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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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20201
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Subject: Plant Breeding × Author: Barman, Mainak × Start date: 2014 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Genetic Diversity in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for morpho-physiological traits and grain micronutrient content
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Barman, Mainak; Choudhary, V.K.
    Wheat (Triticum spp.) is considered as one key staple food crop in numerous places of our globe not only in terms of the area under cultivation but as a source of food also. It covers all the continents of the globe, engaging 17% of the world acreage of crops and feeds almost 40% population globally. More than 3 billion population worldwide roughly, experiences the malnutrition problems. Malnutrition of micronutrient, predominantly the deficiency in Zinc and Iron worldwide afflicts more than three billion people. Since the Green Revolution, the yields of cereal grains worldwide have been boosted spectacularly, but cereal-based diet falls petite to provide adequate nutrients. Plant breeding can be employed as a potent weapon against the evil named 'hidden hunger'. The genetic diversity of various crops has drastically been wrinkled with the domestication and courses of breeding. Consequently, recognizing the precious alleles which are forsaken in the wild relatives of the crops and re-establishing them into the crops which are under cultivation is one of the most vital objectives of the activities of modern plant breeding. Keeping all the above considerations insight, the current evaluation of genetic diversity in bread wheat was performed for morpho-physiological traits and grain micronutrient content. The experiment was conducted by taking 30 bread wheat genotypes in the experimental area of Wheat Breeding section of Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University (DRPCAU), Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar during the Rabi season of 2019-20. The study was executed on genetic variability, genetic advances, correlation coefficients, path coefficients and diversity among genotypes. Observations were documented for fifteen characters viz. plant height, flag leaf area, no. of tillers/plant, relative water content, spike length, canopy temperature, chlorophyll content, days to fifty percent flowering, thousand-grain weight, no. of grains/ ear, harvest index, days to maturity, grain yield/ plant, grain Fe and grain Zn content. The evaluation was accomplished in a RBD with three replications. ANOVA revealed significant differences among all the evaluated genotypes for all the studied parameters. Effect of the environment was extremely meagre on the expressions of almost all the traits. Heritability along with genetic advance estimates revealed that the characters namely, grain Zn content, grain Fe content, flag leaf area, no. of tillers/ plant and number of grains/ ear demonstrated high heritability in addition to high genetic advance as percent of the mean. Correlation analysis demonstrated a significant positive relationship of days to fifty percent flowering, no. of tillers/plant, flag leaf area, spike length, plant height, chlorophyll content, relative water content, no. of grains/ ear, thousand-grain weight, days to maturity and harvest index, with grain yield/ plant except canopy temperature which showed a significant negative relationship. The total 30 bread wheat genotypes under investigation were grouped into nine clusters. Cluster II included eight genotypes which were the highest followed by Cluster I, IV and VII containing 6, 6 and 5 genotypes respectively. However, the rest five clusters namely, III, V, VI, VIII and IX cluster were solitary. The utmost inter-cluster distance was noted between the clusters VII and IX and the least inter-cluster distance was noted between the clusters V and VI. Genotypes RAUW-18-15, RAUW-18-21, DBW 16, BHU 25, RAUW-16-4 were recorded genetically diverse having the highest intra-cluster distance. The highest contribution in manifesting genetic divergence was revealed by grain Fe content, followessd by grain Zn content, days to fifty percent flowering, 1000-grain weight, grain yield per plant, number of grains/ ear. This means it may be rewarding to execute selection for these traits.