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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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20221
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Subject: Plant Physiology × Author: PARMESHWAR, PADILE GANESH × End date: 2023 × Start date: 2022 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY IN TERMINAL HEAT STRESS TOLERANCE IN WHEAT (Triticum aestivum L.)
    (Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2022) PARMESHWAR, PADILE GANESH; Bahuguna, Rajeev Nayan
    The global mean temperature is increasing at a rapid pace due to atmospheric warming. Consequently, heat stress events are becoming more frequent and severe and affecting global food production. For the current study, we gave grown thirty wheat genotypes at two (timely and late) sowing dates and two planting densities viz. optimum and low density (LD) resulting in three treatments viz. Control, terminal heat stress (HT), and terminal heat stress with low planting density (LD+HT). Genotype HD-2967 was used as a check variety for heat stress tolerance. Timely sowing in control treatment was done on 26th Nov, 2021 while for the HT and LD+HT treatments, sowing was delayed by 19 days. Late sowing of genotypes exposed them to a higher temperature of 6.6 oC and 4.5 oC at flowering and active grain filling stages, respectively. As a result, a reduction in the grain yield of up to 59 % and biomass reduction of up to 55 % were observed under HT conditions. Conversely, 15 days reduction in total crop duration and 10 days reduction in grain filling duration has been under HT condition, which was a crucial determinant of seed weight, and grain yield. There was significant (P<0.05 to <.001) genetic diversity observed for traits across the genotypes. Key traits that contributed to yield loss under heat stress were reduced spike weight, grains per spike (seed set) and spikelet fertility. Correlation analysis of traits showed that there was a significant negative correlation between canopy and spike temperature with yield and yield components. In general, spike temperature was significantly higher than canopy temperature across the treatments. Moreover, higher spike temperature was negatively correlated with spikelet fertility, seed set and seed weight. Canopy cover was observed as helpful in maintaining a lower canopy and spike temperature. On the other hand, traits such as tillering ability, SPAD, relative water content and spike weight were positively related to yield and biomass accumulation under control and LD+HT conditions. Lower spike temperature with a better canopy cover was crucial to maintain a high grain number under reproductive heat stress. A significant variation was noted in the phenotypic plasticity where all the traits measured showed higher variations under low planting density. Moreover, genotypes under low density showed higher yield per plant due to better space and light helping accumulate more biomass and dense canopy. Low density helped in maintaining a higher seed set and fertility ratio in responsive genotypes under reproductive heat stress. However, low density did not show similar effectiveness under heat stress at the grain filling stage, as the minimum temperature was the dominant factor where a merely cooler canopy was ineffective. The cumulative response index for 8 key traits showed a wider range in phenotypic plasticity in wheat genotypes, which can be utilized in crop improvement programs for terminal heat stress tolerance.