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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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20171
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Subject: Genetics and Plant Breeding × Author: Kumar, Santosh × End date: 2018 × Start date: 2010 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Heterosis and combining ability study in rice genotypes under drought condition
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Kumar, Santosh; Singh, N. K.
    Realizing the potential of hybrid rice to increase productivity, the present study entitled “Heterosis and Combining Ability study in rice genotypes under drought condition” was carried to generate information regarding combining ability, gene action, heterosis for yield and yield attributing traits. The experimental material comprised of a half diallel cross, excluding reciprocals. 45 single crosses were generated in Kharif 2015 by intermating the ten parents in all possible combinations excluding reciprocals. All the crosses and parents including check (Sahbhagi dhan) were evaluated for various agronomic traits at the Experimental Farm of DRPCAU, PUSA during Kharif, 2016. The experimental design used was randomized complete block design with three replications. The observations were recorded on 15 morpho-agronomical traits viz. days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, chlorophyll content, tillers per plant, leaf rolling at vegetative stage, leaf drying at vegetative stage, relative water content, panicle length, recovery per cent after stress, root length, root volume, grains per panicle, 1000- grain weight, harvest index and grain yield per plant. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters studied. The variance due to GCA and SCA was found significant for all the traits revealing that both additive and non-additive gene effects were important in the inheritance of these traits. The estimate of dominance variance (σˆ2D) was higher than their corresponding additive genetic variance (σˆ2A ) for most of the traits, However, both additive and non-additive genetic components were found equally important. None of the parents showed significant GCA effects in the desired direction simultaneously for all the traits studied. However, based on significant positive GCA effects for grain yield and components traits analysis RAU1421-12-1-7-3, IR87707-182-B-B-B and Sahbhagi dhan were found most promising. For grain yield per plant, fifteen hybrid combinations had positive significant SCA effects. All these cross combinations were observed to have significant SCA effects for most of yield component traits. For grain yield per plant five promising crosses namely Vandana X Richharia, RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4 X Dhanlaxmi, RAU 1451-66-1-1-5-1 X Vandana, IR87707-182-B-B-B X Dhanlaxmi and RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4 X IR87707-182-B-B-B under drought condition involved predominantly poor x average, poor x poor, good x poor and good average combiners. Correspondence between SCA effects and per se performance was recorded for most of the traits. Average degree of dominance was in over dominance range for most of the characters. The estimate of heritability (narrow sense) was recorded low in this experiment. Significant and desirable heterotic effects were observed for most of the characters studied. Maximum standard heterosis for grain yield Per Plant was registered by IR87707-182-B-B-B X Sahbhagi dhan fallowed by RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4 X IR87707-182-B-B-B, IR 64 X Sahbhagi dhan and RAU 1421-12-1-7-3 X Sahbhagi dhan. Frequency of heterotic crosses and magnitude of heterosis for yield and its components were found to be higher in crosses between the parent with intermediate genetic distance than the extreme ones. The reason for this could have been linkage of alleles for biomass and yield. On the basis of mean performance, SCA effect and heterosis estimates, the cross combination namely, RAU 1451-66-1-1-5-1 X RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4, RAU 1451-66-1-1-5-1 X Vandana, RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4 X IR87707-182-B-B-B, RAU-1415-35-76-9-5-3-4 X Dhanlaxmi, RAU 1421-12-1-7-3 X Sahbhagi dhan, IR87707-182-B-B-B X Richharia and IR87707-182-B-B-B X Sahbhagi dhan were found suitable for higher grain yield.