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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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20151
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Subject: Soil Science × End date: 2015 × Start date: 2015 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of Thematic Soil Maps of Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa Farm through Geo-informatics Technology
    (Rajendra Agriculrural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2015) Praveen, Hena; Singh, M. P.
    A study for the ‘Development of Thematic Soil Maps of Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa Farm through Geo-informatics Technology’ was carried out during 2014-2015. The study area lies between 250 58’54” N to 25º 59’ 28.91’’ N latitude and 850 40’25” E to 85º 41’ 27.88’’ E longitude by the side of Burhi Gandak river in Samastipur district under the North-West alluvial plain (Agro-climatic Zone-I of Bihar). 149 Samples were collected on grid basis with coordinates through GPS and thematic soil maps were prepared using TNTmips (2010) GIS software. The thematic soil maps clearly revealed the distribution of different physico-chemical characteristics and available nutrients status which were assigned appropriate classes - low, medium and high or sufficient /deficient. The maximum spatial distribution of soil texture was loamy sand (40.52%), bulk density 1.45 to 1.5 Mg m-3 (80.86%), clay content 15 to 20% (51.11%), soil pH 8.0 to 8.5 (41.84%), soil EC 0.5 to 1 dS m-1 (49.31%), organic carbon 0.50 to 0.75% (60.43%), mineralizable soil nitrogen < 250 kg ha-1 ( 86.27%) , available phosphorus 25 to 50 kg ha-1 (71.06%), potassium 125 to 300 kg ha-1 (87.71%), DTPA extractable Cu > 0.6 mg kg-1 (99.98%), DTPA extractable Mn > 3.5 mg kg-1 (99.96%), DTPA extractable Fe > 7 mg kg-1 (99.6%), DTPA extractable Zn < 0.78 mg kg-1 (66.86%), hot water extractable soil boron < 0.3 mg kg-1 (78.07 %), available sulphur < 13 mg kg-1 (80.48%) and Free CaCO3 20-30% (55.2 %). Under multi major nutrient deficient soils, low in nitrogen and potassium were in 36.74% area and low phosphorus and potassium were in 19.78% area. In multi micro nutrient deficient soils, Zn and B were deficient only in 3.24% area and at least one micronutrient deficient area was 95.98%. Nutrient Index calculated for the major nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were 1.416, 1.893 and 1.678, respectively. Productivity Index (PI) estimated on the basis of soil texture available N, P2O5 and K2O showed spatial distribution of 90.27 % area with low PI, 9.57% area with medium PI and 0.15 % with high PI. The clay content showed significant correlation with available N, K and Cu while it was highly significant with available S and Fe. However, it had a significantly negative correlation with available B and Mn. The pH showed significant correlation with available K and Cu and highly significant correlation with available S, Fe, and Mn. EC showed highly significant correlation with available B and negatively correlated with available S whereas highly negatively correlated with available N. The organic carbon content showed significant correlation with P and highly significant correlation with available N, Fe and Cu. The free CaCo3 showed a negative correlation with available N and Mn. Available Zn had no correlation with any of the soil properties.