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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: Plant Physiology × Author: Kumari, Sanam × End date: 2020 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Studies on protective role of cytokinin in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under combined drought and high temperature stress condition
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Kumari, Sanam; Kumar, Shailesh
    Drought and high temperature stress often occur simultaneously especially in rainfed grown wheat crop causing severe yield loss in most of the wheat growing areas of the world. The simultaneous effects of these two stresses on crop performance in terms of growth, development, biomass accumulation, and yield may be quite different than the individual stress, but there are limited studies on this topic. Drought as well high temperature stress inhibits CK synthesis and accelerates CK degradation, reducing CK levels in roots and shoots. Increasing endogenous CK content through exogenous application of CK or genetic modification to overexpress isopentenyl transferase (ipt) controlling cytokinin synthesis has positive effects on improving plant tolerance to stress, which has been attributed to the promotion of photosynthesis, water use efficiency, and antioxidant metabolism of shoots in various plant species. CK have been shown to modulate leaf enzymatic antioxidant activities (i.e. POD and SOD), activating leaf defenses to abiotic stresses. CKs may retard senescence directly by scavenging or interfering with free radicals, which are proposed to be involved in this process. The present investigation entitled “Studies on protective role of cytokinin in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under combined drought and high temperature stress condition” was conducted with two objectives (1) Screening of wheat genotypes for combined drought and high temperature stress and to identify contrasting set of wheat genotypes on the basis of physiological traits. (2) To study the protective role of cytokinin (6-BAP) on physiological and biochemical traits in contrasting sets of wheat genotypes subjected to combined drought and high temperature stress condition. Complete experiments were performed in 10 days old wheat seedling grown in petri plate. For identification of contrasting genotypes, screening experiments were performed with twenty wheat genotypes. Growth parameters (dry mass accumulation, fresh weight, root length & shoot length per plant) and physiological traits (chlorophyll contents measured in terms of SPAD units), were recorded in 10 days old wheat seedling, and on the basis of growth performance under combined stress condition, one set of contrasting wheat genotypes were identified (C-306, relatively tolerant for combined stress and KO-307, relatively combined stress sensitive). For objective second, two experiments were performed, first experiments were performed to optimize dose of cytokinin using varying levels of benzyl amino purine (BAP; 5, 10 and 20 ppm). Exogenous application of BAP significant increased membrane stability index (MSI) and other growth parameters in wheat seedlings grown under independent and combined stress condition in all the three concentration of cytokinin. However, among three concentrations response of 10 ppm cytokinin application was maximum on all parameters studied. Second experiment were conducted to find out the effect of optimum dose of BAP on physiological (RWC, MSI, CSI, Chlorophyll & carotenoid contents, TBARS contents and SPAD units) and biochemical traits (antioxidant enzyme activity and proline contents) in contrasting sets of wheat genotypes subjected to drought, high temperature & combined drought and high temperature stress in 10 days old wheat seedlings. Results showed that combined stress severely reduced the photosynthetic pigment contents, carotenoids contents, chlorophyll stability, relative water contents, membrane stability compared to individual stress, which were significantly improved by foliar application of 10 ppm of 6-BAP. Reduction was more in sensitive genotypes (KO-307) as compared to tolerant genotypes (C-306). However, the response of KO-307 was more pronounced to exogenous application of BAP compared to C-306. The levels of antioxidant enzyme activity (peroxidase and SOD) and proline were higher under combined stress conditions which were enhanced further by 6-BAP in both the genotypes. Membrane injury and lipid peroxidation were also significantly reduced by the 6-BAP.Overall, combined effect of drought + high temperature stress was more detrimental than the individual stress however, the effect was hypo-additive in nature, which may be due to cross adaptation effect and further exogenous application of cytokinin (6-BAP) ameliorates the adverse affect of combined stress as well individual stress.