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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: Soil Sciences × Author: Dash, Lopamudra × End date: 2020 × Start date: 2020 ×
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    Effect of herbicides on soil enzymes, nutrient uptake and productivity of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Dash, Lopamudra; Singh, Pankaj
    An experimental field trial was initiated during Rabi 2019-20 using chickpea as the test crop at Dhab area of pusa research of Dr. RPCAU, Pusa, Bihar. The experiment was planned in RBD with 7 treatments and 3 replications consisting of four different herbicides viz. pendimethalin (pre-emergence) @ 0.75 kg ha-1, oxyflourfen (pre-emergence) @ 100 g ha-1, quizalofop-p-ethyl (post-emergence) @ 40 g ha-1 and propaquizafop (post-emergence) @ 0.75 kg ha-1, a combined dose of pendimethalin (pre-emergence) @ 0.75 kg ha-1 and quizalofop-p-ethyl (post-emergence) @ 40 g ha-1, hand weeded plot and weedy plot. Soil samples were collected and analyzed at different stages starting from initial to harvest. Plant height (cm) of chickpea increased with the advancement of crop age and reached maximum value at harvest. Days to 50 % flowering varied between 80-81 days while days to maturity varied between 129-131 days. Oxyflourfen @ 100g ha-1 and propaquizafop @ 0.75 kg ha-1 recorded the highest and lowest nodulation values respectively among the herbicides. The highest values of NPK uptake (kg ha-1) was found to be 56.4N, 7.5P, 22.2K kg ha-1 and 38.2N, 11.3P and 32.4K kg ha-1 in grain and haulm respectively from hand weeded plot while weedy check recorded lowest values and it was found that weeds from weedy check plot recorded severe depletion of nutrients (2.9 kg N ha-1, 0.72 kg P2O5 ha-1 and 5.6 kg K2O ha-1). Higher yield (grain and haulm), nutrient uptake and yield attributing characters were recorded under the weed free plot and minimum under control plot. Among the herbicides treated plots, it was found that the dehydrogenase activity of the soil was least affected by quizalofop-p-ethyl and propaquizafop (2.16 μg TPF g-1 day-1) while oxyflourfen exhibited lowest activity (0.48 μg TPF g-1 day-1). On the otherhand, inhibitory effects of quizalofop-p-ethyl and propaquizafop were more prominent at harvest stage (1.22 and 1.15 μg TPF g-1 day-1 respectively). Highest urease activity was recorded under oxyflourfen (22.9 μg TPF g-1 day-1) while lowest set of activity under propaquizafop (13.8 μg TPF g-1 day-1) treatments. In case of pendimethalin there was no inhibition or stimulation of urease activity during initial days but an increment in urease activity was observed at later stage of crop. The initial alkaline phosphatase activity value was found to be 8.09 μg pNPP g-1 h-1 while the highest and lowest values were recorded under hand weeded (9.37 μg pNPP g-1 h-1) and plot receiving pre-emergence application of pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg ha-1 + postemergence application of quizalofop-p-ethyl @ 100g ha-1 respectively. The highest set of microbial biomasses (MBC and MBN) was recorded in the plot treated with pendimethalin (209.6 and 41.9 mg kg-1 respectively) while lowest in oxyflourfen treated plot (138.4 and 21.33 mg kg-1 respectively) among the herbicides. The mean bacterial population ranged between 3.85-5.77 x 106 cfu g-1 of soil and 3.03-4.35 x 106 cfu g-1 and the fungal population ranged between 2.21-3.57 x 103 cfu g-1 of soil at flowering and 1.5 -2.79 x 103 cfu g-1 of soil at harvest respectively due to application of herbicides. It was found that herbicide residues were not detected prominently from any of the plots. However, quizalofop-p-ethyl showed little persistence in treatment T2: Preemergence application of pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg ha-1 + Post-emergence application of quizalofop-p-ethyl @ 40 g ha-1 (0.006 nanogram per gram soil) and treatment T4: Postemergence application of quizalofop-p-ethyl @ 40 g ha-1 (0.008 nanogram per gram soil).