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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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Subject: Soil Science × Author: Kusum, Alpana × Start date: 2019 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Vermicompost from household waste and its effect on Soil properties and crop growth
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, 2019) Kusum, Alpana; Jha, Shankar
    Catastrophic growth in population has led to massive urbanization, industrialization and agricultural advancement which has resulted in economic growth on one hand and increased municipal solid waste generation on the other. Effective waste management is necessary as unscientific disposal of waste negatively impacts the environment and public health and also wastage of untrapped nutrients in the form of waste. Thus, it is imperative to develop a proper technique for protection of environment and conversion of these potential sources of untapped nutrients into useful fertilizers for improving and sustaining soil fertility. Keeping this in view, an experiment was conducted during Kharif 2018 at Vermicompost Production Unit, RPCAU, Pusa with an objective to recycle the large amount of household waste generated through vermicomposting by stabilizing proper ratio of household waste and cow dung and further use of vermicompost for improving soil properties and plant growth. On the basis of nutrient content and recovery percent the household waste and cow dung in equal proportion (50:50) was considered as best quality vermicompost. Incubation study was conducted to understand the mineralization of vermicompost during rice growth period. For incubation study the best quality vermicompost was used in four levels (0, 1.25, 2.5 and 3.75 t ha-1) along with three levels of chemical fertilizers viz. 0, RDF and 50% RDF (RDF- 120:60:40 kg ha-1 N: P2O5: K2O) to examine the mineralization of vermicompost in calcareous sandy loam soil at five different stages which match with the critical growth stages of rice crop and the experiment was conducted in Completely Randomized design (3 factors) replicated thrice. In order to find out the residual effect of vermicompost on soil properties, growth, yield and uptake of nutrients in rice crop pot experiment was conducted with rice crop in a Completely Randomized design (2 factors) replicated thrice. During incubation study available N increased up to 30 DAI whereas, TOC, available P2O5, K2O and micronutrients (Fe, Cu, Zn and Mn) content in soil increased up to 65 DAI then decreased gradually. Application of increasing level of vermicompost and fertilizer alone or in combination resulted in corresponding increase in the available nutrient content of soil. Significant build-up of available N, P2O5, K2O and micronutrients (Fe, Cu, Zn and Mn) was recorded in post-harvest soil of rice crop. Gradual increased doses of vermicompost alone or in combination with different doses of fertilizer yielded greater nutrient build up in post-harvest soil, N, P, K content and uptake in grain and straw. The magnitude of soil nutrient build-up in post-harvest soil was in accordance with doses of vermicompost and fertilizer. Combined application of vermicompost at higher dose (3.75 t ha-1) and full dose of fertilizer (RDF) recorded 25.55%, 14.79% and 41.27% increase over control in available N, P2O5 and K2O respectively in post-harvest soil. Combined application of vermicompost and chemical fertilizer recorded greater nutrient use efficiency than their alone application. Application of vermicompost (3.75 t ha-1) along with RDF gave highest grain and straw yield which were statistically at par with application of vermicompost (2.5 t ha-1) along with RDF and their magnitudes were 54.66 g pot-1 and53.55 g pot-1 for grain, 60.40 g pot-1 and 58.05 g pot-1 for straw, respectively. However, application of vermicompost at 1.25 t ha-1 and 50% RDF yielded equally as full dose of chemical fertilizer (RDF) alone. This indicates that 50% of chemical fertilizer could be saved on application vermicompost even at lower dose combined with 50% RDF without reduction in grain yield.