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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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1996 - 199922010 - 20151
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Author: Kumar, Vijay × Start date: 1991 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Effect of conservation agriculture on soil properties of Calciorthent under rice-wheat system
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2015) Kumar, Vijay; Kumar, Mukesh
    Calcareous soils of Bihar are prone to physical, chemical and biological degradation due to their low organic matter content, and presence of carbonates, gypsum or other soluble salts. Water energy and labour scarcity, increasing cost of production, diminishing farm profits and uncertain weather-events are major challenges faced by the farmers under intensive tillage based conventional rice-wheat production system of Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) in Bihar. To address these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) based crop management practices are being developed. The adoption of CA based on minimum mechanical disturbances of soil, rational retention of crop residues on the soil surface and sensible crop rotation is need of the hour. Our objective was to study how CA practices affected soil physical, chemical and biological indicators and, yield & yield attributes as well as benefit cost ratio of various combination of tillage, crop establishment and residue management under rice-wheat cropping system. The long term experiment was initiated in association with CIMMYT, India, since kharif, 2006 having 8 combinations of tillage, crop establishment and residue management under rice-wheat cropping system. The present investigation was carried out during 6th June 2013 to 7th October 2013 and 17th November 2013 to 27th March 2014 (two seasons). The experimental site has hot and humid summers and too cold winters and soils belong to order Entisol. The treatment combinations consisted of puddle transplanted rice-conventional tillage wheat (T1); system of rice intensification-system of wheat intensification (T2); zero tillage rice-zero tillage wheat on beds with residues (T3); zero tillage rice-conventional tillage wheat without residues (T4); zero tillage rice-zero tillage wheat without residues (T5); zero tillage rice-zero tillage wheat with residues (T6); unpuddled transplanted rice-zero tillage wheat with rice residues only (T7); zero tillage rice with brown manuring-zero tillage wheat without residues (T8). All these treatments were completely randomized and replicated thrice within a block. Most of the observations were recorded at three stages i.e. before rice sowing/transplanting, after rice harvest and after wheat harvest. The results obtained from the present investigation revealed that CA practices, T6, T7 and T8 conserved significantly higher moisture content (before & after irrigation) in rice (6.28-6.34 & 4.31-9.85%) and wheat (4.78-6.41 & 5.84-9.02%) as compared to T1 in 0-105 cm soil depth. CA practices (T3, T4, T5, T6, T7 and T8) favourably moderated soil temperature which means raised the winter temperature and lowered the summer temperature in 0-15 cm soil depth. After completion of one cycle of rice-wheat cropping CA practices lowered the bulk density & soil strength with corresponding increment in soil porosity in 0-7.5 and 7.5-15 cm soil depths as compared to conventional tillage due to higher organic carbon. Likewise, soil aggregation, water holding capacity, infiltration rate and hydraulic conductivity were also improved under CA practices in 0-15 cm soil layer. Soil chemical properties viz. pH, EC, and CaCO3 were reduced over time whereas, after completion of one cycle of rice-wheat cropping, the organic carbon increased by 20.11-50.25% over OC content recorded before rice sowing/harvesting in 0-15 cm soil depth in CA practices. Similarly, after wheat harvest, increment in available macro nutrients (N, P, K and S) varied from 1.06-2.96, 5.78-23.80, 0.04-0.49 and 4.64-18.65%, respectively and micro nutrients (Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn varies from 2.46-16.94, 1.68-20.07, 36.78-55.84 and 1.14-4.35%, respectively over their initial values of these nutrients recorded before rice sowing/transplanting in 0-15 cm soil depth. The available macro- and micro- nutrient contents were higher in surface layer and decreased progressively with soil depth in all the treatments. The biological property of soil like, soil microbial biomass carbon was increased after wheat harvest by 0.60- 5.43% over initial values (recorded before rice) in CA practices. pH, EC and free CaCO3 content were reduced in CA practices as compared to initial values of these parameters recorded before start of the experiment (2006). However, available nutrients like, N, P, K, S, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn were improved with the adaption of CA practices as compared to their initial values recorded before start of the experiment (2006). Growth attributes like, number of productive tillers & grains per panicle, and 1000 grain weight of rice were the maximum in treatment T3 whereas, the maximum growth attributes of wheat was attained in treatment T2. Root growth was significantly influenced with CA practices as compared to conventional tillage. Adoption of CA practices increased the grain yield of rice by 0.66-12.05% while, the highest increment (by 12.05%) was noticed in treatment T8 over conventional practices in T1. Whereas, in wheat, CA practices increased the grain yield by 8.52-22.13% over T1 and the highest increment (by 24.49%) was obtained with T2. Increment in system yield was recorded in treatments, T6, T7, T8, T3, T5, T2 and T4 to the tune of 13.74, 13.69, 13.39, 11.69, 4.26, 4.44 and 0.20%, respectively over conventional practices. Uptake of nutrients followed the yield trend of rice and wheat. Adoption of CA practices in T3, T4, T5, T6, T7 and T8 showed increased system uptake of N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S to the tune of 3.41-12.41, 1.24-12.79, 4.22-19.14, 3.53-11.67, 4.33-12.12 and 0.41-9.56%, respectively over conventional practices (T1). Similarly, system uptake of micro nutrients, Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn was enhanced with the introduction of CA practices to the tune of 3.84-12.06, 2.13-12.02, 2.24-11.17 and 2.42-11.84%, respectively. Treatments, T3, T5, T6, T7 and T8 improved the yield of rice protein (by 0.68-9.13%) and wheat protein (by 13.03-18.21%) over conventional practices. Data on system benefit-cost (B: C) ratio revealed that treatment T3 (3.04) was highly beneficial and very close to the treatment T6 (2.94). Results from this study concluded that zero tillage with residues retention was better compared to conventional tillage due to better soil-crop environment.