Seed has matchless position among various agricultural inputs as the efficiency of all other inputs mainly depends on the production prospective of seed. The sustainability of any crop depends upon seed quality. Wheat being the staple food, occupies a significant position in agriculture of Pakistan. Wheat growers deserve special attention in terms of their training in quality seed production because seed is the most important farm input. As most of the farmers of the country are illiterate and have limited access to quality wheat seed. Specific needs are to be identified before any kind of training is given to the farmers in terms of quality seed production. For this purpose, the present study was conducted in district Narowal of the Punjab province. A multistage random sampling technique was used for the selection of study sample. For this purpose one markaz from each of the three tehsils was selected at random. From each markaz, 3 union councils were selected randomly and 2 villages from each selected union council were chosen at random. Twenty respondents (wheat growers) from each village were selected randomly, thus making a sample size of 360 respondents. The data were collected through a reliable and validated interview schedule and was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).Analysis of the data show that majority of the respondents belonged to middle aged category, was illiterate and operating land holding of 5-10 acres of land. A large majority of the farmers were owner cultivators and was not dependent on agriculture only as their source of income. A large majority of the respondents had no knowledge about the class of seed they used for seed production as well as had no idea whether or not they had used the approved variety for seed production. An overwhelming majority of the respondents had no knowledge about seed germination percentage and about good and contamination free seed. A large majority of the respondents did not use quality seed for wheat seed production and used their own seed source for seed. A vast majority of the respondents had very low level of knowledge with respect to seed germination line spacing, seed depth, isolation distance and seed grading. Similarly more or less than half of the respondents had very low level with respect to purity of seed, seed treatment, roughing, insect/pests control and use of farm machinery.The practices such as; source of quality seed, purity of seed, insect/pest control, seed germination, line spacing, seed depth, isolation distance, seed grading, roughing, use of farm machinery, harvesting and threshing of seed crop needed medium to high level of training, while seedbed preparation, selection of land, seed rate, sowing method, weed management and storage of seed required low to medium level of training. The fertilizer application required medium to high level of training and irrigation for seed crop required low to medium level of training. The chi-square values show a highly significant assosiation between age, education, size of land holding, area under wheat crop and use of approved variety for seed production. The gamma value shows a negative trend with regard to age while, the Gamma value with respect to education, size of land holding, area under wheat crop show a positive trend. The Chi- square values for association between independent variable (age, education, size of land holding, area under wheat cultivation, existing knowledge regarding quality wheat seed production, existing knowledge about fertilizer application and existing knowledge about application of irrigation) and dependent variable (training needs for quality seed production) show a highly significant relationship. The Gamma values (-ve) of education, size of land holding, area under wheat cultivation, existing knowledge regarding quality wheat seed production, existing knowledge about fertilizer application and existing knowledge about application of irrigation water show that the relationship was inversely proportional,while the Gamma value (+ve) of age show that the relationship was directly proportional.
The Immensely Merciful to all, The Infinitely Compassionate to everyone.
38:01 a. Saad. b. By The Divine Qur’an - full of Remembrance and Reminders.
38:02 a. They do not have any reason to reject it. b. Instead, those who disbelieve are lost in conceit and dissent.
38:03 a. How many generations have WE destroyed before them for the same sins! b. Then they cried out for help when it was far too late to repent and escape the punishment.
38:04 a. Yet they are surprised that a Warner should come to them from among themselves. b. And the disbelievers say to one another: c. ‘This Prophet is a deceiver, a liar!’
38:05 a. How ‘has he made our worshipful entities into only One worshipful entity of Allah? b. Surely this is very astonishing and a curious thing, indeed!’
38:06 a. And the leaders among them went about saying: b. ‘Let us go out of here. c. And remain faithful to your worshipful entities. d. Indeed, this is what is extremely desirable.’
38:07 a. ‘We have not heard anything like this in the religion of these later days. b. So this concept is nothing but a fabrication.’
38:08 a. How has the Reminder - The Qur’an - been sent down on to him alone from among all of us? b. No! c. Instead, they are lost in doubts about MY Reminder.
d. No! e. In fact, they have not yet tasted MY Punishment!
This study was conducted purposely to assess the degree of school effectiveness among public secondary schools of Zamfara State, Nigeria. In order to achieve this fundamental objective, one research question was formulated. A descriptive survey research design was adopted in the study. Population of the study comprised the entire 2361 classroom teachers deployed in the 158 public secondary schools of Zamfara State-Nigeria. From the population of the study, a sample size of 266 teachers was extracted using a ‘Multistage Random Sampling Technique’. A semi-structured questionnaire developed by Lezzote and Snyder (2011) on a five Likert type scale instrument with 21 items was employed as an instrument for data collection. The instrument composite reliability was computed using Cronbach’s alpha method and obtained the value of .949. All data covered in the study were collected through a field survey approach. Analytically, the current study discovered that, the degree of school effectiveness was at a high extent with mean score (M=3.68, SD=0.15). Based on this finding, the paper recommends that, stakeholders in educational sector comprising government’s ministries, departments and agencies, policymakers, secondary schools’ principals, instructional teachers as well as the learners and their parents/guardians should reciprocally work together in the process of appropriate perpetration and advancement of effective school system and its practices.
Our earth is naturally bestowed with extreme ecological niches which rarely support any life form to exist there. Microbes harboring such habitats are unusual and exhibit specific characters to cope with stress conditions. Present research is conducted to study the diversity, ecology and metabolites of such microbes i.e. extremophiles. Water, soil and sediment samples were collected from selected extreme sites i.e. salt mine, acid seep, and hot water spring. Total DNA was extracted from soil and sediment samples for metagenome sequencing. Microbial diversity was investigated by barcoded amplicon sequencing of metagenome. Sequencing output files were submitted in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database under the accession numbers SAMN08026743, SAMN08026744, SAMN08398365, and SAMN08398366 for saline, hot spring, and acid seep samples respectively. Metagenomic analysis revealed that microbial communities were dominated by Proteobacteria in all samples. Other than Proteobacteria, Firmicutes constituted the most abundant population in hot spring, Euryarchaeota were abundant in saline soil and Cyanobacteria dominated the acid seep sample. Owing to the complexities of extreme sites, some unidentified sequences were also found in samples. For isolation and characterization of extremophiles, cultivation based method was used. Eleven halophilic bacteria i.e. MB588, MB589, MB590, MB591, MB592, MB593, MB594, MB595, MB596, MB597, and MB598 were isolated from saline soil samples on LB medium with 4M NaCl concentration. Isolates were characterized morphologically, biochemically and physiologically. On the basis of 16S rDNA gene analysis, MB590, MB591, MB593, MB594, MB595, and MB596 were identified as Halomonas elongata. Whereas, MB588, MB589, MB592, MB597 and MB598 were identified as Halobacillus karajiensis, Alkalibacillus almallahensis, Aquisalibacillus elongatus, Salinicoccus sesuvii and Halomonas aquamarina respectively. Most of the strains exhibited multiple heavy metal and antibiotic resistance. Multiple antibiotics and heavy metal resistance indices i.e. MAR and MHR, revealed Halomonas elongata MB593 as a most resistant strain. Strong association among heavy metal resistance and antibiotic tolerance was observed in halophilic bacteria. No significant extremozyme production was observed in halophilic bacteria. However, biosurfactant production was indicated in nine halophilic strains.Most of the strains significantly reduced surface tension up to 35 dynes/cm and explicated emulsification activities of different hydrocarbons i.e. hexane, canola, xylene and petrol. Moreover, all the strains exhibited xviii oil displacement. Structural characterization of biosurfactants revealed mixture of glycolipids. Three bacterial strains i.e. MB592, MB597 and MB598 exhibited pigment production. Characterization of pigments using different analytical techniques i.e. UV spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, and HPLC analysis revealed bacterioruberin carotenoids. Methanolic extracts of pigments showed strong antibacterial and antioxidant activities. From hot spring sample, seven hyper-thermophilic bacteria were isolated at 80˚C. Isolates were characterized morphologically, biochemically and physiologically. On the basis of 16S rDNA sequence analysis, isolates were identified as Geobacillus jurassicus MB599, Geobacillus jurassicus MB605, Geobacillus sp. MB601, Geobacillus sp. MB604, Geobacillus stearothermophilus MB600, Geobacillus thermocatenulatus MB602 and Geobacillus thermoparaffinivorans MB603. All the strains exhibited significant protease and amylase production. From acid seep sample, a gram negative, iron(II) oxidizing, acidophilic bacterium IO2C was isolated at pH 2 and 25˚C. On the basis of 16S rDNA analysis, it was identified as Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. Strain produced biominerals by oxidation of iron substrates like iron sulfate and iron ammonium sulfate. SEM, XRD and FTIR analysis of bio-minerals indicated schwertmannite and jarosite. Whole genome sequence analysis of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans IO-2C revealed 58.73% of G+C content, 2,716,894 base pairs in 23 contigs and 2,927 protein coding sequences. In addition to this, it contained functional genes for iron and sulfur metabolism, multidrug resistance, and heavy metal resistance. Present study provided a comprehensive examination of microbial diversity of extremophiles by consolidating culture dependent and independent techniques to get more realistic portrayal of microbial communities. This study also identified bacterial metabolites and enzymes which will provide industry with more cost-effective biomolecules for specific purposes. Future in depth studies on genomics and metabolomics of extremophilic bacterial strains identified in this study will provide insight to their adaptive mechanisms and their potential roles in bioremediation of toxic pollutants, food processing, and biomedicine.