IMPORTANCE OF DETERMINING THE NUTRITIONAL STATUS
2. VARIETIES 1. Origin
the crop is susceptible to few diseases such as rust or rot. The breeders are concentrated in evolving a variety resistant/tolerant/less susceptible to the disease.
But there is no concern among breeders – plant nutrition scientists combined to evolve a variety for N or P stress conditions. The deficiency of these two nutri-ents will continue to daunt our productivity of almost all agricultural crops.
The concern for soil health has not gained momentum as much as it has gained with respect to plant health. If the soil health is not cared for, probably plant health deteriorates at much faster rate. Hence there is a need to re-orient strategies to strengthen plant breeding programs to accommodate plant nutrition as priority. Since Indian soils are starved of N and P mainly, there is a need to screen varieties for such soils. Although the genetic base for the crop is limited there is always scope for increasing the genetic base through exchange programs. For this purpose there is a need to develop a data base to be used by plant breeders where all the infor-mation is available.
The second biggest problem with respect to production technology is lack of
‘appropriate’ technology. Although recommendations for nutrients (mostly NPK) have been worked out the quantities have been too large. Re-visiting the problem to reduce the fertilizers is demanding since the crop duration is too short and the economic viability of growers also inhibits to apply such large quantities. The question that needs immediate answer is how to increase the utilization of applied fertilizer? By any technique if the utilization efficiency could be increased, can we reduce the fertilizer input without compromising yield? These are some of the intriguing questions that demand immediate attention of soil scientists/agrono-mists. In this chapter sincere efforts are made to pool the information on these above issues and relevant points are discussed.
2. VARIETIES
2.2. Varieties – popular
There are several popular varieties grown in the country. Some of them are exotic, introduced into the country long back while few of them are bred and evolved to suit the local environment. The varieties are selected based on their special char-acters depending on its yield potential or tolerant to a particular pest or disease or sometimes even to the preference for pod shape, color, taste or other properties.
There are about a dozen varieties that are popular in the country and interestingly half of them are exotic that are almost naturalized and have become acclimatized and considered as local cultivars. The list of such popular varieties with their duration and characteristics cultivated in India is listed in Table 1.
2.3. Varieties – local
Cultivars are recommended specific to region or locality depending on various factors such as soil, climate (micro and macro), sun shine hours, rainfall and preference of people in the locality for shape, color and other properties of the pod. The resis-tance of a variety to pests and diseases in the locality/region is yet another factor for acceptance by the farmers. The variety identified by the breeder is first notified at University level based on three years (minimum) performance. Later the variety is tested at several locations (multi locational trials) within the state or region to be released as a state variety. If the variety qualifies for cultivation at different
Table 1. Varieties of French bean cultivated in India.
Varieties Duration (days) Yield potential Remarks (Quintal/hectare)
Arka Komal 70 090 Pods are green, flat, tender
Bountiful 100–120 Pods are borne in clusters
Contender 50–55 days for 080–95 Tolerant to powdery mildew
first picking and mosaic
Jampa 080–85 Highly resistant to wilt and
withstands warmer conditions Kentucky Wonder 60–65 100–120 Stringless, fruiting in clusters
Lakshmi 55–60 120–140 Tolerant to angular leaf spot disease
Pant Anupama 55–60 089 Resistant to angular leaf spot and
moderately resistant to mosaic virus
Premier 55–60 075–90 Adapted to late sowing
Pusa Parvati 45–50 080–85 Resistant to mosaic and powdery
mildew
Selection EC 57080 55–60 115 Pods are green, stringless, tender, round and fleshy
Selection EC 1080 100 Chocolate colored seeds
SVM-1 65–70 days for 105–125 Resistant to angular leaf spot first picking
VL-Boni-1 45–60 105–115 Round, fleshy, stringless and
pale green Source: Chadha, 2001.
agro-climatic regions, then the variety will be tested at different centers in dif-ferent states by a coordinated body AICRP-Vegetable (All India Coordinated Research Project on Vegetables Crops, Head Quarters at Varanasi). The variety will be screened first at initial variety trial (IVT) if it has to be qualified as a variety at national/regional level. If the variety succeeds satisfactorily at the tested centers then the variety will be screened at multi-locations in advance variety trial (AVT). Upon successful completion of test parameters in AVT, the variety will be notified and released for general cultivation at national level. Based on above criteria several varieties have been identified for different regions of India, and they are listed in Table 2. These varieties have been successfully cultivated in the regions indicated.
2.4. Varieties – exotic
Technically exotic varieties are those accessions that have been brought into the country legally through germplasm exchange treaty by an authentic organization such as National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. But prior to 1986 these regulations were not rigid. Well before few decades few accessions have been introduced into the country and they have adopted and got naturalized.
Some of these varieties are ‘Top crop’ and ‘Contender’ from USA. ‘Giant Stringless’
‘BKN-74’ are from Sweden. The variety ‘Wade’ and accessions ‘EC 24940’ ‘EC 74958’ and ‘EC 30021’ are from Russia. Today all these cultivars have been cul-tivated in commercial scale. ‘Kentucky wonder’ a pole type variety introduced
Table 2. French bean varieties commercially cultivated in different regions of India.
Sl. No. Region/State Varieties recommended Reference
1. Jammu and Kashmir Contender Samnotra et al. (1998)
2. Himachal Pradesh B-6 Negi and Shekhar (1993)
Him-1 Saini and Negi (1998)
EC-26392, PBL-M-1 Singh and Singh (1998) Sum-1, Kentucky wonder Thakur et al. (1999)
Contender Arya et al. (1999)
3. Punjab Pusa Parvaty, Premier Dhanju et al. (1993)
4. Delhi PDR-14, HUR-14, Ahlawat (1996)
5. West Bengal VL-63 Das et al. (1996)
6. NEH region Tender, Canadian wonder Roy and Parthasarthy (1999)
Meghalaya, PDR-14 Bhagawati and Bhagabati
Assam (1994)
7. Bihar PDR-14 Dwivedi et al. (1994)
Uday Nandan and Prasad (1998)
8. Uttar Pradesh HUR-15 Singh et al. (1996)
PDR-14 Rana and Singh (1998)
9. Madhya Pradesh Rajmal Dwivedi et al. (1994)
10. Maharashtra Waghya Koli et al. (1996)
11. Karnataka Arka Komal Anjanappa et al. (2000)
12. Pantnagar, Uttar Pradesh Pant Anupama, UPF – 627 Shridhar and Ram (1999)
13. Pune, Maharashtra HPR-35 Deshpande et al. (1995)
from USA is also a successful variety. The other successful introductions are ‘Jampa’
from Mexico for Maharashtra region and ‘Watex’ for Nilgiri Hills region and doing extremely well (Thomas et al., 1983).
2.5. Varieties – global
Varieties that are performing exceedingly well at global level are of interest to the breeder for evolving a suitable variety to the given occasion through exchange of germplasm. Several varieties having special characters such as rich in protein, resistant to salinity, resistant to pests and diseases, mosaic, having excellent cooking quality, best for deep freezing, processing market etc. is listed. The information avail-able on new varieties released recently from China, Russia, Europe and other countries are check-listed in the Table 3. This information is relevant to increase the genetic base particularly to the countries where this vegetable is an introduced crop.
3. PHOSPHORUS NUTRITION