Bathinda: Since Jan, National Agricultural Research System (NARS), including ICAR Institutes and State/Central Agricultural Universities (CAU/SAU) under the aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has developed 524 new varieties/hybrids of field crops and 167 of horticultural crops.
Field crop varieties include 246 of cereals, which includes 126 varieties of rice, 22 of wheat, 51 of maize, 12 of sorghum, 13 of pearl millet, 21 small millets and 1 barley; 55 of oilseeds which includes 8 of Indian mustard, 2 yellow sarson, 8 groundnut, 12 soybean, 9 linseed, 4 safflower, 5 sesame, 3 sunflower, and 2 each of Niger and Castor; 69 of pulses including 19 chickpea, 4 pigeonpea, 7 lentil, 6 fieldpea, 6 urdbean, among others, stated Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a written reply to a question by MP Naveen Jindal.
The minister stated the horticultural crop varieties include perennial spices (19), seed spices (8), potato and tropical tuber crops (8), Plantation crops (6), fruits crops (40), vegetable crops (70) and flowers and other ornamental plants (16). Out of these 109 trait specific varieties of 34 field and 27 horticultural crops were released on Aug 11.
While developing these varieties, focus was given on adaptation to climate change and improved nutrition quality traits. As a result, 455 varieties have tolerance to one or more biotic and/or abiotic stresses; amongst them 92 have been bred for extreme resilience against abiotic stresses (rainfed, drought, flood, waterlogging, terminal heat, low temperature, salinity, low phosphorus) and 32 are biofortified with improved nutritional qualities.