Hisar varsity develops high-protein sorghum

Deepender Deswal

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Tribune News Service

Hisar, November 12

Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) here has developed a new improved variety of sorghum CSV 44F. The variety is developed by the Forage section of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding of the university.

Dr AK Chabra, Head of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, said the newly developed variety was notified and released by the ‘Crop Standards, Notification and Approval Central Sub-Committee’ of the Department of Agriculture and Co-operation of the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

He said the variety was developed by the team of scientists namely Dr Pammi Kumari, Dr Satyawan Arya, Dr SK Pahuja, Dr NK Thakral and Dr DS Phogat, Dr Satpal, Dr Jayanthi Tokas, Dr Harish Kumar, Dr Vinod Malik and Dr Sarita Devi.

The variety is recommended for southern states, mainly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Vice-Chancellor of the University Professor Samar Singh congratulated the scientists for the achievement and called for continuous efforts in future as well adding that the variety has 10 per cent higher protein content, good in taste and also high digestibility than other varieties, due to which it is helpful in increasing milk production of animals.

The VC said the variety had no lodging problems and was most suitable in moderate to high rainfall areas. Naturally poisonous dhurin content is also very less in this variety and is moderate tolerant to stem borer and shoot fly. The average green fodder yield of the variety is 407 q/ha, which is 7.5 per cent and 5.8 per cent higher than other improved varieties of sorghum such as CSV 21F and CSV 30F, respectively.