Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
MS Bhinda, DC Joshi, Salej Sood, Arun Gupta, RK Khulbe, BM Pandey, Rajashekara H and Lakshmi Kant

Abstract:
The medium duration blast tolerant finger millet variety VL Mandua 378 was developed at ICAR-Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora from the cross between GEC-440 (early maturing genotype) and VL Mandua149 (blast resistant locally adapted cultivar) followed by pedigree method of selection in the segregating generations. Under rainfed organic condition, this variety has recorded an average grain yield of 2,096 kg/ha, which was 34.56 and 70.33 percent higher over the check variety VL Mandua 324 (1,557 kg/ha) and PRM-1 (1,230 kg/ha), respectively in SVT trials conducted over 3 years from 2015-17. It is a medium duration variety with mean maturity duration of 114 days. The grains are nutritious with higher concentration of calcium (361 mg/100 g) and iron 4.5 mg/100 g) in comparison to the check variety VL Mandua324 (294.0 mg/100 g and 2.8 mg/100 g, respectively). It exhibited resistant reaction to leaf blast and moderate resistant reaction to finger and neck blast in the multilocation trials conducted over 9 locations. Based on its superior performance for grain yield, grain quality and blast tolerance VL Mandua378 was released by State Varietal Release Committee, Uttarakhand on 19^th May, 2020. Subsequently, it was notified by the Central Sub-Committee on Crops Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties for Agricultural Crops vide notification number S.O. 500 (E); dated January 29, 2021. The specific area of adaptation of this variety is the rainfed organic condition of Uttarakhand hills.