High yielding redgram for rabi season

By Our Agriculture Correspondent

A HIGH-yielding and disease tolerant redgram pigeonpea Cajanus cajan released by the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University

(ANGRAU), Rajendranagar, Andhra Pradesh, a couple of years ago is becoming popular among the growers as rabi season crop.

Released as Lakshmi, the high yielding variety was developedat the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- AridTropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, near Hyderabad, in collaborationwith the scientists at the Regional Agricultural Research Station(RARS), LAM, Guntur. It was extensively field tested by the scientistsat RARS, and recommended for release for commercial cultivation by the farmers by ANGRAU.

This high yielding redgram is ideally suited for cultivationin Guntur, Krishna, Nellore and Prakasam districts as a rainfedcrop during rabi. In Warangal and Khammam districts it can beraised using the receding soil moisture in the Godavari flood- proneareas, according to the scientists at RARS, Guntur.

In Andhra Pradesh, redgram is generally grown in kharif season as an inter-crop. The crop often gets damaged severely by theHelicoverpa pod borer as the peak flowering season of the cropcoincides with the peak activity of the insect pest. Pest monitoringstudies over the years revealed that the pest activity was more during September to December. The scientists also found that if the redgram was sown in rabi, the crop would come to flowering only in January and thus escape the pod borer menace.

This new cropping pattern proved successful, and farmers readily adopted this profitable proposition. However, there were no specificvarieties of redgram available for them to grow in this season.In their search for suitable variety for this situation, the scientists found the variety developed with help from ICRISAT as an ideal one. The new variety tested in the name ICPL 85063 is bold-seeded with resistance to sterility mosaic virus disease and moderately resistant to wilt disease. It has not been found to have resistance to any insect pest. The variety has an indeterminate growth habit with long primary branches and dark green foliage. It grew to a mean height of 120 cm in rabi season. When grown in kharif, it attains a mean height of 160 cm. In rabi, the variety matures in 120 days, and the kharif-sown crop matures in 170 days. It has recorded an average yield of 2000 kg per hectare under normal field conditions.

Hundred bold red seeds of this variety will weigh 9.9 g.It has got good dhal recovery and higher protein content than the other varieties tested. It has been field tested extensively for well over eleven years, and in all the field trials and in farmers' holdings its performance had been found better than the other varieties tested.

As a pure crop of redgram, this variety will need a seed of 10 to 12 kg per hectare in kharif, where a spacing of 90 cm by 20 cm. For the rabi season crop, a closer spacing 45 cm by 10 cm is adopted, and the seed rate will be 35 to 40 kg per hectare. A nutrient dose of 20 kg nitrogen and 50 kg phosphorus is recommended as basal dressing. The rabi redgram is best sown between September and October 15, according to the scientists.

The new redgram with high yield potential and built-in resistance to sterility mosaic disease can be ideally grown in rabi season.

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