APPSC Horticulture Officer flashcards

31 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Climacteric fruit

A fruit that continues to ripen after harvest with a respiration and ethylene peak, such as mango, banana, sapota, and guava; non-climacteric fruits like citrus and grape do not improve in sugar after harvest.

Bahar treatment

A citrus flowering management practice that withholds water and applies ethephon or NAA sprays to force a single uniform bloom, improving harvest timing and fruit quality.

Cation exchange capacity

The soil's capacity to hold exchangeable cations, rising with clay content and organic matter; 2:1 clays like montmorillonite have much higher CEC than 1:1 kaolinite or sandy soils.

Essential macronutrients

The six major plant nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur, needed in large amounts; nitrogen is mobile in the plant, so deficiency shows on older leaves.

Economic threshold level

The pest population density at which control measures are justified to prevent economic loss; it is the trigger for spraying in integrated pest management rather than calendar spraying.

Panama wilt

A soil-borne Fusarium wilt of banana caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, managed by resistant cultivars, clean suckers, and avoiding infected fields.

Cytoplasmic male sterility

A maternally inherited trait used in hybrid seed production, involving sterile (A), maintainer (B), and restorer (R) lines to avoid manual emasculation.

Marker-assisted selection

Breeding method using DNA markers linked to a trait to select plants without waiting for field expression, speeding up improvement of traits such as disease resistance.

Pre-cooling

Rapid removal of field heat from harvested produce by forced-air or hydrocooling before storage and transport; it slows respiration and extends shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Gross margin

Farm enterprise gross return minus variable cost; it measures the return to fixed resources and guides which crop or enterprise to expand.

Rythu Bharosa Kendras

Andhra Pradesh village-level service hubs providing seeds, fertilizer, soil testing, advisory, and market linkage to farmers, functioning as a decentralised extension model.

MIDH

Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture, the umbrella central scheme covering nurseries, protected cultivation, micro-irrigation, orchard rejuvenation, and post-harvest management with centre-state subsidy sharing.

Number series rule

Check successive differences first, then ratios, then alternating interleaved series; squares and cubes plus a constant are the most common hidden patterns.

Syllogism validity

A conclusion is valid only if it holds in every Venn diagram consistent with the premises; 'all A are B' is not reversible, while 'some A are B' is.

Mango malformation

A disorder of mango caused by Fusarium mangiferae, producing abnormal compact floral and vegetative shoots; managed by pruning and clean planting material.

Fertilizer grade calculation

Fertilizer required equals recommended nutrient multiplied by 100 divided by the percent nutrient in the fertilizer; urea is 46% N and DAP is 18-46-0.

Sodic soil reclamation

Sodic soils with high exchangeable sodium percentage are reclaimed by applying gypsum (calcium sulfate) and leaching, whereas saline soils are reclaimed by leaching with drainage.

Bacterial wilt management

Ralstonia solanacearum is soil-borne and causes wilting in tomato and chilli; grafting on resistant rootstock, rotation, and clean planting material are the main controls.

Root-knot nematode

Meloidogyne incognita causes galls on roots and stunting; managed by crop rotation with non-hosts, resistant varieties, neem cake, and Paecilomyces lilacinus.

Dihybrid F2 ratio

The 9:3:3:1 phenotypic ratio in the F2 of a dihybrid cross with independent assortment; deviation suggests linkage or epistasis.

Meristem culture

Tissue culture of the shoot meristem to produce virus-free planting material, widely used in banana, citrus, and other vegetatively propagated horticultural crops.

Controlled atmosphere storage

Storage with reduced oxygen (about 2-5%) and raised carbon dioxide to slow respiration and extend storage life of fruits and vegetables.

FSSAI

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India licenses food businesses, sets additive limits, and requires labelling for processed and value-added food products.

Adoption curve

The distribution of adopters of an innovation into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, shaped by relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability.

Cropping intensity

Gross cropped area divided by net sown area, multiplied by 100; it rises with irrigation, short-duration crops, and intercropping.

e-NAM

The National Agriculture Market, an online platform for trading agricultural produce across mandis, improving price discovery and reducing intermediary dependence.

PMFME scheme

PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises supports micro food-processing units with credit and technical assistance to promote value addition and reduce post-harvest losses.

YSR Rythu Bharosa

An Andhra Pradesh income support scheme for farmer families, providing direct financial assistance to reduce cultivation risk.

AP mango belts

Major mango-growing districts of Andhra Pradesh include Krishna, Chittoor, and Kurnool, with the state among India's leading mango producers.

Profit percentage formula

Profit percent equals (selling price minus cost price) divided by cost price, multiplied by 100; successive discounts of a and b percent equal a plus b minus ab divided by 100.

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium

Allele and genotype frequencies remain constant in a large random-mating population without selection, mutation, or migration; broad-sense heritability equals genetic variance divided by phenotypic variance.