Review of the book : Water Mimosa for sustainable development in south east Asia

BN Pande *

I have critically gone through the book entitled “Water Mimosa for Sustainable Development In Eastern South and South East Asia”: Authored By: Professor Dr NI Singh and Romesh Sagolshemcha Detailed review as under:

Section -1: The present book entitled “Water Mimosa for Sustainable Development in Eastern South and South East Asia” N2 Fixation by root Nodule bacteria of Neptunia & its cultivation, Pest Management; Health Benefits & Income generation is the outcome of above noted research scheme and the PhD. thesis of the junior author.

The plant grows wild and is cultivated as a vegetable throughout South East Asia particularly in Indo China and Thailand.

Latest information on Water Mimosa for sustainable Development of Eastern South and South East Asia were incorporated from research papers like –
1) Inter cropping of Rice and Water Mimosa can fix and transfer N2 to Rice By: Z Hei et al. in 2022.
2) Improve Yield and grain quality while reducing N fertilizer Application by: : Z Hei et al. in 2022.
3) Rice Intercropping with Water Mimosa (Neptunia oleracia. Lour) can facilitate Soil N utilization and alleviate Apparent N lossby ( Z Hei and H Xiang, et al 2021.)
4) Mix Cropping of Rice and Water Mimosa (Neptunia oleracia. Laur.) Increases photosynthesis efficiency, yield, grain quality and soil availability nutrients.

This is despite creating income and employment for a significant number of Peri-urban households, in many cases recycling and treating urban waste water, while also producing a green and nutrition. Food stuff which is consumed on daily basis by millions of urban dwellers in the cities of that area.

For the benefits of health of Water Mimosa authors have included latest work carried out by various researchers like as is mentioned in Chapter 4-1: Isolation of the Phenolic 2 Compounds from Neptunia olaracea followed by their bioactivity evaluations and quantitative analysis. For economic benefits and uses of Water Mimosa authors reviewed using voluminous current literature.

Senior author along with his Jr. Researcher undertook a detailed survey of the Eastern South Asia, including North east India Southeast Asia along with the geography, climate persistence and occurrence of Water Mimosa.

Most of Southeast Asia have climate being Tropical - hot and humid all the year round with heavy rainfall. Majority of Southeast Asia has a wet and dry season caused by seasonal shifts in winds or monsoon season. Neptunia prostrate (Lam) Baill. Common name Water Mimosa of the family Legu-minoceae is an aquatic, perennial herb with long floating stem which grows actively during rainy season.

Root nodule symbiotic association was studied and analyzed in detail by authors. The nodules were isolated, identified and its effects on water mimosa plant were evaluated.

The effects of different concentrations of chemical and organic source N source on the symbiotic association between Rhizobium legumi- nosarum MTTC 10096 –Neptunia prostrata (Lam) Bail, plant biomass production, Nitrogen accumu- lation, etc., were investigated by the authors .

The optimum chemical fertilizer and organic manure doses for sustainable production of Neptunia prostrata were determined. Insect pests and fungal pathogens of Nep-tunia prostrata were isolated and identified. Integrated pest management methods for the pathogenic fungi associated with Neptunia prostrata was devised with aqueous extract of certain phyto extract and certain chemical fungicides.

Authors gave in brief the outcome of their work which is as follows: Preservation and propagation methods through stem cutting and through seed were practiced for mass production of plantlets for long term measure. Preservation through seed was preferred.

Section -2: Covers N2 fixation by root nodule Bacteria of Water Mimosa and its Root Nodule Symbiosis. Potential Strain of Nitrogen Fixing bacteria found in Water Mimosa for possible Atmosphere N2 Fixation, besides Influence of urea and farmyard manure compost as N source on symbiotic association between Rhizobium and Water Mimosa.

Section -3: envisages cultivation of Water Mimosa and its Paste Management: Authors proposed conventional method for Water Mimosa cultivation with valuation and Improvement using certain Biotechnological aspects i.e. Perpetuation of Water

Mimosa and cultivation methods like:1. A bundle of young healthy i.e.2to 3 plantlets Water Mimosa transmitted into the soil around 2 m away from each other. The soil attached to the bottom part was pressed down to prevent uprooting. Water was then pumped in to the field to a depth of 20 – 3o m allowing top portion of stems to float on the water surface as in Plate- VII.

2. In parallel way the seedlings were fixed which were set up as transplanting rows.These rows were located at a suitable height to the water surface in order to keep the stem of the plant remains floating (Plate –VII).

3. The seedling plants of Water Mimosa were then transplanted using a raft made of Bamboo poles having an height of at least 2-5 meter length and space between two poles in a row should be 1 to 1.5 m (Plate- VII) .

As shown in Table 3.1 and 3.2 application and Management of chemical fertilizers increase in the application of high concentration of fertilizer resulted decrease in plant growth and plant biomass production, whereas increase of farmyard compost application slight increase in growth. In general, farmyard compost showed encouraging results than chemical in terms of yield performance of Water Mimosa.

The insect paste of Neptunia prostrata (Lam) Bill. Viz., Spodoptera litura, Eurema hecabe etc. were identified by the authors during this investigation. Two fungal pathogens of Water Mimosa like Fusa-rium oxysporum and Alter- naria alternata were isolated. Biological control of fungal diseases of Nep-tunia prostrate were evaluated by using phyto extracts of nine medicinal plants that exhibited varied inhibition rates on the fungal pathogen.

The highest percentage of growth inhibition rate of Fusarium oxysporum var. aurantianum was observed by authors from the phyto extracts of Allium tuberosum followed by Tamarindus indica and Vitex trifoloia respectively.

Allium tuberosum showed maximum anti-fungal activityagainst Alte- rnaria alternata followed by Zingiber officiale and Tamarindus indica respectively. Authors have worked on the aspect like Carben-dazim 50%W.P exhibited even at the lowest concen-tration the best result against Fusarium oxis-porium showing 100% growth inhibition. By making use of Mancozeb 75% W.P. at 0.1% concentration exhibited 100% growth inhibition.

Section 4: Authors covered “Health Benefits of Water Mimosa under this section. Authors isolated Phenolic compounds from Water Mimosa by employing column chromatography and Thin Layer Chromatography.

The comprehensive findings from this study were reported by the authors are: It is a source of Herbal medicine of ethno pharmacological importance like: Gastritis and Medicine, Constipation, Hepatoprotective activity.

Analgesic activity, Antmicrobial activity, Cultural significance etc. Section 5: Authors have included in this section – Income generation by the cultivation of Water Mimosa. In this chapter, applied CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis).

CBA for Water Mimosa verses Paddy cultivation and stated that National and International importance of criteria for including to the RAMSAR convention by the Indian Government. CBA for paddy cultivation (Area 0.46 acre)

The Cost Benefit Analysis of Water Mimosa cultivation with paddy cultivation in the same acre revealed that more income could be generated from Water Mimosa cultivation than paddy cultivation. Authors have suggested that the farmers could start Water Mimosa cultivation in their unused cultivable lands in order to generate sustainable income.

Section 6: Senior author categorically devoted this section VI for Water Mimosa –Past and Present.

Of NGO’s marginal and program farmers of the target areas in all 219 volunteers got training on the technology for mass propogation of Water Mimosa as vegetables for sustainable income genera-tion by the weaker section of Ithai Barrage flood prone area in Manipur (India). Four Training cum Demonstration programs were conducted for the representative.