In this article we will discuss about the improvement of wheat varieties in India.
Three species of wheat are under cultivation in India. About 88 per cent of area is under bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) and a little over 11 per cent under macaroni wheat (T.durum). Emmer wheat (T.dicoccum) is grown on a very limited area in Maharashtra (khapli), Gujarat (popatya), Tamil Nadu (samba) and Andhra Pradesh (ravva godhuma).
Bread wheat is grown throughout the country. While Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Orissa, Assam and other eastern states exclusively grow bread wheat, both bread wheat and macaroni wheats are grown in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Varietal Improvement:
In 1920s, Japanese scientists started intensive work to breed dwarf varieties and released semi-dwarf wheat called Norin. The word Norin in Japanese means agriculture and forestry and varieties officially released are designated as Norin. Among the various Norin varieties, Norin 10 has become historical on account of its extensive use in the development of new semidwarf varieties all over the word.
Inazuka and Asanuma in Japan developed Norin 10 in 1935 from a across of Fultz Daruma and Turky. During the US occupation of Japan after World War II, Dr SS Salmon of the USD A collected seed of Norin 10 and forwarded the sample to USA in 1946. OA Vogel of USD A used Norin 10 along with two other Japanese and two Korean introductions, which made possible the development of semidwarf wheat cultivars.
Dr Norman Borlaug at CIMMYT, Mexico to develop germplasm/cultivars adapted to tropics used these original cultivars and their derivatives. A number of high yielding, disease resistant, heat tolerant dwarf varieties such as Yaqua, Lerma Rojo 64, Sonora 64 came out of this effort. For his work in developing such wheat varieties adapted to Mexico, India, Pakistan, Iran and the Mediterranean basin, Dr Borlaug was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1970.
During early 1960s, some of the dwarf wheat lines of USDA were evaluated at IARI, New Delhi. The new plant type caught attention of Indian scientists as they out yielded the then popular tall Indian varieties. Since then, several polices, decisions and actions were framed by the Government of India culminating in the import of 18,000 t of wheat seed from Mexico leading to start of green revolution in India.
From the early generation material supplied by Dr Borlaug, the Indian researchers selected two wheat varieties Kalyansona and Sonalika with acceptable grain type. Soon these two varieties occupied 10 M ha and made the wheat revolution happen. This situation created a concern on the genetic vulnerability, as new rust pathotyps able to match these varieties become common in the pathogen population.
Spring gene pool resulted in PBW 343 (Atilla), WH 542 (Kauz), UP 2328, HD 2786 and several other lines that were high yielding and multiple disease resistant. During the crop year 1999, these varieties occupied more than 4 M ha in northwestern plains zone and thus contributed to record wheat production.
Recommended Varieties:
Most of the older high yielding varieties that were popular such as Sonalika, Kalyansona, WI 711, WG 377, HD 2285, Lok 1, WH 147, UP 215, UP 210, Heera, Moti, Janak, Pratap, HD 2278, VL 421 etc., have become highly susceptible to rusts and hence unsuitable for general cultivation. Only few varieties like HD 2009, UP 262 and HD 2189 continue to maintain high degree of resistance to rust, but have lost popularity since higher yielding replacements have become available.
Information on latest recommended varieties for different production conditions for different parts of the country is summarised in Table 2.3.
TABLE 2.3: Improved wheat varieties recommended for different wheat zones of the country.
Wheat Varieties for Different Uses:
Chapati-C 306, Raj 3765, HD 2285, PBW 175, PBW 373, K 8027, LOK 1, MACS 6145, K 9107, UP 262, NW 1014, HUW 234, HUW 533, HD 2833, Sujatha, HI 1500, HW 2004, DL 788-2, GW 173, GW 273, GW 322, GW 496.
Bread – HS 240, VL 738, PBW 396, HD 277, HD 2733, NW 2036, LOK 1, GW 173, GW 190, GW 496, HI 977, HD 2189, HD 2501, DWR 162, DWR 195, PBW 533.
Biscuit – UP 2425.
Pasta – PDW 233, WH 896, PBW 34, HI 8498, HD 4672, MACS 2846, Raj 1555, A-9-30-1, DDK 1009, NP 200.