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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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20211
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Subject: Genetics and Plant Breeding × Author: BANSHIDHAR × End date: 2021 × Start date: 2021 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    VALIDATION OF SSR MARKERS ASSOCIATED WITH RESISTANCE TO BROWN SPOT DISEASE IN RICE
    (Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) BANSHIDHAR; KUMAR, RAJESH
    Rice is cultivated in a wide range of agro-climatic and agro-ecological areas under dry to semi dry conditions and/or wet conditions. On account of its extensive cultivation it is adversely affected by a number of insect-pest and diseases. Among, these brown spot of rice caused by Cochliobolus miyabeanus is a disease of economic significance in the locale of study since it is the hotspot for the disease.The pathogen infects the crop on almost all above ground parts, from nursury to maturity stages and form small dark brown to purplish-brown spots on leaves that later enlarge into oval lesions with brown necrotic centers that are frequently surrounded by chlorotic halo. These spots appear even on seeds resulting in significant economic losses both in grain quality and yield. An immediate and judicious solution to these problem lies in breeding of high yielding resistant cultivars that could be strategically employed for disease management. Keeping this in view the present investigation entitled “Validation of SSR markers associated with resistance to brown spot disease in rice’’ was undertaken to phenotypically screen 300 genotypes of rice along with three checks for two consecutive season in Kharif 2019 and 2020 in controlled condition (glasshouse of department of Plant Pathology) as well as in field (Rice research farm, RPCAU, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar) to identify resistant sources that could be either utilised directly as a resistant variety or as a parent in hybridisation programme to develop resistant varieties. These genotypes were also evaluated for eight morphological traits related with yield in Kharif 2019 and 2020 in field in augmented design to detect an association between disease resistance and morphological traits under study. Further, 15 most resistant and 15 most susceptible genotypes selected on the basis of AUDPC values were subjected to molecular characteristaion to support the phenotypic screening through genotypic evaluation using 18 SSR markers linked with brown spot disease in rice. The findings of molecular characterization were analysed for validation of these SSR markers in the selected population and to identify a significant marker trait association for the validated linked SSR markers. On the basis of phenotypic screening 18 genotypes were categorised as resistant, 90 genotypes were categorised as moderately resistant, 149 genotypes were categorised as moderately susceptible and 46 genotypes were categorised as susceptible. The mean values for various disease estimating parameters and morphological traits were utilized in various statistical analysis to derive all other complex statistics viz. standard deviation, coefficient of variation, genetic advance as percentage of mean, etc. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among all genotypes for all the traits. This indicates that there is ample scope for selection of promising lines from the present gene pool for yield and disease resistance. The phenotypic coefficient of variation was slightly greater than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all traits under study which reveals lower influence of environment on inherent potential of a trait and higher genetic inherent potential which is a prerequisite in any crop improvement programme. High estimates of heritability in broad sense and genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for each trait under study which inferred that selection for these traits promises improvement in desired direction of selection. From the association studies, it was observed that days to 50% flowering, days to physiological maturity and plant height had positive correlation with AUDPC while negative correlation with yield per plant. In contrary to this, panicle length, number of effective tillers per plant, number of grains per panicle and test weight had negative correlation with AUDPC while positive correlation with yield per plant. Number of grains per panicle, number of effective tillers per plant and test weight showed high direct positive effect on grain yield while days to physiological maturity showed the high direct negative effect on yield. Molecular characterization of selected genotypes showed that the amplified product of resistant genotypes with most of the primer pair were in accordance to the expected band size for a primer pair as per Gramene data base for SSR markers. Total of 6 primer pairs out of 18 primer pairs included in the study were validated and showed moderate to highly significant marker trait association. Thus, these markers could be used to differentiate the resistant lines from the susceptible one and could be used for marker assisted selection of brown spot resistance lines. The conclusive findings of present investigation pave the way for high ends breeding programmes aimed at long lasting field resistance against brown spot pathogen. The genotypes which were reported to be resistant can be used as donor in various resistance breeding programmes. Findings from the molecular characterisation and validation of primer pairs will precisely guide the further research activities in selection of markers for brown spot resistance genotyping. In a nutshell, the reported findings from present investigation will be quite helpful for students, breeders, farmers and others who are in academic and research activities as a good source of information in selecting improved genotypes for various breeding programmes.