Ratikanta Maiti, PhD, DSc, was a world-renowned botanist and crop physiologist. A professor in Mexico for over 25 years, he was author of over 40 books and about 500 research papers and held many roles at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Vibha Seeds Hyderabad, Jute Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR), and others. Narayan Chandra Sarkar, PhD, is a faculty member in the Department of Agronomy at the Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati University, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India. Currently, he is engaged with Western Sydney University under the Australia India Council funded research projects. He has published 28 research papers in national and international journals and has six books in his credit. Humberto González Rodríguez, PhD, is a faculty member at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales (School of Forest Sciences), Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He is currently working on water relations and plant nutrition in native woody trees and shrubs, northeastern Mexico. In addition, his research includes nutrient deposition via litterfall in different forest ecosystems. Ch. Aruna Kumari, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop Physiology at Agricultural College, Jagtial, Professor Jaya Shankar Telangana State Agricultural University, India. She has teaching experience as well as research experience at varied ICAR institutes and at Vibha Seeds. She is editor of several books and the author of book chapters in four books. She has also published over 50 research articles in national and international journals. Sameena Begum is an Assistant Professor at the Agricultural College of the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, India. Her research has been focused on combining ability, gall midge resistance, and yield and quality traits in hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L.), and she identified two highly resistant hybrids. Dasari Rajkumar is a rice breeder at Neo Seeds India Private Limited, Hyderabad, India. He has several publications to his credit, including two books and several research papers in peer-reviewed national and international journals. Currently he is working on various aspects of abiotic stress tolerance such as drought, salinity, heat on field crops (cotton, rice, maize, sunflower), and vegetable crops (tomato, chili, okra).
