The MACS 6478, developed by ARI and cultivated by Changdev Yadav, obtained good yield in the rabi season last year. (Representational) A high-yield and nutritious wheat variety developed by Pune-based Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) has received an award from the Maharashtra government’s Agriculture Department.
The MACS 6478, developed by ARI and cultivated by Changdev Yadav, a farmer from Solshi village in Koregaon taluka of Satara district, obtained good yield in the rabi season last year. Yadav bagged the second position in the district-level competition (crop) organsied by the department.
ARI has been involved in developing grape, wheat and soybean varieties, which are both high yielding, nutritious and also suitable for cultivation in soil conditions in Maharashtra and in the southern peninsular India.
Farmers who took up cultivation of this award-winning wheat variant reaped 45 to 60 quintal per hectare whereas normal yield would not be more than 25 to 30 quintals per hectare for wheat variants like Lokvan, HD 2189 and others.
This ARI-developed variant is also highly resistant to wheat rust and similar diseases and matures in 110 days, which is shorter than the normal time duration required for wheat.
ARI scientists enlisted high nutritive values, including protein (14 per cent), zinc (44.1ppm), iron (42.8ppm) and the chapatis and breads made using the flour of this wheat were softer.
Like Yadav, ten farmers of Karanjkhop village of the same tehsil had cultivated this ARI-developed wheat. The Maharashtra State Seed agency, too, has been promoting this variant among farmers.
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