Agriculture Optional

In this post; you will get Official Syllabus, Previous Year Question Papers (PYQs), Booklist, Toppers Strategy and some popular notes.

Syllabus

Paper 1 : 

• Ecology and its relevance to man, natural resources, their sustainable management and conservation.
  • Physical and social environment as factors of crop distribution and production. 
  • Agro ecology; cropping pattern as indicators of environments. 
  • Environmental pollution and associated hazards to crops, animals and humans. 
  • Climate change—International conventions and global initiatives. 
  • Greenhouse effect and global warming. 
  • Advanced tools for ecosystem analysis—Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 
• Cropping patterns in different agro-climatic zones of the country.
  • Impact of high-yielding and short-duration varieties on shifts in cropping patterns. Concepts of various cropping, and farming systems.
  • Organic and Precision farming. Package of practices for production of important cereals, pulses, oil seeds, fibres, sugar, commercial and fodder crops. 
• Important features, and scope of various types of  forestry plantations such as social forestry, agro-forestry, and natural forests : Propagation of forest plants.
  • Forest products. 
  • Agro-forestry and value addition. 
  • Conservation of forest flora and fauna. 
• Weeds, their characteristics, dissemination and association with various crops; their multiplications; cultural, biological, and chemical control of weeds. 
• Soil—physical, chemical and biological properties.
  • Processes and factors of soil formation. 
  • Soils of India. 
  • Mineral and organic constituents of soils and their role in maintaining soil productivity. 
  • Essential plant nutrients and other beneficial elements in soils and plants. 
  • Principles of soil fertility, soil testing  and fertiliser recommendations, integrated nutrient management Biofertilizers. 
  • Losses of nitrogen in soil, nitrogen-use efficiency in submerged rice soils, nitrogen fixation in soils. 
  • Efficient phosphoruse and potassium use.
  • Problem soils and their reclamation. 
  • Soil factors affecting greenhouse gas emission.  
• Soil conservation, integrated  watershed management.
  • Soil erosion and its management. 
  • Dry land agriculture and its problems. 
  • Technology for stabilising agriculture production in rainfed  areas. 
• Water-use efficiency in relation to crop production, criteria for scheduling irrigations, ways and means of reducing run-off losses of irrigation water.
  • Rainwater harvesting. 
  • Drip and sprinkler irrigation. 
  • Drainage of water-logged soils, quality of irrigation water, effect of industrial effluents on soil and water pollution.
  • Irrigation projects in India. 
• Farm  management, scope, importance and characteristics, farm planning.
  • Optimum resource use and budgeting. 
  • Economics of different types of farming systems. 
  • Marketing management strategies for development, market intelligence. 
  • Price fluctuations and their cost; role of cooperatives in agricultural economy; types and systems of farming and factors affecting them. 
  • Agricultural price policy.
  • Crop Insurance. 
• Agricultural extension, its importance and role, methods of evaluation of extension programmes, socio-economic survey and status of big, small and marginal farmers and landless agricultural labourers; Training programmes for extension workers.
  • Role of Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s (KVK) in dissemination of Agricultural technologies. 
  • Non-Government Organisation (NGO) and self-help group approach for rural development. 

Paper 2 : 

• Cell structure, function and cell cycle. Synthesis, structure and function of  genetic material.
  • Laws of heredity.
  • Chromosome structure, chromosomal aberrations, linkage and cross-over, and their significance in recombination breeding. 
  • Polyploidy, euploids and aneuploids. 
  • Mutation—and their role in crop improvement. 
  • Heritability, sterility and incompatibility, classification and their application in crop improvement. 
  • Cytoplasmic inheritance, sex-linked, sex-influenced and sex-limited characters. 
• History of plant breeding.
  • Modes of reproduction, selfing and crossing techniques. 
  • Origin, evolution and domestication of crop plants, center of origin, law of homologous series, crop genetic resources—conservation and utilization. 
  • Application of principles of plant breeding, improvement of crop plants. 
  • Molecular markers and their application in plant improvement.
  • Pure-line selection, pedigree, mass and recurrent selections, combining ability, its significance in plant breeding. 
  • Heterosis and its exploitation. 
  • Somatic hybridization. 
  • Breeding for disease and pest resistance. 
  • Role of interspecific and intergeneric hybridization. 
  • Role of genetic engineering and biotechnology in crop improvement.
  • Gernetically modified crop plants. 
• Seed production and processing technologies.
  • Seed certification, Seed testing and storage. 
  • DNA finger printing and seed registration. 
  • Role of public and private sectors in seed production, and marketing. 
  • Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues, WTO issues and its impact on Agriculture.  
• Principles of Plant Physiology with reference to plant nutrition, absorption, translocation and metabolism of nutrients. Soil-water-plant relationship. 
• Enzymes and plant pigments; photosynthesis—modern concepts and factors affecting the process, aerobic and anaerobic respiration; C3, C4 and CAM mechanisms.
  • Carbohydrate, protein and fat metabolism. 
  • Growth and development; photoperiodism and vernalization. 
  • Plant growth  substances and their role in crop production. 
  • Physiology of seed development and germination; dormancy. 
  • Stress physiology—draught, salt and water stress. 
• Major fruits, plantation crops, vegetables, spices and flower crops.
  • Package practices of major horticultural crops. 
  • Protected cultivation and high tech horticulture. 
  • Post-harvest technology and value addition of fruits and vegetables. 
  • Landscaping and commercial floriculture. 
  • Medicinal and aromatic plants.
  • Role of fruits and vegetables in human nutrition. 
• Diagnosis of pests and diseases of field crops, vegetables, orchard and plantation crops and their economic importance.
  • Classification of  pests and diseases and their management. 
  • Integrated pest and disease management. 
  • Storage pests and their management. 
  • Biological control of pests and diseases. 
  • Epidemiology and forecasting of major crop pests and diseases. 
  • Plant quarantine measures. 
  • Pesticides, their formulation and modes of action. 
• Food production and consumption trends in India.
  • Food security and growing population—vision 2020. 
  • Reasons for grain surplus. 
  • National and International food policies. 
  • Production, procurement, distribution constraints. 
  • Availability of foodgrains, per capita expenditure on food. 
  • Trends in poverty, Public Distribution System and Below Poverty Line population, Targeted Public Distribution System (PDS), policy implementation in context to globalisation. 
  • Processing constraints. 
  • Relation of food production to National Dietary Guidelines and food consumption pattern. 
  • Food based dietary approaches to eliminate hunger. 
  • Nutrient deficiency—Micronutrient deficiency : Protein Energy Malnutrition or Protein Calorie Malnutrition (PEM or PCM), Micro nutrient deficiency and HRD in context of work capacity of women and children. 
  • Food grain productivity and food security.