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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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    Comparative Studies of Physio- Biochemical Traits and CAMTA Gene Expressions in Contrasting Genotypes of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Under Fusarium wilt STRESS
    (DRPCAU, PUSA, 2022) R.A, SUDHAN; BHUTIA, K. L.
    Chickpea is an important pulse crop and has high water use efficiency and largely grown as rain-fed on residual soil moisture. Chickpea has high protein content and it is a nutrient dense food with high vitamin and mineral content. Multiple abiotic tolerance and disease resistance factors were found to be associated with the Calmodulin-binding transcription activators (CAMTAs). The essential role of Cicer arietinum CAMTA (CaCAMTA) gene composition in the genome and their mechanism in resistance against the Fusarium wilt infection is not explored. The present study was conducted with contrasting genotypes of chickpea to assess the expression of phyiso-biochemical traits and CaCAMTA genes under Fusarium wilt stress. The comparative analysis of physio-biochemical traits showed differential expression of traits like chlorophyll, carotenoid, protein and phenol content in contrasting genotypes of chickpea under Fusarium wilt stress as compare to control plants. Similarly, the activities of antioxidant enzyme such as Guaiacol peroxidase, Catalase, Sodium dismutase and Ascorbate peroxidase were also found to be significantly varied among control and Fusarium infected plants. Likewise, for physiological traits such as relative water content, membrane stability index and root density, the six contrasting genotypes showed significant differences between control and Fusarium wilt treated plants. Similarly, out of seven CaCAMTA genes, three genes i.e., CaCAMTA-1.1, CaCAMTA-6.1, CaCAMTA-6.2 showed significant differential expression under Fusarium wilt stress as revealed by Real time PCR approach. When compared to RNA sequencing data, apart from these three CaCAMTA genes, three other CaCAMTA genes were found to be differentially expressed in KWR 108 (Resistant) and GL 13001 (Susceptible). Several proteins interacting with proteins encoded by CaCAMTA genes were identified among which, genes encoding 10 interacting proteins were found to be differentially expressed under Fusarium wilt stress along with CaCAMTA genes. Further, in silico survey revealed four proteins interacting with CAMTA proteins such as XP_004506228 (Enhanced Disease Susceptibility-1), XP_004494535 (Calmodulin binding, stress response protein), XP_004497845 (Myb-related protein Myb4-like), and XP_00459656 (Homeoboxleucine zipper protein ATHB-12-like) were reported of having important role in stress response mechanisms. Therefore, after comparative analysis of contrasting genotypes under Fusarium wilt stress, it can be concluded that different genotypes of chickpea have different approach of coping up against the wilt stress and after analysing at the expression profile of CaCAMTA genes and its interacting protein coding genes under Fusarium wilt stress, it can be concluded that some members of CaCAMTA gene family could be involved in imparting resistance against Fusarium wilt in chickpea. Therefore, these CaCAMTA genes may be targeted to design the markers for marker trait association studies in order to find its link to disease resistant through associated traits.