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Late sown - irrigated
condition
The sowing span of wheat in the NWPZ of India is from early November
to late December. More than 40 per cent of the total area under wheat
is generally sown late due to the harvesting of long duration paddy
and other crops like sugarcane, cotton and vegetables, i.e. potato,
carrot and cauliflower. In low lying areas also sowing of wheat is
often delayed till late December or early January. The average
reduction in yield of normal sown variety under late sowing is about
0.5 t / ha for every fortnight's delay in sowing after November 15
(Khan and Chatterjee 1981), therefore, the development of separate
set of varieties for late sown condition is considered
peremptory.
The most commonly grown wheat variety Sonalika developed for such
late sown situation became a low yielder in recent years due to
susceptibility to brown and yellow rusts under field condition.
Therefore, the need of another early maturing wheat variety coupled
with high yield and rust resistance was considered imperative for
wheat breeders to meet the challenges of environmental
constraints.
The results of varietal yield evaluation trials over 17 locations
(1986 / 88), exhibited superiority of Raj 3077 in yield over checks
Sonalika and Raj 218,4
during all the three years except in third year where it yielded as
good as check Sonalika (Table
1). Further, Raj
3077 significantly out-yielded cheek Raj 2184 under late sown
condition, whereas it yielded as good as
cheek Sonalika, (Table
3). It also
tended to be more stable over different dates of sowing in comparison
to cheek varieties, even though no significant differences were
observed.
The results clearly established that Raj 3077 is a robust and
reliable wheat variety which also offers persistent good response
under late sown condition. It was, therefore, further recommended by
AICWIP for late sown situation in 1988.
Saline/ alkaline (Irrigated - timely sown) conditions
Salinity and alkalinity are the important adverse soil conditions
widely prevalent in 7 million ha areas in wheat growing states of
India. However, the farmers generally use only those wheat varieties
which are recommended for normal sowing, harvesting very low yields
per ha. The successful wheat cultivation in such degraded land is
possible with a suitable variety possessing adequate level of salt
stress resistance (Giriraj et al. 1980
; Kumar et al.
1986)
with other desirable traits.
Kharchia 65
was the most popular
red grain variety in vogue in salt affected soils of India before
these studies were undertaken. However, it was susceptible to all the
three rusts and was also associated with many other undesirable
attributes. This variety, because of its red grains, did not fetch
better price to the farmers in Indian wheat market. Therefore, an
urgent need to replace Kharchia 65
variety by a new
promising white seeded variety tailored for salt affected soils of
mega environments of India was felt.
The results of varietal yield evaluation trials over 27 locations
showed that variety Raj 3077 gave out- standing yield
performance over the cheek variety Kharchia 65. It also yielded as
good as check KRL 1-4 and WH 157 during all the three years
(Table
1).
The results of agronomic experiments exhibited that salinity
reflected in poor yield and reduced the utilization efficiency of
increased fertilizer to a great extent. From economic consideration,
application of F2 level of fertilization was more beneficial
in comparison to other levels to harvest good yield of Raj 3077
(Table
4).
It is noteworthy that Raj 3077
has been showing persistent good response in saline alkaline
conditions and also possesses white grain with better productivity as
well as resistance to rusts. In recognition of these qualities this
marvelous variety was again recommended for saline / alkaline
production conditions by AICWIP in 1992 for the whole
country.
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