UAS releases 15 new crop varieties

The University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Dharwad has released 15 new varieties of crops.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Tuesday, UAS Vice-Chancellor R R Hanchinal claimed that the new crop varieties will help the farmers reap high yield.

Two new tomato varieties – DMT-1 and DMT-5 – can give a yield of 28 tonnes per acre in a span of 120 days. They are bacterial wilt-resistant and have longer shelf-life.
A new coccinia (thondekai) variety – DRC-2 – can give a yield of 67 tonnes per hectare and is a long duration crop. The small green fruit is suited for long distance transport, Hanchinal said.

The scientists, after years of research, have developed new cotton variety named DHH-263. It is a 165-day duration crop with an yield of 26 quintals per hectare. This is a staple hybrid cotton with high lint yielding ability, he said.

A new hybrid maize variety, GH-0727, is a 120-day duration crop with a yield of 74 quintals per hectare, and contains high starch. This is resistant to turcicum leaf blight and rust, he added.

For the blackgram growers, a new variety, DBGV-05, is a 82-day duration crop with yielding capacity of 15 quintals per hectare.

Apart from this, the UAS has also released new variety of cowpea (DCS-1-47), green gram (DGGV-2), Niger (Gurellu, DNS-4), Sesame (SSD-5), two new groundnut varieties (G-2-52 and GPBD-5) with a yielding capacity of 35 quintals per hectare, soya (JS 03-05 and DSB-21).

Honour

The UAS Dharwad is one of the four universities in the country selected for institutional partnership projects taken up under the first Obama-Singh 21st century knowledge initiative awards, the VC said.

A grant of $ 250,000 will be given for the three-year projects on agricultural sciences and food security, energy and sustainable development, climate change, public health, educational reforms and innovation.