Farmer’s Sagaciousness on Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies in Agriculture: A Case Study in Hyatimundaragi Village of Koppala District of Karnataka, India

Climate change is recognized as one of the leading challenges affecting the performance of agriculture and the livelihood of people. Farmers are the hardest hit as they have to continuously respond to climate variations. In order to know farmers' perception of climate change and its impacts and to identify adaptation needs semi-structured questionnaire surveys were carried out in Hyatimundaragii village of Koppala district, Karnataka. Farmers have faced climate variability and noticed increasing temperature, delayed onset of rainfall, intermittent rainfall, prolonged drought conditions, depletion of the water table, untimely filling of water bodies, increased incidence of pests and diseases, livestock diseases, and decreasing soil moisture as the critical factors affecting their cultivation, decrease yield and quality of crop produce. Some of them have started to adapt to these changes by soil conservation measures like the construction of graded bunds, mulching, green manuring and sorghum+pigeonpea intercropping, crop rotation, cultivating drought, pest and disease resistance short duration varieties, providing lifesaving irrigation to crops.

Effect of the extract of Thespesia populnea leaves on mice testis.

Male swiss mice were administered with the leaf extract of Thespesia populnea at a daily dose of 400 mg/kg body weight for 15 days and the testis were subjected to structural analysis. The structure of the seminiferous tubule in the testis of treated animal was elongated. Sertoli cells were enlarged in its structure and spermatids became round and disintegrated. It is suggested that the extract of T. populnea treatment leads to pathological changes in the seminiferous tubules, Sertoli cells and spermatids of the testis.

Psedohypoparathyroidism in newborn - a rare presentation.

A 7-day-old male baby was referred with history of persistent multifocal convulsions from second day of life. He was found to have hypocalcemia, hyperphosphatemia, normal serum magnesium and normal renal function tests. Serum parathormone was found to be elevated. Baby was diagnosed as case of pseudohypoparathyroidism and was treated with calcium supplementation and calcitriol. At 9 months he was asymptomatic on treatment, with normal serum calcium and phosphorus.