No abstract

A field experiment was conducted to know the gene action and selection of superior parents of velvet bean for hybridization. The heterosis and combining ability study was carried out using 6x6 half diallel mating design excluding reciprocals. Combining ability analysis revealed that magnitude of sca variance was greater than gca variance suggesting the predominance of non additive gene action for most of the traits except days to 50 per cent flowering, number of flowers per inflorescence, number of pods per bunch and 100 seed weight where gca variance was greater than sca variance indicating predominance of additive gene action. Based on gca effects, parents Arka Dhanwantari, IIHR Selection 8 and IIHR Selection 2 were best general combiners for the traits such as number of flowers per inflorescence, pod length, pod weight, number of bunches per plant, number of pods per bunch, dry pod yield and seed yield per plant which can be used in future breeding programme. Specific combining ability studies indicated cross IIHR Selection 2 x IIHR Selection 8 as best specific combiner for the economically important traits viz., pod length, pod weight, dry pod yield per plant and seed yield per plant. The cross IIHR Selection 8 x IIHR Selection 3 was recorded high heterotic effects for dry pod yield per plant, seed yield per plant and test weight of the seed. The cross IIHR Selection 2 x IIHR Selection 8 as superior hybrid as recorded high heterobeltiosis for days to 50% flowering, pod length, pod weight, dry pod yield per plant and seed yield per plant and days to maturity which can be exploited in future breeding programme.

No abstract

No abstract

Velvet bean is an important medicinal legume, its seeds are prominent source of L-Dopa. The present investigation on genetic diversity assessment of 58 germplasm of velvet bean by using 11 ISSR markers. Out of 63 amplified products 59 were showed polymorphism and 4 were monomorphic with an average of 5.7 bands amplified per primer. According to band statistics and efficiency parameters showed the primers UBC 827, UBC 834 and UBC 836 were more efficient. The highest genetic similarity values (0.90) were observed between IIHR MP 102 and IIHR MP 74-3. In dendrogram germplasm grouped into two major clusters at 63 per cent similarity. Among the germplasm, IIHR Selection 4, IIHR Selection 10, IIHR MP 9, IC 33243 and IIHR MP 7 were found to be distinctly divergent, can be used in the further breeding programme.

No abstract

Fifty eight germplasm of Mucuna was analysed for L-Dopa using ultra high performance liquid Chromatography. L-Dopa ranges from 2.94% in IC 332432 to 6.91% in IIHR MP62-1. Low L-Dopa accessions identified IC 332432 (2.94%) and IIHR MP95 (2.98%) was highly beneficial to consume as food with proper processing or boiling. The accessions having high L-Dopa is highly beneficial to the industries for preparation of drugs. High L-Dopa accessions IIHR MP62-1(6.91%), IIHR MP21 (6.77%), IIHR MP63-1(6.76%) and IIHR MP102 (6.57%) were itchy types and important for drug industry. Hence these high L-Dopa accessions can be utilised in future breeding programme of Mucuna to develop high yielding cultivars coupled with high L-Dopa. Correlation coefficient analysis revealed that L-Dopa has significant negative association with pod length indicates selection of smaller pods was a measure of selection index to obtain high L-Dopa accession could be used in breeding programme of velvet bean.

Information plays a crucial role in technology realisation and its utilisation. Farmers invariably require clear, accurate, current and context-specific information for informed decision making. Cashew is an important plantation crop with a long gestation period necessitating the need for long term planning for the sustainable development of farmers’ livelihoods. Considering the importance of the crop to the Indian economy, the present study attempted to understand the information needs of cashew growers, their sources of information and their information search behaviours in non-traditional areas where the crop is gaining prominence. Understanding the information dynamics of cashew farmers who are predominantly smallholders is vital for the extension agents and policymakers to design and implement tailor made extension strategies that benefit the cashew sector. The study highlights that farmers need information on the cashew varieties suitable to their region, crop protection measures such as pests and diseases and non-crop information. Farmers’ information needs with respect to standard agronomic and horticultural practices were found to be less important as most farmers prefer cashew due to less labour intensive nature of the crop. The study results also illustrate that organisational communication channel was a prominent source of information in the study region and most farmers accessed public organisations followed by fellow farmers for information on cashew. The study suggests that farmers prefer personal contact and ICT based methods for information exchange. Using cluster analysis, farmers were segmented based on their information search behaviour and the main search behaviour was moderate search accounting for 65% of the surveyed respondents. Reaching the low search farmers constituting 27% of the sampled farmers should be an important consideration while designing any cashew related extension intervention in the study area.