Dairy cattle need balanced rations containing all nutrients in proportional amounts and food additives which contain minerals, vitamins, antibiotics and hormones to promote the growth of animals, good yield of milk and to protect from diseases. The daily average of feed ratio of a milking cow is
i) 15 - 25 kg of Roughage - dry grass and wheat fodder
ii) 4 - 5 kg of grain mixture
iii) 100 - 150 litres of water.
Concentrates are the feed of Dairy cattle which are low in fibre, and contain ghigh level of carbohydrates, proteins and other nutrients.
It is fed at the time of milking. This helps in 'Let down' of milk. For a cow that gives above 2.5 kg milk yield per day, 1kg of concentrate feed should be given for every additional milk yield.

Biologically degradable organic wastes are used as potential organic resources for vermicomposting.
1. Agricultural waste such as crop residue, vegetable waste, sugarcane trash.
2. Crop residues such as rice straw, tea wastes, cereal and pulse residues rice husk, tobacco wastes, coir wastes.
3. Leaf litter
4. Fruit and vegetable wastes.
5. Animal wastes - cattle dung, poultry droppings, pig slurry, goat and sheep dropping.
6. Biogas slurry.

Mushroom cultivation is a technology of growing mushrooms using a plant, animal and industrial waste. It is wealth out of waste technology.
Mushroom cultivation involves the following steps:
i) Composting:
Compost is prepared by mixing paddy straw with number of organic materials like cowdung and inorganic fertilizers. It is kept at about 50°C for one week.
ii) Spawning:
Spawn is the mushroom seed. It is prepared by growing fungal mycelium in grains under sterile conditions. Spawn is sown on compost.
iii) Casting:
Compost is covered with a thin layer of soil. It gives support to the mushroom, provides humidity and helps regulate the temperature.
iv) Pinning:
Mycelium starts to form a little bud, which will develop into mushroom. Those little white buds are called pins.
v) Harvesting:
Mushroom grow better in 15°C - 23°C. They grow 3cm in a-week which is the 'normal size for harvesting. In the third week the first flush mushroom can be harvested.
Freezing, drying and canning are some of the methods of preservation of mushrooms.

Biofertilizers are substances that contain living micro organisms which, when applied to
seeds, plant surfaces or soil, colonize the rhizosphere or the lnterior of the plant and promote growth by increasing the supply or availability or primary nutrients to the host plant.
Example:
Rhyzobium:
It is a soil bacterium that colonize the roots of leguminous plants to form root nodules. The bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert them to ammonia.
Advantages of biofertilizers aver other Fertilizers:
1. In addition to releasing nutrients biofertilizers improve the structure and texture of the soil and increases the ability to hold water and nutrients, overtime, the soil and plants become healthy and strong.
2. Since it is technically living, it can symbiotically associate with plant roots involved micro organisms could readily and safely convert complex organic material into simple compounds, so that they are easily taken up plants.
3. Micro organism function is in long duration causing improvement of the soil fertility. It maintains the natural habitat of the soil.
4. It increase crop yield by 20 - 30% replaces chemical nitrogen and phosphorous by 30% and stimulates plant growth.
5. It can also provide protection against drought and soil borne diseases.

1. Most of the medicines are obtained either directly or indirectly from plants .
2. All the major systems of medicines such as Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy use drugs obtained from plants and animals .
3. The drugs obtained from plants are called secondary metabolites .
4. Plants produce secondary metabolites for protection, competition and species interaction, (eg) Alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids etc.,
5. Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemical substances derived from the various parts of the plant.
Example:
1. The drug Anthraquinones is derived from the leaves of katralai plant.
2. Quinine. is obtained from the barks of cinjoria maram .
3. Terpenoids is obtained from all parts of Nilavembu.