Dry land plays an important role in India's food security. Sixty eight per cent of the cultivated area in Indian agriculture comes under dry land, which contributes about 44 per cent of the total food production.  Dry land horticulture not only provides higher income to the farmers, but also provides constant returns and livelihood security to the rural peoples. The dry land farming in India is looking for new possibility because the traditional crops are inadequate to meet the new situations. By selecting the right crop and the latest improved varieties, recent production technologies, dry lands can grow more food. There is a much scope of spreading out of horticultural crops in dry land areas and it has immense potential for changing scenario of horticulture of the country. Vast land resource, surplus family labors, availability of canal irrigation water, plenty of solar and wind energy, etc. are the strength in the region for promote horticultural crops. Further, low incidence of diseases/insects in the region provides good scope for production of quality produce. 

There is hardy available any edited/text book which covers scientific cultivation and management of dry land horticultural crops. The present edited book is outcomes of the lectures contributed by the resource persons of most prestigious ICAR sponsored winter school on “Hi-tech approaches for production and value addition of horticultural crops in arid and semi arid regions” organized at Directorate of Human Resources Development,  SKRAU,  Bikaner. The book covers topics viz., status and scope of dry land, effective soil management, optimization of nutrients management, raising of quality planting materials, cultivation practices of ber, aonla, pomegranate, date palm, guava, mandarin, bael, jamun, custad apple, ramphal,  phalsa,  lasoda, wood apple,  kair,  pilu,  karonda, aloe vera, opuntia and tuber crops, insect, pest and diseases management, post harvest and value addition of dry land fruits.