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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: Ram, Jay Jay × End date: 2017 × Start date: 2017 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Divergence and association studies in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.)
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Ram, Jay Jay; Singh, U. K.
    In the present investigation thirty two sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) genotypes including two checks were evaluated to study genetic variability, genetic divergence, character association and path coefficient analysis. The experiment was laid out at Research Farm, Tirhut College of Agriculture, Dholi during spring 2015-16. Data were recorded on eleven quantitative characters. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters studied. On the basis of mean performance, the best performing genotypes were DRSF-113-2 for seed yield, oil yield, 100 seed weight, harvest index, head diameter and biological yield, the genotype GMU-456 for seed yield, oil yield and biological yield and the genotype IB-103 for seed yield, oil yield, 100 seed weight, harvest index, head diameter, biological yield, days to maturity, plant height and days to fifty per cent flowering over superior check. The traits like plant height, biological yield, head diameter, harvest index, 100 seed weight, oil yield and seed yield had showed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean. Hence, direct selection can be done through these characters for future improvement of genotypes for higher yield. Correlation studies indicated that oil yield, oil content, 100 seed weight, harvest index, head diameter, biological yield, days to maturity plant height, days to fifty per cent flowering showed significant positive association with seed yield per plant at phenotypic and genotypic level. Hence, selection of these characters would bring in simultaneous improvement of other characters and also finally improvement in seed yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed that oil yield, volume weight, 100 seed weight, head diameter, biological yield had positive direct effect on seed yield per plant. Hence, selection based on these characters would be more effective for yield improvement. The thirty two genotypes of sunflower were grouped into six cluster using Tocher method. The genotypes in cluster III and cluster IV, due to maximum inter cluster distance between them, exhibited high degree of genetic diversity and thus may be utilized under inter varietal hybridization programme (transgressive breeding) for getting high yielding recombinants. Similar inter varietal crosses may be attempted in cluster V and cluster VI and cluster III and cluster V. On the basis of cluster mean values, the genotypes present in cluster VI was found early in terms of days to fifty per cent flowering and having highest volume weight and oil content. Genotypes present in cluster V have maximum harvest index and 100 seed weight. Genotypes which are present in cluster III may be selected for minimum plant height and maximum biological yield while the genotypes present in cluster II was suitable for early in days to maturity. Based on cluster mean values for a given characters we can select highly divergent genotypes from the respective clusters and can be used in hybridization work.