Farm scientists told to identify novel genes in wild varieties to improve yield

Farm scientists told to identify novel genes in wild varieties to improve yield

Senior agricultural scientist and former Deputy Director General (crop sciences) of ICAR E.A. Siddiq has suggested the scientific community to identify genes that have not been identified so far in wild varieties of crops and study them for improving the productivity, particularly in paddy.

Speaking at a meeting organised by Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University(PJTSAU) on “identification and utilisation of novel genes of value and relevance for improvement of crop varieties suiting future challenges to Indian Agriculture” here on Saturday, he underscored the importance of unexplored genes from the wild varieties so that they could be utilised in the present day research programmes to improve productivity.

He opined that the modern breeding techniques developed in the field of genetics would help better study of genes among the wild varieties having unique qualities and bring them to light for the benefit of mankind.

Former Director General of ICAR Trilochan Mohapatra praised the efforts of the agricultural scientists in bringing new initiatives such as 2-line breeding in hybrid rice and transgenic mustard helping in the development of new hybrid varieties. However, there is a need to convince the legal system to further promote this kind of technologies with improved awareness and spreading the new techniques.

About 100 agricultural scientists from PJTSAU, ANGRAU, ICAR, ICRISAT and other institutions participated in the five technical session held as part of the dialogue to improve crop productivity with the help of gene technology.

Former Vice Chancellor of PJTSAU V. Praveen Rao, former Director of IIOR Vishnuvardhan Reddy, Deepak Patel, Raghurami Reddy, Venkat Ramana, Sameer Kumar, Durga Rani were among those who participated.