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Monitoring vegetation phenology is essential for understanding the impacts of climate change on agricultural production. This study leverages Sentinel-2 data to develop an algorithm in Google Earth Engine (GEE) for calculating phenological metrics of rice crop cultivated over the hilly area, allowing for high-resolution, efficient, and large-scale analysis without the need for data download. The study focuses on key metrics, including the start of the season and end of the season, length of growing season derived from various vegetation indices. The results demonstrate that NDVI-based phenological metrics closely align with the observed values at the experimental site, Malan. Moreover, the relationship of NDVI based length of growing season with the rice crop yield was found stronger with a R² value of 0.68, depicting the capability of the satellitebased phenology metrics to estimate the rice crop yield in hilly region of Himachal Pradesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work comprises the development of Al6061/nano Al2O3 composites with 0 to 4 weight percent in steps of 0.5 wt. % of nano alumina particles by using ultrasonic assisted stir casting. Casted samples were subjected to heat treatment and hot forging. Further forged and heat-treated gear blanks of nano Al2O3 (0 to 3.0 weight %) reinforced nanocomposites were machined to make spur gears for the wear test. The results have shown that nano Al2O3 reinforcement in the Al6061 matrix with heat treatment and forging improves the hardness and compressive strength up to 3.5 wt. %, after that, it starts decreasing because of the agglomeration of nano alumina particles. SEM results reveal grain refinement of the pure alloy after reinforcement. Removal of porosity and voids observed after forging operation. Wear resistance increasing with incorporation of Al2O3 nanoparticles in base alloy, reinforcement wt. %, precipitation hardening and hot forging also improves wear resistance and mechanical properties. These composites have widespread applications in gear, brake discs, crankshaft, clutch plates, pistons, and other components of automobiles and aircraft structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing prominence of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) as a vegetable and salad product is evident in the considerable body of studies on virtually all areas of the crop. However, various biological stressors are substantially hindering tomato productivity, presenting a major obstacle to forecasting future expectations of something like the developing world. Root-knot nematodes (RKN) are a significant threat to agricultural productivity among many biotic challenges. Beyond inflicting physical harm, it contributes as an exacerbating agent for the introduction of bacterial and fungal pathogens, compounding the situation and attributed to the creation of disease structures. Current management methods are insufficient to completely regulate RKN. Although the management of this nematode pest is primarily using chemical nematicides, however, phase out of the synthetic chemicals due to its harmful potential danger on living creatures as well as the environment, this same problem of root-knot nematodes intensified and become a significant impediment for the successful cultivation of vegetable crops in an open field as well as protected cultivation. In the present review paper, and efforts have been made to clarify the plethora of integrated approaches including genetics-based techniques for the control of root-knot nematodes in tomatoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the traditional deep drawing process, a blank holder is required to press the blank over the die to prevent wrinkling and to control the material flow into the die cavity. But, this important tool responsible for fracture on the sheet and the optimisation of blank holder pressure is very critical. This present study introduces a new technique for the deep drawing process of cylindrical cups through a conical die without a blank holder. In this new technique, cylindrical cups are produced by pushing a circular blank using a flat-headed cylindrical punch through a conical die with a cylindrical throat in a single punch stroke. A 3-D parametric FE model was built using the commercial FE package ANSYS/APDL-19. A die with a half cone angle of 18° has shown the best drawability for the new technique. A flat-headed punch was used for forming of AA8011 & AA1200 with 1 to 2 mm initial thicknesses and diameters varies from 45 to 65 mm in experimental analysis. 100-ton hydraulic press used for deep drawing setup. Finite element model results showed good agreement with experimental results. Experimentally, a cylindrical cup with a LDR of 2.5 has been successfully achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]