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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: Microbiology × Author: Rehman, Syed Vahida × End date: 2021 × Start date: 2021 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    STRAIN IMPROVEMENT OF BACILLUS VELEZENSIS BY TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES TO CONTROL PLANT PATHOGENS
    (Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) Rehman, Syed Vahida; Meena, Khem Raj
    Microbial Biological Control Agents (MBCAs) are used to biologically control plant diseases in crops. The first step towards developing an efficient biological control is to identify effective antagonistic strains. Molecular approaches can be used to improve the ability of wild type strains to reduce disease severity and disease incidence of plants. Random mutagenesis induced by physical mutagens like UV, X-rays, and gamma radiation, as well as chemical mutagens like ethyl methane sulfonate have been used to modify organisms genetically. To improve the antagonistic nature of Bacillus velezensis a gram positive, endospore forming, biosurfactant producing bacterium, random mutagenesis has been used. A total 11 mutants were obtained when subjected to UV irradiation and ethyl methane sulfonate for different time intervals on the basis of random morphological characters. Out of all these mutants, 7 mutated isolates have shown biosurfactant production when screened through emulsification activity. The highest emulsification activity against hydrocarbons, benzene and toluene was shown in Luria Bertani broth media of 85.67±0.21 against benzene 85.88±0.20 against toluene. The crude yield of biosurfactant produced by mutants was also improved after mutagenesis. The highest yield of crude biosurfactant of 0.361±0.001 was shown by mutant M3 and followed by mutant M5 of crude biosurfactant yield was 0.332±0.002 Growth profile of all the mutants along with unmutated culture was studied. Some mutants (M3, M7, M9) had took nearly ~36 h to reach stationary phase as the cultures had taken much time in lag phase. The total protein content of all the strains were also analyzed. The highest protein content of 80.88μg was shown by mutant M3 followed by 77.74μg by mutant M5. All the mutants were screened for antagonistic activity against the selected plant pathogens Helminthosporium maydis and Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici by dual culture plate technique. 7 mutants have shown nearly 60-80% inhibition against both the pathogens. Crude biosurfactant produced by the cultures were used to screen the pathogens with improved antagonistic activity. Six mutants M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M9 were shown the improved antifungal activity against the selected pathogens. The highest antagonistic activity of 81.69 % and 83.33 % was shown by mutant M3 against Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici and Helminthosporium maydis. These six mutants were selected further to check the biocontrol ability against the selected pathogens through pot experiment. Separate pot experiment was conducted to check the biocontrol ability against Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici in tomato crop and Helminthosporium maydis in maize crop. The results obtained has showed the significant increase in growth of shoot length, shoot fresh and dry weight, root length, root fresh and dry weight of maize and tomato crop. It was observed that M3, M5, M7, M9 has shown the maximum enhanced growth parameters than unmutated strain in both maize and tomato crop. The disease severity index and disease incidence were calculated against southern corn leaf blight disease and fusarium wilt disease respectively. Results obtained were shown that M3, M5, M7, M9 has significantly reduced the disease severity in maize crop and mutants M3, M5, M9 has significantly reduced the disease incidence from 65.5 % in control to 29.7%, 32.4%, 33.1% respectively. The present study has been isolated the mutants with improved antagonistic activities could be used as potential biocontrol agents.