Documentation of some wild edible plants of Yavatmal District, Maharashtra, India
Keywords:
Indus-Vedic, Banjara, Adivasi, Gond, GawaliAbstract
India is well known for its “Indus-Vedic” cultural heritage. The study of this civilization has been made by the help of biodiversity. The ancient people of India had very good and sufficient knowledge about the use of plants from the ancient time. The plants have been used as source of food, medicine, shelter, clothing’s, fiber, oil, gum, etc. The knowledge of consumption of fruit and their use is only limited to senior peoples of tribe. Yavatmal district has a large population of tibals like Banjara, Adivasi, Gond, Gawali, etc. Several wild plants are used as food by tribals and other local people living in and around the forest area of villages. The knowledge of using wild edible plants is very interesting. These plants play incrediable role in their life. So it is necessary to keep this knowledge of tribe alive. The present study deals exclusively with first hand information of 24 wild edible plant species belonging to 15 families. This work is helpful to explore the food habits of tribals of Yavatmal district, Maharashtra, India. Plants botanical name, family, common name along with their parts used is discussed in present paper.
Downloads
References
Ashworth A.J., Allen F.L., Tyler D.D., Pote D.H. & Shipitalo M.J. (2017). Earthworm populations are affected from long-term crop sequences and bio-covers under no-tallage, Pedobiologia, Journal of Soil Ecology, 60:27-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedobi.2017.01.001.
Awazi, N.P., Tsufac, A.R., Ambebe, T.F., Tsamo, C., Ngwabie, N.M., Enang, R.K. (2025). Agrochemical Use and Impacts on Soil Macro-Fauna and Soil Fertility in Cocoa-Based Agroforests in Cameroon. In: Agroforestry for a Sustainable Future. Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-08052-3_7.
Blouin, M., Hodson, M.E., Delgado, E.A., Baker, G., Brussaard, L., Butt, K.R., Dai, J., Dendooven, L., Peres, G., Tondoh, J.E., Cluzeau, D. and Brun, J.-.-J. (2013), A review of earthworm impact on soil function and ecosystem services, European Journal of Soil Science, 64: 161-182. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.12025.
Briones M.J.I., & Schmidt O. (2017). Conventional tillage decreases the abundance and biomass of earthworms and alters their community structure in a global meta-analysis. Glob Change Biol. 23: 4396–4419. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13744.
Borjesson, Gunnar, et al. "Seasonal dynamics of the soil microbial community: assimilation of old and young carbon sources in a long‐term field experiment as revealed by natural 13C abundance." European Journal of Soil Science, (67)1: 79-89. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.12309.
Chan K.Y. (2001). An overview of some tillage impacts on earthworm population abundance and diversity-implications for functioning in soils, Science Direct, ELSVEIR, 57(4):179-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-1987(00)00173-2.
Christoph E., Thorsten R., Varentta A., Willy W., Thomas U. (2021). Earthworm communities are supported by perennial bioenergy cropping systems, European Journal of Soil Bioligy, ELSVEIR, 105:103331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2021.103331.
Desie E, Van Meerbeek K, De Wandeler H, et al. (2020). Positive feedback loop between earthworms, humus form and soil pH reinforces earthworm abundance in European forests, Funcl Ecol., British Eco. Society, 2020; 34: 2598–2610. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13668.
Dupouey J. L., Dambrine E, Laffite J.D. & Moares C. (2002). Irreversible impact of past land use on forest soils and biodiversity, Ecology, 83:2978–2984. https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2002)083[2978:IIOPLU]2.0.CO;2.
Edwards C.A. & Lofty J.R. (1982). Nitrogenous fertilizers and earthworm populations in agricultural soils, Soil Biol. & Biochemistry, ELSEVEIR, 14(5):515-521. https://doi.org/10.1016/0038-0717(82)90112-2.
Ferlian, O., M. P. Thakur, A. Castañeda González, L. M. San Emeterio, S. Marr, B. da Silva Rocha, and N. Eisenhauer. (2020). Soil chemistry turned upside down: a meta-analysis of invasive earthworm effects on soil chemical properties, Ecology, 101(3):e02936. 10.1002/ecy.2936.
Fraser P.M., Williams P.H. & Haynes R.J. (1996). Earthworm species, population size and biomass under different cropping systems across the Canterbury Plains, New Zealand, Applied Soil Ecology, ELSEVEIR, 3(1):49-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/0929-1393(95)00062-3.
Francesca Tagliabue, Enrica Marini, Arianna De Bernardi, Costantino Vischetti, Gianluca Brunetti, Cristiano Casucci (2025). A Bioremediation and Soil Fertility Study: Effects of Verm remediation on Soil Contaminated by Chlorpyrifos, Environments, 12(5):136. 10.3390/environments12050136.
Kaur A., Aulakh R.K., &Rani N. (2024). Earthworm Diversity and Abundance in Various Cropping Systems under Conventional and Organic Farming, Environmental Science Archives, III (1):164-178. 10.5281/zenodo.11103687.
Lukas Pfiffner & Henryk Luka (2007). Earthworm populations in two low-input cereal farming systems, Applied Soil Ecology, ELSVEIR, 37(3):184-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2007.06.005.
Mitra, B. et al. (2021). Use of Agrochemicals in Agriculture: Alarming Issues and Solutions. In: Bhatt, R., Meena, R.S., Hossain, A. (eds) Input Use Efficiency for Food and Environmental Security. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5199-1_4.
Morten M., Till S., Ole S., Christian B., Rainer G.J. Christine W., & Mariam A. (2026). Earthworm abundance, biomass and species composition in mixed and stockless organic farming systems: evidence after a six-year crop rotation, Applied Soil Ecology, ELSVEIR, 224:107135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2026.107135.
Mueller, K. E., Eisenhauer, N., Reich, P. B., Hobbie, S. E., Chadwick, O. A., Chorover, J., Oleksyn, J. (2016). Light, earthworms, and soil resources as predictors of diversity of 10 soil invertebrate groups across monocultures of 14 tree species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 92:184–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2015.10.010.
Palm, C., Blanco-Canqui, H., DeClerck, F., Gatere, L., & Grace, P. (2014). Conservation agriculture and ecosystem services: An overview. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 187:87–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2013.10.010.
Pelosi, C., Bertrand, M. & Roger-Estrade, J. (2009). Earthworm community in conventional, organic and direct seeding with living mulch cropping systems. Agron. Sustain. Dev. (29): 287–295. https://doi.org/10.1051/agro/2008069.
Pooja Tiwari, Azhar Rashid Lone, Shweta Yadav (2026). Invasion of Alien Earthworms: Threat to the Native Diversity of Recipient Ecosystem, Biotechnology Innovations for a Sustainable Future, 909-926. 10.1007/978-981-97-9859-9_42.
Rothwell, A., Chaney, K., & Haydock, P. (2011). The Impact of Cultivation Techniques on Earthworm Populations. In: Karaca, A. (eds) Biology of Earthworms. Soil Biology, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg., 24:159-172. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14636-7_10.
Sahu C., Basti S., Pradhan R.P., Sahu S.K. (2016). Physicochemical properties of soil under different land use practices located near Bhawani Patna town in Odisha, India, International Journal of Envi. Sciences, 6(6):941-953.
Schwarz B., Dietrich C., Cesarz S., Scherer-Lorenzen M., Auge H., Schulz E., & Eisenhauer N. (2015). Non-significant tree diversity but significant identity effects on earthworm communities in three tree diversity experiments, European Journal of Soil Biology, 67, 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2015.01.001.
Schon NL., Fraser PM., & Mackay AD. (2021). Relationship between earthworm abundance, ecological diversity and soil functions in pastures. Soil Research 59, 767–777. https://doi.org/10.1071/SR20273.
Simone Cesarz, Nadine Fahrenholz, Sonja Migge-Kleian, Christian Platner, Matthias Schaefer (2007). Earthworm communities in relation to tree diversity in a deciduous forest, European Journal of Soil Biology, 43(1): S61-S67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2007.08.003.
Yvan Capowiez et al., (2009). The effect of tillage type and cropping system on earthworm communities, microporosity & water infiltration, Science Direct, ELSVEIR, 105(2):209-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2009.09.002.
Quesada, A., Sánchez‐Maeso, E., & Fernández‐Valiente, E. (1995). Seasonal variation of chemical properties of rice field soils from Valencia, Spain. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 26(1–2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00103629509369276.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Lachure PS, Dhore MM
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/
