ICAR – IARI develops Chickpeas variety to enhance productivity in the drought-prone areas

It will enhance productivity in the drought-prone areas of Central Zone consisting of Madhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand Area of UP, Chhattisgarh, Southern Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, where terminal drought is a major problem

ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute,  New Delhi in collaboration with its Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya  Jabalpur, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Gwalior and ICRISAT, Patancheru Hyderabad developed drought hardy and higher yielding chickpea variety ‘Pusa JG 16’ which will enhance productivity in the drought-prone areas of Central Zone consisting of Madhya  Pradesh, Bundelkhand Area of UP, Chhattisgarh, Southern Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, where terminal drought is a major problem and sometimes leads to 50-100 percent loss of yield.

Pusa JG 16 variety was developed by using genomic-assisted breeding techniques that allowed the precision transfer of drought-tolerant genes from ICC 4958 in the parental variety JG 16. The drought tolerance of this variety was affirmed through national-level testing by the All India Coordinated Research Programme of Chickpea.

AK Singh, Director, ICAR-IARI emphasised that the ‘Pusa JG 16’ variety will be a boon for the farmers of drought-prone areas of Central Zone of the country. He congratulated the breeders and all the partners on this outstanding achievement.

ICAR-IARI Chickpea team led by C Bharadwaj, Principle Scientist in collaboration with Rajeev Varshney and Manish Roorkiwal from ICRISAT, Anita Babbar from JNKVV and Indu Swarup from RVSKVV developed the variety.

Bhardwaj emphasised that besides being highly drought tolerant, this variety is resistant to fusarium wilt and stunt diseases, having short duration maturity (110 days) and a yield potential of >2ton/ha under drought stress conditions over the recurrent parent JG 16 (1.3 ton/ha).

It will enhance productivity in the drought-prone