15 December 2022, New Delhi: Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, in collaboration with its partners Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya (JNKVV) Jabalpur, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Gwalior and ICRISAT, Patancheru Hyderabad developed drought hardy and higher yielding chickpea variety ‘Pusa JG 16’.
This new variety will enhance productivity in the drought-prone areas of Central Zone consisting of Madhya Pradesh, Bundelkhand Area of U.P, Chhattisgarh, Southern Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, where terminal drought is a major problem and sometimes leads to 50-100 % 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 J.G.16. The drought tolerance of this variety was affirmed through national-level testing by the All India Coordinated Research Programme of Chickpea.
ICAR-IARI Chickpea team led by Dr. Bharadwaj in collaboration with Dr. Rajeev Varshney, Dr. Manish Roorkiwal, Dr. Anita Babbar, and Dr. Indu Swarup has developed this variety. Dr. Bhardwaj emphasized thatbesides 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 conditionsover the recurrent parent JG 16 (1.3 ton/ha).
Dr. A.K. Singh, Director ICAR-IARI expressed his happiness at the notification of the chickpea variety ‘Pusa JG 16’ by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, GOI. He emphasized that this variety will be a boon for the farmers of drought-prone areas of the Central Zone of the country.
