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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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Subject: Agricultural Biotechnology × Author: Shaheewala, Heena × End date: 2014 × Start date: 2014 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Genetic Diversity Assessment In Aromatic Rice Using Microsatellite Markers
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Shaheewala, Heena; Shahi, V. K.
    A study was conducted to examine the genetic diversity in eighteen entries, landraces and advanced breeding lines from aromatic rice germplasm in order to characterize them on the basis of simple sequence length polymorphism and to determine the nature and extent of differentiation and divergence among them using eighteen microsatellite based primer pairs. The materials were grown in petriplates for extraction of genomic DNA from the young seedlings and then targeted amplification of the genomic DNA using a panel of eighteen microsatellite based primer pairs covering six chromosomes in the genome of rice. All molecular studies were conducted in the Molecular Biology Laboratory at Pusa. The statistical methods and parameters used for deriving inference were polymorphism information content, similarity coefficient and numerical taxonomic analysis of divergence. The amplification was successfully achieved with all the microsatellite primers used in the present study. Appearance of bands at different positions on the gel revealed differential migration of amplified products due to differences in overall size of the products generated from targeted amplification of specific region of genome. The polymorphism among the varieties was recognized on the basis of presence or absence of bands, in addition to variation in respect of number and position of bands. Altogether 180 allelic variants were detected among the eighteen rice entries with an average of 7.2 alleles per locus. The number of alleles per locus ranged from six in the cases of RM 256 and RM 284 to nineteen in the case of RM 42. The primer pairs RM 42, RM 44, RM 223, RM 225, RM 252, RM 330 and RM 505 generated amplified products due to amplification of more than one locus. A total of 89 shared and 91 unique allelic variants were generated in the form of amplified products by polymerase chain reaction using eighteen primer pairs. The number of shared alleles per locus ranged from two out of eleven alleles in the case of RM 444 to nine out of thirteen alleles in RM 44. Similarly, the number of unique alleles per locus ranged from two out of five in the case of RM 16, two out of nine in RM 225, two out of six in RM 284 and two out of eight alleles in the case of RM 426 to fourteen out of nineteen alleles in the case of RM 42. The primer pairs RM 444, RM 42, RM 72, RM 80, RM 13, RM 330, RM 223, RM 505, RM 252 and RM 256 generated considerably greater percentage of unique alleles in descending order of magnitude. Among the primers tested, RM 42, RM 72, RM 80, RM 223, RM 252 and RM 444 appeared to be more informative primers. A direct relationship was observed between the repeat number involved in the microsatellite based simple sequence repeat locus and the number of identified alleles. In general, the larger the repeat number involved in the di-nucleotide microsatellite locus, the larger was the number of identified alleles. The microsatellite based SSR locus associated with RM 13, RM 80, RM 337, RM 339, RM 426, RM 444 and RM 505 exhibited null alleles ranging from one to three in the entries under evaluation. Occurrence of null alleles for a particular repeat locus was noticed reflecting failure of locus specific microsatellite based primer directed generation of amplified products. The primer pairs RM 42, RM 44, RM 223, RM 225, RM 252, RM 330 and RM 505 generated amplified products due to amplification of more than one locus. Appearance of more than one band in the same genotype was noticed revealing the existence of the duplicated region in the genome of rice. Considerably greater extent of variation existed at the molecular level with maximum similarity between Champaran basmati and Sanwal basmati among the aromatic rice entries under evaluation in the present study. The microsatellite primer based analysis revealed unique or variety specific allele which could be useful as DNA fingerprints in the identification and preservation of rice entries. The use of eighteen microsatellite markers in the analysis exhibited a remarkably higher level of genetic polymorphism, which allowed unique and unambiguous genotyping of eighteen aromatic rice genotypes included in the analysis.