Thumbnail Image

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.

Browse

20212
Reset filters
Subject: Agricultural Biotechnology × End date: 2021 × Start date: 2021 × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
Reset filters

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Micropropagation and Molecular Characterization of two medicinal weeds Solanum indicum and Solanum torvum
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2021) RANI, SWATI; SHARMA, V. K.
    In the current study, two medicinally important indigenous weeds, namely, S. indicum and S. torvum were selected to develop a micropropagation technique for their in vitro multiplication, as well as, their morphological and molecular characterization in order to assess the nature of difference within and between the plant species. During the standardization of tissue culture technique, three explants viz. shoot apex, nodal stem, and leaf of both the plant species were cultured on 34 MS basal media enriched with supplementation of different combinations and concentrations of phytohormones like IAA, KIN, BAP, NAA, and IBA. Morphological characterization was based on observations recorded for both the species by selecting five plants randomly from three different locations viz. Sonepur, Muzaffarpur and Pusa each. Altogether 33 morphological characters including 17 qualitative and 16 quantitative characters were investigated to record variation between the plants at their full foliage stage. Further, 16 ISSR primers were used for molecular characterization by amplification of genomic templates isolated from leaf samples of morphologically distinct plants of both the species collected from each location. Results revealed that in vitro responses were significantly (P<0.05) affected by phytohormone concentration, explants, and plant type. All the three responses, elongation, swelling and callusing showed the highest frequency on medium having composition 3 mg/l IAA and 5mg/l BAP. Explant leaf of S. torvum showed best swelling and callusing. Best elongation frequency was observed in shoot apex of S. indicum. Highest frequency of multiple shoot formation was recorded on the medium having composition 3 mg/l KIN and 2mg/l BAP by shoot apex of S. indicum. The highest frequency of root formation was observed on MS medium having 1.5mg/l IBA for S. indicum. The regenerated plants with well-developed roots were transferred to polycups filled with sterilized sand and farm yard manure in 1:1 ratio for hardening and acclimatization. Morphological characterization indicated that the amount of variations in qualitative morphological characters within the species was negligible, whereas in case of quantitative morphological characters, appreciable amount of variation was observed within and between the plant species. Correlation coefficient values computed for the pairwise combinations of sixteen quantitative characters ranged from -0.999 to 0.999. Most of the characters were found to be significantly correlated. The dissimilarity coefficients between different pair-wise combinations of each of the three populations of S. indicum and S. torvum ranged from 0.310 to 1.966. Based on dissimilarity coefficients measured in terms of taxonomic distance, three populations of each of S. indicum and S. torvum were organized into two principal clusters by using UPGMA. The results of the principal component analysis completely supported the results obtained from the dissimilarity coefficients-based hierarchical cluster analysis. Amplified product size obtained using ISSR markers ranged from 255-1383 with a total of 40 unique alleles. Polymorphism per cent ranged from 10 to 44.44% and PIC value ranged from 0.788 to 0.954. Among 16 ISSR primers, UBC 815 was best to detect genetic variation. The values of similarity coefficient ranged from 0.1429 to 0.9136. On the basis of similarity coefficients, dendrogram was created using UPGMA that resulted into formation of two major clusters. Cluster A and B contained all the plants of S. indicum and S. torvum from all the three locations, respectively. Principal coordinate analysis supported the findings of cluster analysis, revealing two groups comprising of same entries in two dimensional ordinations.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Assessment of spot blotch resistance in wheat genotypes through tissue culture and molecular marker
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2021) Deepti; Sharma, Vinay Kumar
    An investigation was conducted to determine the percentage of formation of callus and regeneration of callus in selected twelve genotypes of wheat, namely, PBW-343, Chiriya-3, Sonalika, HD- 2967, Agra- local, yangmai#6, K-307, UP-2565, HD-3086, HD-2733, Salembo and Cuo/79/Prulla by using mature embryo. The best media for callogenesis was WM11[MS + 2,4-D (4.0 mgl-1) + NAA (2 mgl-1)] with remarkably higher frequency obtained (90.78%) and the best media WM34 [MS + 2,4-D (0.1 mgl-1) + Zeatin (5.0 mgl-1) +CuSO4 (12 mg)] resulted in 93.43% caulogenesis, whereas 90.65% was noted in the medium WM36 [MS + IBA (0.5 mgl-1)] for rhizogenesis. The in-vitro screening was performed and assayed by using culture filtrate of Bipolaris sorokiniana as a fungal toxin in the media selected for callogenesis and regeneration to facilitate precise evaluation for presence or absence of spot blotch or infection in wheat genotypes and to derive inference about their susceptibleness or resistance. The susceptible genotype Agra local showed maximum necrosis of the callus because of effect of toxin in medium supplemented with MS+2,4-D (4.0 mgl-1) + NAA (2 mgl-1) along with B. sorokiniana toxin, whereas the resistant genotype Yangmai#6 showed least area affected by the toxin as observed in the case of controlled medium supplemented with toxin. The utilization of twenty-two SSR and ten STS microsatellite markers known to be associated with resistance to spot blotch during amplification profiling of thirty-six genotypes of wheat under evaluation in the present investigation resulted in highly effective categorization of these genotypes having resistant, moderately resistant and susceptible response. Hierarchical cluster analysis using Sequence Tagged Sites specific primers exhibited a very high efficiency (91.7%) in discriminating the susceptible genotypes from resistant and moderately resistant genotypes. However, principal coordinate analysis exhibited clearly recognizable spatial distance between the susceptible and resistant genotypes, which were basically classified into two groups. Hierarchical clustering and spatial distribution pattern based on the amplification profile generated by utilization of Simple Sequence Repeats specific markers univocally discriminated the susceptible genotypes from moderately resistant and resistant genotypes. The entries were broadly classified into three groups. A combination of SSR and STS markers unambiguously differentiated the susceptible genotypes from moderately tolerant and highly tolerant genotypes. Principal coordinate analysis based spatial distribution pattern of the genotypes as well as radial tree diagram and factorial analysis completely corroborated the results obtained from dendrogram and the genotypes were found to be clustered into three groups in all the cases. The inference derived from the results of genetic structure analysis revealed that the genetic compositions with respect to the targeted genomic regions of the genotypes are basically the admixtures of different combinations of three ancestral components. Experimental results provided the evidences to infer that ample differentiation and divergence were revealed amongst the genotypes by utilization of spot blotch resistance related molecular markers.