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Director, ICAR-NBPGR and team visited Regional Station Akola for monitoring the progress made under various DBT funded projects

Date Posted: 10-02-2021

Under Mission Programme on “Minor Oilseeds of Indian Origin” , Department of Biotechnology ( DBT), Government of India provided support under various DBT funded projects for accelerating research efforts for enhancing the over all oilseed production in the country. Under this mission presently three projects are being executed at ICAR-NBPGR, Regional Station, Akola.

Dr. Kuldeep Singh, Director, ICAR-NBPGR, New Delhi and team (Dr. Ashok Kumar, Dr. Kavita Gupta and Dr. Vikender Kaur) monitored the progress of these projects and gave valuable suggestions to speed up the genetic improvement in these crops. Dr. Kuldeep Singh and team ICAR-NBPGR appreciated the efforts being made by Regional Station, Akola for handling this huge task of large scale multiplication, purification and characterization in these oilseed crops.

Project 1: Exploiting genetic diversity for improvement of Safflower through Genomic-Assisted Discovery of QTLs/Genes Associated with Agronomic traits: A total of 6983 accessions (entire ICAR-NBPGR Gene Bank collection) is being purified and multiplied by putting selfing bags on every capitula of selected plants to obtain pure single plant seeds. The experiment is sown on about 9 acres of farm area. Few important qualitative and quantitative traits are being recorded for each accession as per DUS guidelines.

 

Project 2: Leveraging genetic resources for accelerated genetic improvement of Linseed using comprehensive genomics and phenotyping approaches: Under this project entire Gene bank collection comprising 2612 accession is being evaluated for various Agro-morphological traits. Very high variability was observed for traits like plant vigour, plant growth habit, earliness, flower shape and colour.

 

Project 3: Exploitation of genetic and genomic resources for improving of niger (Guizotia abyssinica L. F. Cass) through breeding and biotechnological tools: About 405 niger germplasm accessions are being multiplied and characterized. Each accession is covered with nylon net to avoid out crossing by insect pollination. Individual lines are shaked during flowering and flowers also gently rubbed to increase the seed set as the niger crop has self incompatibility. 

(Source Dr Dinesh Chand, ICAR-NBPGR Regional Station Akola)