Anup Ghimire

Bio: Anup Ghimire is an academic researcher from Tribhuvan University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Internal medicine & Sowing. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 3 publications receiving 7 citations.

Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Agriculture Education in Nepal: An Online survey

Abstract: The official announcement of COVID-19 as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 by WHO, the world economy has abruptly declined, billions of people are in lockdown, maintaining self-isolation. In this survey, 150 respondents were selected randomly and this survey intends to highlight the impact of lockdown in agriculture Students on their education along with their response towards pros and cons. This survey shows that maximum respondent, around 52% of them found lockdown beneficial in the sense that it has helped to neutralize the gravity of viral infection and 48% of them doesn’t found it beneficial as their educational schedule has been halted. The practical education of a student is disturbed due to lockdown and now they are utilizing this period involving in online courses, training, and webinars. Many of them couldn’t have access to the internet to catch the session, thus the government should initiate policy in education through a long term perspective so that no pandemic could interfere with the educational institution in digital world.

Impacts of sowing and climatic conditions on wheat yield in Nepal

Abstract: Abstract Wheat is one of the important cereal crops in Nepal as well as globally. But due to varied climatic and sowing conditions low production has been reported throughout the world including Nepal. Sowing rates are highly correlated to yield and its yield attributing characters. Yield loss has been reported 50-62% under a late sown condition which shows a heavy threat to food security problems. Vijaya is the most recommended varieties under late sown conditions due to its high yield and less threat to late sown conditions. Thus identification and release of varieties suitable under late sown conditions are of the utmost importance. Researches should be accelerated under different agro-ecological zones to study the constraints associated with late sown wheat in Nepal.

A case study of medicinal plants and their usage by the local community of Dilasaini Gaunpalika, Baitadi district, Nepal

Abstract: An Ethnomedicinal survey study was conducted to get information about the usage of medicinal plants and the diversity of species found around the village. The main objective of the study was to document the plants for their medicinal and other uses. Ethnomedicinal plants are locally available used by tribal communities and local inhabitants for various medicinal purposes. Random sampling survey was conducted by selecting 50 households to access the medicinal plants and document their usage in Gokuleshwor, Baitadi. A total of 33 species of medicinal plants to treat 40 ailments was reported with their multipurpose use. During the survey, an equal proportion of males and females aged 14 to 78 were selected randomly. The literacy rate of the study area was 80% and 94% of the people were found to be involved in the collection of medicinal plants. The majority of the respondents (92%) used medicinal plants for minor diseases like cuts, wounds whereas few were found to use the medicinal plant for a long time to treat major diseases like cancer, tumor. The use of medicinal plants for skin infections, cuts and wounds, fever was found to be high followed by diarrhea, common cold, ulcer, asthma, jaundice, burns, piles, and eye inflammation. Most of the plants were found to be used for more than one disease. The conservation of Indigenous knowledge on the Ethnomedicinal plant should be promoted as most of the respondents were unaware of the conservation of medicinal plants.

Efficacy of monoclonal antibodies in neuromyelitis optica: An updated systematic review with meta‐analysis

Abstract: This is a critical review of studies aiming to assess the safety and efficacy of monoclonal antibodies as compared with the classical regimen in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder.

Exogenous Application of Thiourea for Improving the Productivity and Nutritional Quality of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract: Because it is a staple food, sustainable production of wheat is crucial for global food security. Arid and semi-arid regions are worst affected by climate change, which has resulted in poor productivity of different crops, including wheat. To this end, this study aimed to investigate the effect of foliage-applied thiourea on the growth, yield, and nutritional-quality-related traits of bread wheat. The treatments consisted of thiourea levels (control, 500, and 1000 mg L−1) factorally combined with two diverse wheat cultivars (Gandam-1 and Galaxy-2013) at different growth stages (tillering, booting, and heading) and was repeated over two years. The analysis of the data shows that thiourea treatments and the cultivars significantly (p ≤ 0.05) affected the growth, nutritional quality traits, and morphological traits, and the interaction of the two factors was also significant. Improvement in productivity and nutritional quality was observed from the application of thiourea in both cultivars. Galaxy-2013 performed best at 1000 mg L−1 thiourea application for both productivity- and nutritional-quality-related traits at the heading stage. In conclusion, exogenous application of thiourea improves the productivity and nutritional quality of wheat on sandy loam soils in semi-arid regions; however, for wider recommendations, more trials may be conducted across various agro-ecological regions.

Policies for Rapid Mitigation of the Crisis’ Effects on Agricultural Supply Chains: A Multi-Criteria Decision Support System with Monte Carlo Simulation

Abstract: This paper proposes an integrated approach towards rapid decision-making in the agricultural sector aimed at improvement of its resilience. Methodologically, we seek to devise a framework that is able to take the uncertainty regarding policy preferences into account. Empirically, we focus on the effects of COVID-19 on agriculture. First, we propose a multi-criteria decision-making framework following the Pugh matrix approach for group decision-making. The Monte Carlo simulation is used to check the effects of the perturbations in the criteria weights. Then, we identify the factors behind agricultural resilience and organize them into the three groups (food security, agricultural viability, decent jobs). The expert survey is carried out to elicit the ratings in regard to the expected effects of the policy measures with respect to dimensions of agricultural resilience. The case of Lithuania is considered in the empirical analysis. The existing and newly proposed agricultural policy measures are taken into account. The measures related to alleviation of the financial burden (e.g., credit payment deferral) appear to be the most effective in accordance with the expert ratings.

Global crop calendars of maize and wheat in the framework of the WorldCereal project

Abstract: ABSTRACT Crop calendars provide valuable information on the timing of important stages of crop development such as the planting or Start of Season (SOS) and harvesting dates or End of Season (EOS). This information is critical for many crop monitoring applications such as crop-type mapping, crop condition monitoring, and crop yield estimation and forecasting. Spatially detailed information on the crop calendars provides an important asset in this respect, as it allows the algorithms to account for specific local circumstances while also maximizing their robustness and global applicability. Existing global crop calendar products, as produced by the Group on Earth Observations’ Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) Crop Monitor, the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the European Commission Joint Research Center’s Anomaly hot Spots of Agricultural Production (ASAP), generally provide this information only at national or subnational level. In this work, we present gridded SOS and EOS maps for wheat and maize that represent the crop calendars’ spatial variability at 0.5° spatial resolution. These maps are generated in the framework of WorldCereal, which is a European Space Agency (ESA) funded project whose cropland and crop-type wheat and maize algorithms at global scale and at 10 m spatial resolution require this information. The proposed maps are built leveraging the above noted global products (Crop Monitor, USDA-FAS, FAO, ASAP) whose datasets are combined into a baseline map and sampled to train a Random Forest algorithm based on climatic and geographic data. Their evaluation against test data from the baseline maps set aside for validation purposes show a good performance with SOS (EOS) R 2 of 0.87 (0.92) and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 27 (26) days for wheat, showing the lowest errors (RMSE <15 days) in North America, Central Europe, South Africa, and Australia, all critical areas for global wheat production and trade. Meanwhile, the largest errors (RMSE between 40 and 60 days) occurred in regions of South America close to the Amazon Forest and in Africa close to the Congo Basin. In the case of maize, the SOS (EOS) evaluation shows an R 2 of 0.88 (0.79) and an RMSE of 24 (28) days for maize, with the best performing regions (RMSE < 15 days) located in the Northern Hemisphere, South Africa, and Australia, important areas for global maize production and trade. Meanwhile, the worst performing regions were in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and India. Additionally, the crop calendars were evaluated using a simple Land Surface Phenology (LSP) model based on Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 Earth Observation data from Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 over known wheat and maize fields. The results show a SOS (EOS) R 2 of 0.75 (0.88) and an RMSE of 25 (18) days for wheat and SOS (EOS) R 2 of 0.80 (0.88) and an RMSE of 35 (24) days for maize. Therefore, the presented calendars present an advancement over the existing crop calendar products in terms of capturing spatial coverage and variability and reporting their accuracy.

Variations in Yield along a Phenological Gradient in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract: Future food security will depend on crop adaptations to changing environment. Such adaptations can be made through genetic divergence in plants which is prerequisite for identifying superior plant traits and varieties. It is already known that plant varieties with supreme characteristics can play important roles in the enhancement of yield and production. Here, we practically assessed 36 wheat breeding lines (35 lines with Janbaz as check cultivar) across two planting dates (mid- November and mid-December) to determine the genetic differences and inheritance contributing production traits. For this purpose, heritability (h2), genotype by environment interaction (GEI) and correlation coefficients were studied. Data were recorded on days to heading (DH), flag leaf area (FLA), plant height (PH), days to maturity (DM), spike length (SL), grain yield (GY) and harvest index (HI). Pooled ANOVA showed significant differences among genotypes for all traits studied while GEI interactions were significant for some traits finding a significant gap for genotypes. Genotype DN-84 took less number of DH while, V-09136 had minimum values for DH and DM. Interestingly, maximum FLA, PH and SL were observed for a single genotype NR- 408. High GY and HI were recorded for genotype V-07096 and WRIS-12, respectively. Heritability (h2) estimates for DH, PH, DM, SL, ranged between 60 and 74%, illustrating strong flow of genetic makeup among genotypes, while 37 to 54% for FLA, GY and HI. Correlation coefficients were significant for various traits indicating robust association among genotypes. PCA analysis showed that dates clustered the variables differently but in a similar pattern. Based on our findings, we suggest genotypes V-09136, PR-103, NR-400, V-08BT016 and V-07096 for further investigation. Further, it is suggested to find out optimum time of sowing for each variety whereas, late sowing affect crop production.