New Delhi, India
February 11, 2008
Source:
The Financial Express via
Checkbiotech
By Ashok B Sharma
The
Indian Agricultural Research
Insitute (IARI) has developed an improved variety of its
Pusa Basmati-1 rice called Pusa-1460 resistant to bacterial leaf
blight.
"As the Pusa Basmati-1 developed by us was not resistant to
bacterial leaf blight, we developed Pusa-1460 which has the same
agronomic features of Pusa Basmati-1 in addition to being
resistant to bacterial leaf blight," said the IARI director, S A
Patil.
He said that IARI also developed many new cultivars, which were
released for cultivation in different agronomic conditions. The
high-yielding wheat variety HD2932 was released and notified for
late sown variety of wheat for central and peninsular zone of
the country. The LES-1-27 (Pusa Mustard-21) low cruces acid
(single zero) variety of Indian mustard has been released by
Central Varietal Release Committee for several states in
northern India for timely sown irrigated conditions.
Two mustard varieties (Pusa Mustard 24 and Pusa Mustard-22) and
one short duration pigeonpea variety, Pusa 2002 have also been
identified for release. An extra early maturing variety of
Hirsutum cotton, PSS2 (Arvinda) with determinate habit and
tolerance to hot humid conditions has been released for West
Bengal.
Among horticulture crops, Patil said that a variety of IARI's
Pusa Ujwal - Ash gourd - has been identified for commercial
cultivation in Zone VII. Several new hybrids in rose and
gladiolus have been developed.
He said that several studies on identification and sequencing of
novel genes and promoters, transgenic research and development
and structural and functional genomics were taken up.
Entomopathogenic nematode for attracting and killing
subterranean termites has been developed. A biopesticidal
formulation 'Pusa Nema Gel' based on an indigenous heat tolerant
entomopathogenic nematode, steinernema thermophilum, has been
found to be highly efficacious against the subterranean termite
infestation on maize and is ready for commercialisation.
© 2008: Indian Express
Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd
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