Evaluation of mustard genotypes [Brassica juncea (L.) Czern and Coss] for quantitative traits and character association of seed yield and yield components at sub Himalayan region of West Bengal (India)

Brassica juncea is an important industrial and commercial oilseed crop grown primarily in India. This study aimed to assess 56 genotypes of Indian mustard to quantify genetic diversity, which aids the breeder in identifying genetically divergent parents to evaluate the proportional contributions of various components towards overall divergence. All the 56 Indian mustard genotypes were tested in RBD with three replications for 2 consecutive years i.e. 2016-17 and 2017-18 during the rabi season. Observations were recorded for 11 yield and its attributing traits. The findings revealed that height up to first branching, aphid count, penetration force and seed yield per plant had maximum PCV and GCV signifying that genetic factors have a greater impact on the inflow of these traits. Height up to first branching, secondary branches per plant, primary branches per plant, siliquae per plant, aphid count and 1000 seed weight had strong heritability combined with GA as % of mean. These indicate that the traits were controlled by additive gene action. Seed yield per plant was significantly correlated with penetration force and siliquae per plant. As a result, it's reasonable to predict that improving these traits by selection, could lead to significant yield gains. Four of the eleven PCs had eigen values greater than 1.0, accounting for 69.94% of the variance. PC I, which explained 30.31% of the overall variance. Mahalanobis D2 statistics revealed considerable genetic diversity among the genotypes. 56 genotypes were distributed into 7 clusters. This is anticipated that genotypes within a cluster are almost genetically related to one another. Cluster VII and II showed maximum inter-cluster divergence. From a breeding perspective, a divergence analysis revealed that genotypes like SKJM-05, RNWR-09-3, RW-351, B-85, DRMR-4001, RGN-386, TM52 276 and SKM-1313 can be selected as genetically divergent parents for hybridization to obtain desirable segregants

Genetic Variability and Character Association Study for Yield and Attributing Traits in Lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus.) under Terai Agro-climatic Conditions of West Bengal

Aims: To evaluate the genotypes for different yields and yield attributing morphological traits by estimation of GCV, PCV, heritability (h2) in a broad sense and genetic advance as percent of the mean. To study the character association between yield and yield attributes and further partitioning into their direct and indirect effect on yield for consideration of appropriate traits to facilitate the selection of desirable genotypes. Place and duration of Study: Lentil genotypes were evaluated in the instructional farm of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal during the rabi season of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Methodology: Forty lentil genotypes including two checks viz., WBL77 and IPL220 were evaluated in alpha lattice design with three replications following the standard cultural practices. The observations were recorded as the average of the same in five randomly sampled plants in each plot for all the eleven attributes studied. Statistical analysis was carried out using the R v. 4.1.1 software. Results: ANOVA revealed significant variation for all the characters among the genotypes and also for genotype vs. year interaction. Characters such as plant height (96.20%1, 26.32%2), secondary branches plant-1 (91.79%1, 28.59%2), number of pods plant-1 (97.98%1, 89.67%2), pod weight plant-1(g) (96.82%1, 90.15%2), 100 seed weight (g) (98.13%1, 40.92%2), yield plant-1(g) (96.68%1, 91.20%2)and harvest index (%) (94.28%1, 33.06%2) showed high heritability (1) coupled with high genetic advance as percentage of mean(2). Genotypic correlation study revealed that number of pods plant-1 (0.846), primary branches plant-1 (0.905), secondary branches plant-1 (0.416), pod weight plant-1(0.992) and harvest index (0.432) were significantly and positively correlated with yield plant-1. Path coefficient studies revealed that characters like pod weight plant-1(0.699), primary branches plant-1 (0.241), harvest index (0.083), number of pods plant-1 (0.070), 100 seed weight (0.063) and days to 90% maturity (0.047) had positive direct effect on yield. Conclusion: The present study revealed significant variability among the genotypes as far as the characters taken under study were concerned. Further, the characters showing positive  and significant correlation could be considered favorably for a further selection of desirable genotypes

Effects of Blanching on Nutrient Dynamics in Edible Shoots of Bambusa nutans Wall Ex Munro and Bambusa balcooa Roxb.

The effect of hot water blanching on proximate and mineral constitution of two edible bamboo shoots viz., Bambusa nutans and B. balcooa, was investigated in the eastern Himalayan Terai region of West Bengal, India. The proximate and mineral composition was determined at the laboratory of Department of Forestry,Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya in 2021-22 by using standard methods. In the present study, hot water blanching at 100ºC for 20 minutes was significantly reduced the carbohydrate (4.11g/100g fw), total protein (1.19g/100g fw), fat (0.28g/100g fw), ash (0.09g/100g fw), energy value (26.90 Kcal/100g fw), HCN content (8.72 mg/ Kg) and minerals viz. potassium (233.10mg/100g fw), calcium (11.84mg/100g fw) and magnesium (3.19mg/100g fw) content whereas enhanced the moisture content (92.75%), crude fibre (1.58g/100g fw), iron (1.78mg/100g fw) and copper content (0.94mg/100g fw), respectively, in comparison to the raw bamboo shoots. It was also found that  B. nutans was qualitatively superior with maximum edible percentage (43.17%), carbohydrate (4.50g/100g fw), total protein (1.51g/ 100g fw), fat content (0.48g/100g fw), crude fibre (1.74g/100g fw) and energy (31.80Kcal/ 100g fw) along with higher sodium (2.09 mg/100g fw), potassium (339.37mg/100g fw), magnesium (4.85 mg/100g fw), zinc (0.56 mg/100g fw) and manganese (1.12 mg/100g fw) while B. balcooa had higher moisture content (92.72%), HCN (104.15 mg/Kg), calcium (16.05mg/100g fw), iron (1.77mg/100g fw) and copper content (1.13mg/100g fw). However, there is a need for further research towards value addition and composite mixture to ensure the nutritional security

Comparative evaluation of penalized regression models with multiple linear regression for predicting rapeseed-mustard yield: Weather-indices based approach

Rapeseed-mustard (Brassica spp.) is one of the important edible oilseeds crops in India. The same level of weather condition impacts the growth and establishment of rapeseed-mustard plant differently in different stages of crop which lead to large intra-seasonal yield variations. Hence it is essential to give weightage to weekly weather conditions while fitting predictive model. In this present study, path-coefficient based weighted index was proposed along with existing unweighted and correlation based weighted index. The performance of penalized regression models viz. Ridge Regression, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) and Elastic Net (ENET) were compared with Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) for predicting rapeseed-mustard yield using weather-indices. The results revealed that the path-coefficient based weighting of weather parameters to the yield were stable than correlation based weighted-indices. Path-coefficient based weighted indices of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and windspeed were important variables in projection of yield. The performance of MLR was poor during validation of model due to overfitting issue. The performance of penalized models was stable in both calibration and validation of the model. The LASSO and ENET models that accompanied with coefficient shrinkage and variable selection were found to be the best fitted models for predicting Rapeseed-Mustard yield

Exploring the Genetic Variability for Yield Attributing Traits among the Indigenous and Exotic Collection of Wheat in Cis-Himalayan Region of West Bengal, India

A field experiment was conducted at Instructional Farm, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, during the 2018-19 rabi season to study the genetic components and genetic variability based on eleven number of quantitative traits in 254 bread wheat lines, which were collected from NBPGR, New Delhi. Analysis of variance for treatment showed high significance for all the traits except grain yield polt-1. Estimated GCV and PCV were high for awn length, peduncle length, plant height and AUDPC. Plant height (97.83), awn length (95.49), peduncle length (94.88), test weight (90.98), days to 50% flowering (87.66), number of grains spike-1 (70.33) and spike length (62.3) showed high heritability along with a high degree of genetic advance. Finally, 254 wheat accessions were grouped into three clusters based on the dendrogram analysis using the ward method