Thumbnail Image

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.

Browse

1997 - 199912010 - 20181
Reset filters
Author: Kumar, Sanjeev × Start date: 1997 ×
Reset filters

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Integrated disease management of Chickpea Fusarium wilt
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, 2018) Kumar, Sanjeev; Sahni, Sangita
    Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is one of the world’s major legume crops and suffers substantial damage from wilt disease incited by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri (Padwick) with yield loss over 60 per cent. Itis an important soil borne plant pathogen and is difficult to manage by application of chemical. Moreover, the chemical control is costly and leads to residual effect. In the present study, an integrated approach using host plant resistance and integration of three components i.e., cultural (vermicompost amendment), chemical (ZnSO4 and Salicylic acid) and biological (seed bacterization with Pseudomonas spp.) were contemplatedto manage this disease more effectively. A total 55 chickpea genotypes were screened against Fusarium wilt, only one genotype was found to be resistant, however, twelve were found to be moderately resistance (10.1-20 per cent), nineteen were moderately susceptible (20.1-30 per cent), and nineteen genotypes were showed susceptible reaction for wilt disease and recorded more than 30 % wilt incidence and four genotypes showed highly susceptible reaction exhibited more than 50% wilt incidence. The pathogen associated with wilt of chickpea was isolated from the infected plant samples and identified as Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris based on standard mycological keys. A total of nine pseudomonad isolates were screened for their antagonistic activities against F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri. All nine isolates exhibited the ammonification property, produced HCN (Cyanide) and IAA (Indole acetic acid) and positive for phosphorus solubilization, except PGPR-Pl, this found to be negative for HCN production. Among the nine isolates, pseudomonad isolates PGPR-WS were best in exhibiting multiple PGPR traits like ammonification, HCN production, IAA production (26.08 mgl-1), and phosphate solubilization (306.51 mgl-1) as well as best in antagonistic activity against F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri, showed 75.00 % inhibition of growth of mycelia over control and caused total lysis of mycelia in advanced stages of antagonism. Thus screening and identification of novel bioagent PGPR-WS with multifarious activities vividly reflects its potential to suppress F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceriand suggest usefulness of this super bioinoculant as component of IDM of F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri Among the three control methods, viz., vermicompost amendment, foliar spray with non-conventional chemicals and seed bacterization with PGPR-WS, when used singly, seed bacterization with PGPR-WS was found to be the most effective one among all against F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri. It is also evident that the biocontrol efficiency against wilt pathogen could be improved by proper combination of vermicompost amendment as well as non-conventional chemicals, as they possess different modes of action against F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri. Our findings indicated that the high antagonistic activity of PGPR-WS permitted the combination of chemical (non-conventional chemicals like Salicylic acid andZnSO4) and cultural (vermicompost amendment) measures, leading to improved control of the wilt pathogen of chickpea. The combination of all the three control methods was more effective than the lone treatment of the non-conventional chemicals, PGPR-WS, and vermicompost amendment. However, combined application of 15 % vermicompost and seed bacterization with PGPR-WS along with pre-inoculation foliar spray of salicylic acid showed complete protection against F. oxysporum f.sp. ciceri. Among the chemicals tested, Salicylic acid (40 ppm) was usually the most effective one in reducing wilt incidence of chickpea, compared to ZnSO4 (50ppm).