agriculture

Agriculture

Suggested Reading for Preliminary Exam
1. Soil Science - D.K Das Or Brady
2. Agronomy By Yellamananda Reddy
3. Plant Breeding By B.D. Singh
4. Genetics By B.D. Singh
5. Physiology By Pandey & Singha
6. Indroduction To Horticulture - Kumar
7. Handbook Of Agriculture By ICAR
8. Agricultural Economics and Farm Management
9. Agricultural Extension Education in India

Suggested Reading for Mains Exam
1. Soil Science - D.K Das Or Brady
2. Agronomy By Yellamananda Reddy
3. Plant Breeding By B.D. Singh
4. Genetics By B.D. Singh
5. Physiology By Pandey & Singha
6. Indroduction To Horticulture - Kumar
7. Handbook Of Agriculture By ICAR
8. Agricultural Economics and Farm Management
9. Agricultural Extension Education in India
10.Pathology - Singh
11.Entomology - Vasantha Raj & David
12.The Hindu - Survey Of Indian Agriculture
13.Agricuture Statistics - Dept. of Agri. and coop. statistics at a glance -www.agricoop.nic.in

Paper I
Paper I focuses basically on farm practices and basic foundation of agriculture. Expression in the examination should be simple, application oriented and should consist of flowcharts as and when required. Farm practices must correspond to the Indian situation. Students should ensure that they should focus on sustainability and economic dimensions of any method. Some examples must correspond to recently debated issues in different areas. Agricultural marketing, pricing etc must have latest data taken from Government of India reports such as economic survey and ministry of agriculture's annual report.

Paper II
Students who have botany as another optional subject need not prepare cell biology, genetics, biotechnology, plant breed, plant biochemistry and physiology separately. These topics are already covered in botany. There should be emphasis on agricultural application as well. Ideal books would be Plant Breeding by B D Singh and Plant Physiology by Jain. Horticulture and Plant Pathology and Food Production only need to be covered separately. Students should always focus on India-specific examples and commercial aspect while writing about agriculture and any plant disease. For example, mention the loss in many terms due to a particular crop disease. There is overlap with GS in the areas like ecology and environment, food security, crop productivity, agricultural economics and sustainable agriculture. Preparation in these subjects should be such that there would be no separate preparation required for these topics in GS.