The Hindu Business Line : ICAR institute develops first ever mustard hybrid

New Delhi, Sept 10 Twenty per cent extra mustard oil a hectare. That’s what the Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s (ICAR) National Research Centre on Rapeseed-Mustard (NRC-RM) at Bharatpur (Rajasthan) claims to have accomplished through the first ever hybrid mustard developed in the country.

The hybrid – NRCHB 506 or Sankar Sarson – has demonstrated 10 per cent additional yield over popular mustard varieties such as ‘Maya’ and ‘Varuna’ in trials carried out over three years across five States. Further, it has 1-2 per cent higher oil content.

“If you combine the two (10 per cent higher crop yield/hectare plus two per cent additional oil content), the net oil gain a hectare works out to 20 per cent,” said Dr K.H. Singh, Senior Scientist at NRC-RM and chief breeder of the hybrid that has been recently identified for commercial release.

HYBRIDISATION

Unlike maize, bajra, cotton, arhar, sunflower and a host of vegetables (tomato, brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, chillies, etc), there were till now no commercial hybrids for mustard (Brassica juncea) in the country.

The reason for this is the absence of any natural hybridisation mechanism in mustard for developing commercially viable hybrids.

In mustard, however, it has not been possible to evolve commercial hybrids in the absence of suitable ‘cytoplasmic male sterile’ (CMS) or ‘restorer’ parental lines.

The technique usually employed for hybrid seed breeding relies on identifying or developing CMS parental lines (in which the male organs, i.e. stamen, are sterile) and crossing these with a ‘restorer’ line (which is male-fertile), so that only the other parental line can pollinate the former. The resultant progeny is a commercial F1 hybrid.

In this case, the scientists at NRC-RM employed a technology developed by the Delhi-based National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology to induce sterility in mustard through the cytoplasm from a related wild species, Moricandia arvensis.

HIGH YIELDS

The new hybrid has recorded yields of up to 32 quintals a hectare in evaluation trials.

Compared to this, varieties such as ‘Maya’ (grown in Kanpur, Mathura, Agra and Etawah districts of Uttar Pradesh) and ‘Rohini’ (Bharatpur, Alwar and Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan) give 20-30 quintals a hectare, depending on the extent of irrigation, timely sowing and management.

Others such as ‘RGM-73’, ‘RL-1359’ and ‘Pusa Jaikisan’ cultivated in irrigated conditions in northern Rajasthan (Ganganagar and Hanumangarh) and Jodhpur yield up to 30 quintals a hectare.

“In terms of oil yield, Sankar Sarson has an average oil content of 40.6 per cent, as against 38-39 per cent in existing varieties,” Dr Singh said.

Rapeseed-Mustard is the country’s second biggest oilseed crop after groundnut.

Domestic production was estimated at 5.8 million tonnes in 2007-08 and 7.44 million tonnes the previous year.