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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: Entomology × Author: T, Sathya × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2019 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Relative abundance of Honey Bees and effect of bee pollination on Onion
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur (Bihar), 2019) T, Sathya; Kumar, Neeraj
    The present studies on “Relative Abundance of Honey Bees and Effect of bee pollination on onion” were carried out during the year 2018-19 at University Apiary, RPCAU, Pusa. Objectives of this investigation were to study the relative abundance of insect pollinators on onion, foraging behavior of Apis mellifera on onion, quantitative evaluation of nectar sugar concentration of onion and effect of Apis mellifera pollination on onion seed yield. The results indicated that the total sixteen insect species visited onion flowers, viz. 11 hymenopterans, 3 dipterans and 2 lepidopterans. Among these Apis mellifera, Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Xylocopa sp., Eristalis sp., Polistes sp., were found to be most frequent pollinators. The relative abundance (no. of insect/m2/10 minutes) revealed that Apis mellifera (14.02) was most dominant species followed by Apis dorsata (11.16), Apis florea (8.71), Eristalis sp. (4.11), lepidopterans (3.56) Xylocopa fenestrata (3.0), Polistes sp. (2.39) and Halictus sp. (2.11). Irrespective of species, the population was maximum (10.3/m2/10 minute) at 1300 h of the day. The coefficient of correlation between mean population of pollinators species and temperature was found positive and significant while negative correlation was found with relative humidity indicating that temperature plays an important role on activity of insect pollinators. The result on foraging behavior of Apis mellifera revealed that they started visiting onion flowers in early morning and ceased their activity later in the evening. It remained active throughout the flowering period. The foraging rate of Apis mellifera was minimum in afternoon (11.6 flowers/min) and maximum during evening (24.3 flowers/min) and its foraging speed was maximum in afternoon (12.1 sec) and minimum in evening (6.5 sec) and there was inverse relation between foraging rate and speed. The heaviest pollen load was carried by the Apis mellifera in afternoon which indicated that more pollen were collected by Apis mellifera during afternoon from onion flowers. The maximum nectar sugar concentration per flower of onion was at 1300 h (14.14%) and the minimum was at 0700 h (8.8%). The coefficient of correlation between mean nectar sugar concentration and temperature was found positive and significant while negative correlation was found with relative humidity indicating that temperature and relative humidity plays an important role in nectar sugar concentration in onion flower. The seed yield of onion increased significantly by Apis mellifera pollination. The highest number of pod set was recorded in OP (321.9), followed by BP (302.9), XP (283.4) while lowest pod set was recorded in PE (80.1). The number of seed/umbel was recorded 806.4, 755.6, 633.4 and 236.0 in OP, BP, XP, PE, respectively. The number of seed/plant was recorded 2131.3, 1971.1, 1570.1 and 506.4 in OP, BP, XP, PE, respectively. Test weight of onion seeds were 4.2 g, 4.1 g, 4.1 g, and 4.0 g in OP, BP, and XP, PE, respectively. The maximum seed yield/plant was found in OP (8.8 g) plant followed by BP (8.5 g) and XP (6.8 g). The minimum seed weight/plant was obtained in PE (2.2 g). The maximum seed yield in onion was obtained in OP (7.8 q/ha) and minimum yield was obtained in PE (2.0 q/ha), while in BP, XP was 7.3 q/ha and 5.9 q/ha, respectively. Maximum germination percentage in onion was recorded in BP (87%) followed by XP (85%), OP (84.6%). The minimum germination percentage was recorded in Pollinator Exclusion treatment (83.1 %). The yield increase over Pollinator Exclusion was highest in open pollination (290%) followed by 265%, 195% in BP, XP, respectively. The result depicts that insect pollinators provide an important pollination service to the onion seed production. Among different insect pollinators, Apis mellifera was found most efficient pollinator of onion. Utilization of Apis mellifera bee colonies for seed production in onion will be highly remunerative as due to pollination, higher quantity of quality seed is produced.