Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh attended the 56th All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers’ Meet (2017) organized at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
All the centers of All India Wheat and Barley Reform Project are making efforts to deal with Biotic and Abiotic factors to make wheat rich in nutrition by the year 2050.
The integrated program is eco-friendly, economically beneficial and homogeneous. With the integrated program, average yield per hectare has increased from 0.91 tonnes in 1964-65 to 3.22 tonnes in 2016-17.
The Union Minister gave credit to dwarf variety developed under the All India Wheat and Barley Reform Project. An important milestone in this process was the establishment of the All India Coordinated Wheat Improvement Project in 1965 by the ICAR.
So far 421 species of wheat and 92 barleys have been developed under the All India Integrated Wheat and Barley Reform Project, which is being cultivated in different parts of the country.
Some achievements are as follows:
• India’s first zinc fortified variety WB2 was developed in the year 2016.
• Production of breeder seeds and capacity building of farmers to produce seeds.
• The draft sequence of Karnal Bunt Fungus has been a big achievement.
• Development of large plots for phenotyping, which are now available as a nodal centre.
• To fulfil our objective of Per Drop More Crop, development work on deep-rooted wheat variety has started to ensure judicious use of water.