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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: D. S , Sharath × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Combining ability studies for yield and yield attributing traits in green gram (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) D. S , Sharath; Singh, A.K.
    The present investigation on green gram (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) was conducted at the experimental area of the Pulses Research Project of Dept of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tirhut College of Agriculture, Dholi, Muzaffarpur The experimental materials were composed of twenty three genotypes (Parents, crosses including standard check HUM-16) which were selected from various sources and were experimented in RBD design with three replications and the observations were recorded for thirteen characters including viz., “plant height(cm), days to 50% flowering, leaf area(cm2), number of clusters per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of grains per pod, 100-seed weight(g), root volume(ml), harvest index(%), days to maturity, growing degree days(˚c), heat use efficiency(g/ m2/degree days) and yield per plant(g)” to estimate the “genetic variability, combining ability effects and heterosis”. The Analysis of variance of parents and hybrids showed highly significant mean sum of squares due to genotypes for all the characters. It indicated the existence of significant differences among the genotypes for the characters under study. An examination of per se performance of parents and crosses revealed that crosses viz., HUM-16 X Pant-M-5 followed by IPM-02-03 X Pant-M-8 and IPM-02-03 X Meha had exhibited significant superiority over the check for yield. The range was comparatively wider for almost all the morpho-physiological traits showed that greater extent of variability was present among the genotypes. Significant variances for both GCA and SCA estimates were observed for almost all the characters barring few of them, indicating the preponderance of additive as well as non-additive gene action for the expression of characters under study. Based on the higher positive and significant GCA effects along with high per se performance HUM-16 was identified as the best general combiner for yield, whereas, IPM-02-03 was found to be best general combiner for most of the traits that includes plant height, number of pods per cluster, number of grains per pod, 100 seed weight, root volume, days to maturity and growing degree days, Pusa vishal for No. of clusters per plant, No. of pods per cluster, No. of grains per pod, 100 seed weight, root volume and heat use efficiency and yield per plant, so these parents can be used as the donor to improve the respective trait in green gram. Two cross combinations namely HUM-16 X Meha and Pusa vishal X Meha exhibited high positive and significant estimates of SCA effects with higher per se performance for yield suggesting that these crosses may be further advanced to get transgressive segregants. Among all the crosses first and foremost desirable cross combination was IPM-02-03 X Meha which shown positive and significant desirable standard heterosis for six traits including yield. This crop may be further advanced to develop the high yielding genotypes.