas (yield, 23.1 L kg−1), smokeless briquettes (calorific value, 18.77 MJ kg−1), biochar (calorific value, 25.6 MJ kg−1), bio-composites (tensile strength, 21–60 MPa), and bio-pesticides. This paper comprehensively reviews the current applications of pine needles along with its future prospective applications that can have the dual advantage of providing employment opportunities to the people along with environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peach ( Prunus persica L.) is one of the most important fruit crops of the Rosaceae family and widely grown in temperate regions of the world. The production scene, systematic cultivation and marketing of peaches could transform the rural economy in the hills of north-western India. Regional Center of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (Elevation of 1900 m AMSL) at Shimla, Himachal Pradesh evaluating the peach cultivars viz. July Elberta, Early Elberta, Snow Queen, Red Globe, Shan-e-Punjab, Sun crest, Glo Haven, Silver King, EC-174084, Paradelux, Saharanpur selection, Red Gold and Independence etc. cultivars are being produced and evaluating for behavioral, climatic adaptation, fruit quality and bud burst to dormancy stage (days ranged from 230 to 330 days in all available cultivars) at above research farm. During the study, the peach fruit average weight ranged from 52.06 to 129.82 g, fruit length ranged from 36.33 to 61.67 mm and width was 48.22 to 62.92 mm. The total soluble sugar content recorded in the above cultivars was 9.46-16.34-degree brix and titratable acidity recorded 0.24 mL to 1.1 mL/100 mL fruit juice. The thickness of the pulp was 16.02 mm to 26.34 mm and after drying 100 g of the pulp, 10.65 to 16.98 g of dry pulp was obtained. Stone average weight was recorded 3.44 to 7.61 g while length and width ranged from 21.49 to 37.09 mm and 14.61 to 26.27 mm respectively. The Pulp: Stone ratio of studied cultivars ranged from 8.79 to 16.41 while TSS: Acidity ranged from 8.6 to 52.70 mL/100mL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal dynamics in macro and micronutrient concentrations were evaluated in leaves, peel and pulp of four grapefruit varieties viz. Marsh Seedless, Flame, Rio Red and Red blush, grown at Punjab Agricultural University, Fruit Research Station -- Jallowal, Jalandhar, Punjab, India. Significant variations in nutrient concentrations at specific growth and development stages were observed in different grapefruit varieties. Leaves of grapefruit varieties recorded higher concentration of nutrients followed by peel, while pulp contained minimum nutrient accumulation. With the progression of season, most of the nutrient elements were observed to increase in leaves of grapefruit varieties. N and P were observed to be higher in fruit peel while K, Ca, Mg and micronutrients were found to be higher in fruit pulp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Sixty-six glycosidically bound volatiles identified in 10 Indian mango cultivars. • Monoterpenoids was the dominant class in most cultivars followed by phenolics. • Hierarchical clustering revealed closer association between pulps than amongst peels. • Only partial release of GBV on direct β-glucosidase treatment to mango juice. • Linalool, geraniol, and eugenol were major odour contributors to few mango cultivars. Mango, a valued commercial fruit in India is popular mostly because of its attractive flavour. Glycosidically bound volatiles (GBV), an underrepresented warehouse of aroma, remain completely unexplored in Indian mangoes. In this study, GBV were profiled in pulps and peels of 10 Indian mango cultivars, leading to detection of 66 GBV which were dominated by monoterpenoids and phenolics. Peels were quantitatively and qualitatively richer in GBV than pulps. Hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis indicated higher contribution of peel GBV to the distinctness of cultivars. Linalool, geraniol, and eugenol were the significant contributors based on the odour units. Direct β-glucosidase treatment to the juice resulted in the release of lesser number of volatiles than those released from the purified GBV extracts. Apart from providing a comprehensive catalogue of GBV in mangoes, our data suggests the need of critical assessment of the usefulness of β-glucosidases in aroma improvement of fruit juices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has a large number of paper manufacturing units, with mills varying in size of operations and type of product, scattered all over the length and breadth of the country. Present study deals with the survey of four different pulp and paper mills (Mill A, Mill B, Mill C and Mill D) in India, differing in their scale of operation as well as raw material usage. Physico-chemical characterization of wastewaters produced by different processing units like digestor house liquors, bleaching section, paper machine backwaters, combined inlet to the ETP and outlet to ETP, for all the four mills, was conducted. Different parameters like pH, Color, COD, BOD, percent Na, SAR, TDS and Total hardness were analyzed and compared. Highly significant differences were thus found between all the processing units of all four mills with p values < 0.01. This evaluation showed that though these mills have effluent treatment facilities installed in their premises, improvements are still needed to increase their efficiencies for treating the discharged wastewaters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]