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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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Author: Patel, Pushpam × End date: 2017 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Genetic variability and correlation studies on growth, yield and quality of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Patel, Pushpam; Kumar, Udit
    A study was conducted at Vegetable Research Farm, Dr. RPCAU, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar during rabi 2015-16 to evaluate the genotypes of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) for yield and quality. Investigation was carried out on variability, character association, path analysis and genetic divergence for morpho-physiological characters viz., Plant height at maturity, Number of primary branches per plant, Days to flower initiation, Days to fruit initiation. Days to fruit maturity at physiological stage, Diameter of fruit, Length of fruit, Number of locules per fruit, Number of fruits per plant, Average fruit weight, Fruit yield per plant, Fruit yield per hectare, Total soluble solid, Titrable acidity, Zinc content, Iron content, Lycopene content and Ascorbic acid content. 24 genotypes were grown in Randomized Block Design with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters except iron content. The genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were high for lycopene content, average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per hectare, fruit yield per plant, titrable acidity, number of locules per fruit, number of primary branches per plant, ascorbic acid and plant height at maturity. All characters were highly heritable in broad sense except iron content. All the characters had showed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean except days to flower initiation, days to fruit initiation, days to fruit maturity at physiological stage, zinc & iron content indicating the presence of additive gene effects which may be utilized for improvement through phenotypic selection for yield improvement. Character association among the yield and yield attributing traits and identify better combinations as selection criteria for developing high yielding tomato genotypes. Fruit yield per plant was positively correlated with number of primary branches per plant, fruit diameter, fruit length, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, total soluble solid, days to flower initiation and titrable acidity suggesting that selection based on these characters would result better genotypes with higher yield. Among them number of primary branches per plant, fruit diameter, fruit length, number of fruits per plant were highly significantly correlated with yield per plant and average fruit weight and total soluble solid significantly correlated with yield per plant. Path coefficient analysis study revealed positive direct effect for plant height at maturity, number of primary branches per plant, days to flower initiation, days to fruit maturity at physiological stage, fruit length, number of locules per fruit, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, total soluble solid, titrable acidity and ascorbic acid on fruit yield per plant and selection based on these 18 characters would be more reliable for yield improvement. The 24 genotypes of tomato were grouped into five clusters using Tocher method. The genotypes in cluster IV and cluster II followed by cluster III and II and cluster V and II, due to maximum inter cluster distance between them, exhibited high degree of genetic diversity and thus may be utilized under inter varietal hybridization programme (transgressive breeding) for getting high yielding recombinants. Cluster IV was suitable for number of primary branches per plant, diameter of fruit, length of fruit, average fruit weight, yield per plant and yield per hectare. Therefore, selection of parents from this cluster for these traits would be effective. Maximum contribution towards divergence was obtained by lycopene content, average fruit weight, & ascorbic acid. All together they have contributed 67%.