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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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1992 - 199912010 - 20201
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Subject: Horticulture × Author: Kumar, Ajay ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Studies on divergence of vegetative and fruiting attributes of different longan genotypes (Dimocarpus longan Lour)
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Kumar, Ajay; Gupta, A.K.
    An experiment was conducted at ICAR-National Research Centre on Litchi, Muzaffarpur (Bihar) during the year of 2019-20 to evaluate the twenty genotypes of longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour) in Complete Randomized Block Design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the available genotypes for all the traits except peel weight and titratable acidity. The GCV and PCV were observed high for the traits viz., aril weight, tree volume, trunk girth, number of fruit per bunch, TSS: acidity ratio, fruit colour (a), aril thickness, petiole length, titratable acidity, length of inflorescence, fruit weight, rachis length and width of inflorescence whereas lower PCV, GCV observed for fruit length, flowering duration, seed length, ascorbic acid, fruit width, seed width, TSS, number of days from fruit set to maturity and number of leaflets. High heritability estimate coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean exhibited by traits viz., crown diameter, leaflet blade length, leaflet blade width, rachis length, petiole length, length of inflorescence, width of inflorescence, number of fruits per bunch, fruit weight, fruit colour-a, fruit color –b, aril weight, aril thickness, peel weight, seed weight, TSS, titratable acidity and TSS: acid ratio. Hence, it indicated the presence of additive gene effects and the breeder can be done direct selection by using these traits for further crop improvement. The phenotypic and genotypic association of fruit weight was significant and positive with aril weight, fruit length, fruit width, aril thickness, TSS, TSS: acidity ratio, number of fruit per bunch, ascorbic acid and rachis length, suggesting that selection based on these characters would result better genotypes with higher yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed the positive direct effect on fruit weight were exhibited by leaflet blade width, rachis length, flowering duration, length of inflorescence, fruit length, fruit colour-a, fruit colour-b, aril weight, aril thickness, seed weight, TSS, titratable acidity, TSS: acid ratio, trunk girth, tree volume and number of days from fruit set to maturity, indicating that these characters would be more reliable for crop improvement. The twenty longan genotypes were grouped into six clusters using Tocher’s method. Cluster I had exhibited maximum number of genotypes (7) followed by cluster III (6), cluster II (4) and cluster IV, V and VI comprising single genotype (monogenotypic). The genotypes in cluster III and cluster VI exhibited high degree of genetic diversity due to maximum inter cluster distance between them. It indicating clusters may be utilized under inter varietal hybridization programme (transgressive breeding) for getting high yielding recombinants.