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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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2014 - 20192
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Author: Kumari, Puja × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2014 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Efficiency and ergonomic evaluation of farm women for maize shelling
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur (Bihar), 2019) Kumari, Puja; Kala, Shishir
    Women produce more than 50 per cent of the total world food (FAO, 1995). Women‟s contribution in agricultural labour force in developed countries is 36.7 per cent while, it is about 43.6 per cent in developing countries. Women workforce in agriculture was 35.1 in 1991, which rose to 39 per cent in 2001 and it was agriculture and allied sectors is 98 million, which is 37 per cent of total wage workers (Census, 2011). They perform almost all agricultural activities right from sowing to harvesting and post-harvest activities. Most of the drudgery prone tasks for women in agriculture are cutting, uprooting, transplanting, weeding, sowing alongwith post-harvest tasks like manual threshing of maize, millet and pulses sieving and cleaning. Traditionally shelling of maize is done either by threshing cobs or removal of seeds by hand. Studies have revealed that the farm activities are time and labour intensive, monotonous, repetitive and more drudgery prone are generally performed by the women. Since all the operations are done manually, which cause considerable physical and mental fatigue and other health problems. The root cause of their sufferings is unawareness or ignorance about improved technologies, age-old methods of doing the work, inappropriateness of the technology and attitudinal constraints such as innate conservation and resistance to change. Study was planned with objective to compare physiological work load and muscular pain and assess efficiency of Maize Sheller as compared to manual maize shelling. The study was conducted in Samastipur District of Bihar state. Samastipur is one of the thirty-eight Districts of Bihar in India. The District also boasts of a Central Agricultural University in Pusa, well known as Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar. From each selected village 30 respondents were selected by experimental was conducted on control group i.e 15 respondents from both the selected village and further information were gathered with the help of personal interview schedule. The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the efficiency and ergonomic evaluation of farm women for maize shelling. Keeping in view the objectives of the study, related information were gathered pertaining to socio- personal profile, anthropometric measurement of respondents, physiological problem during maize shelling activities, various crop parameters and machine parameter. For getting results of the study data were analysed by applying suitable formula and statistical method i.e. percentage, mean, standard deviation, coefficient of correlation and paired t-test were applied for getting accuracy of the results. The result of the study indicated that the socio personal profile of farm women in control and general group was found different. The study reveals that in case of control group an equal number of respondents i.e 33.30 per cent were in each three category of age. Whereas in general group the maximum number of respondents (46.6 %) were in age group of 21-30 years. Under control group (63.3 %) respondents were having their large family size. Whereas in general group majority of women (53.3 %) were having large family size. So far as family education of control group is concerned a majority of respondents had medium family educational status (50%). In general group a majority of respondents were having their medium education level (43.3%). In case of control group a maximum of respondents (43.3%) were belonged to EBC category. But in case of general group maximum respondents (36.6%) were belonged to OBC category. In both control and general group majority of respondents (60 %) were involved in farming. Data pertaining to ergonomic evaluation of farm women highlighted that in control group, majority of respondents had their body mass index (73.3 %) were in normal category. While in general group the majority of respondents (60%) were in normal category. Further the physiological data revealed that in traditional method the average energy expenditure of farm women was found higher (6.07 Kj m-1) than the Univ. developed maize sheller i.e. 6.04 Kj m-1 respectively. In traditional method total cardiac costs of work and physiological costs of work of respondents were found to be were found to be (172.51) and (9.76) respectively. Whereas in University developed maize sheller total cardiac costs of work and physiological costs of work were calculated to (75.65) and (17.40) respectively. The results pertaining to the output of machine which indicated that University developed maize sheller had its output of 70.20 (kg/hr) in comparison to traditional method 16.97 (kg/hr). This machine, findings highlighted that the output of the traditional method is very low. Average time taken for removing grain from five kg maize cobs was 17.68 minutes in case of traditional methods and by use of University developed maize sheller took only 4.28 minutes. The overall shelling efficiency of the traditional method was found to be 86.15 per cent, slightly less than the shelling efficiency of the University developed maize sheller was 87.73 per cent. The correlation coefficient of twenty two selected independent variables co- related with three dependent variables. The analysis of results related to output revealed that in the age group of 21-30 years the independent variables such as family type (0.700*) was found to be significant at 5% level of probability. Whereas time (0.996**) came to be significant at 1% level of probability. In University developed Maize Sheller result shows that the independent variables such as family size (0.693*) and height of respondents (0.650*) was found to be significant at 5 % level of probability. Whereas time (0.901**) came to be significant at 1 per cent level of probability. The analysis of results related to physiological cost of work revealed that in the age group of 21-30 years the independent variables such as family size (0.670*) and height (0.684*) was found to be significant at 5 per cent level of probability. While in the traditional method of maize shelling the posture inclination (-0.750*) was found to be negatively significant at 5% level of probability. While in the case of University developed maize sheller results shows that the independent variables like height (0.851**) was found to be significant at 1% level of probability. The analysis of results related to shelling efficiency of the machine revealed that in the under 21-30 years age group farm women the independent variables such as age (0.699*) was calculated to be significant at 5% level of probability. And posture Inclination (-0.699**) and moisture (-0.694*) was found to be negatively significant at 1% level of probability. While in University developed maize sheller results focused that the independent variable such as moisture (-0.667*) came to be significant at 5% level of probability. Manual shelling of maize is a time consuming and tedious operation. The heart rate responses showed that the activity is light. Though the activity is light but the women feel it as a maximum drudgery prone activity because of its monotony in performance, continuous sitting and performing it for a longer period of time. Hence Univ. developed maize sheller was found to be the good manual tools for the women performing maizs shelling as it saves not only the time but also gives high output and efficiency of farm women was found twice and save cardiac cost of worker per unit of output in comparison to the hand maize shelling.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Molecular Characterization of Aerobic Rice Genotypes Using Microsatellite Markers
    (Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Kumari, Puja; Sharma, V. K.
    study was undertaken to evaluate the nature of microsatellite sites based simple sequence length polymorphism in eighteen aerobic rice entries in order to characterize them on the basis of simple sequence length polymorphism and to determine the nature and extent of genetic differentiation and diversity among them using twenty six microsatellite primer pairs. The statistical methods and parameters used for deriving inference were polymorphism percent, polymorphism information content, discrimination and non-discrimination coefficient, similarity coefficient and numerical taxonomic analysis of divergence. The amplification was successfully achieved with all the microsatellite primer pairs used in the present study. Altogether 225 allelic variants were detected at 33 microsatellite loci with an average of 6.81 alleles per locus. The number of alleles per locus ranged from five in the case of RM 524 to thirteen in the case of RM 538. A total of 110 shared and 115 unique allelic variants were generated in the form of amplified products by using the 26 primer pairs. The primer pairs RM 538, RM 591, RM 263, RM 335, RM 234, RM 5359, RM 3530, RM 3873, RM461, RM 510, RM 219, RM 332, RM 280, RM 7003 and RM 407 generated considerably higher percentage of unique alleles, clearly reflecting higher polymorphism percentage which was exhibited by these primer pairs in combinations with the entries under evaluation. The microsatellite locus associated with primer pairs RM 280, RM 3873, RM 114 and RM591 showed null alleles in some of the entries under evaluation. Occurrence of null alleles for a particular repeat locus was noticed reflecting thereby the failure of locus specific microsatellite primer directed generation of amplified products. While the primer pairs RM 3873, RM 3530, RM 263, RM 234, RM 407, RM 201 and RM 337 generated amplified products due to amplification of more than one microsatellite locus in combination with one to twelve entries under evaluation. Appearance of more than one band in the same entry was noticed revealing the existence of duplicated regions in the genome of rice. The estimates of polymorphism information content values for the primer pairs varied from 0.607 in the case of RM 407 to 0.913 in the case of RM 591 with an average value of 0.795 per primer pairs. The primer pairs RM538, RM 5359, RM 263, RM 337, RM 591, RM 224, RM 153, RM 3530, RM 332, RM 335and RM 219 appeared to be more informative amongst the primer pairs used for the purpose of molecular characterization of aerobic rice entries under evaluation. The estimates of discrimination coefficient ranged from 0.647 in the case of primer pair RM 407 to 0.960 in the case of primer pair RM 591. Considerably greater magnitude of discrimination coefficient was obtained in the case of primer pairs RM 591, RM 5359, RM 538, RM 263, RM 335, RM 153, RM 337, RM 224, RM 3530, RM 114, RM 60 and RM 332 in descending order of magnitude. The discrimination coefficient for a primer pair revealed its ability to discriminate the pair-wise combinations of the entries evaluated during the present investigation. The microsatellite loci with di- nucleotide, tri- nucleotide and complex repeat motifs tended to detect greater number of alleles than the repeat loci with tetra-nucleotide repeat motifs. The results did not indicate a direct relationship between the repeat number involved in the microsatellite locus with di-nucleotide repeat motif and the number of identified alleles. An analysis of allelic diversity data using similarity coefficient based sequential agglomerative hierarchical non-overlapping clustering module indicated that the aerobic rice entries AER-05 and AER-06 were relatively more closely related with the highest similarity coefficient amongst eighteen aerobic rice entries evaluated. The microsatellite marker based analysis revealed unique or entry specific allele which could be useful as DNA fingerprints in the identification and preservation of these aerobic rice entries. The use of twenty six microsatellite markers in the analysis exhibited a remarkably higher level of genetic polymorphism, which allowed unique and unambiguous genotyping of eighteen entries included in the analysis.