Dr Vijay Kumar Yadav, Director, Seed & Farms and Nodal Officer, NSP
Mob: 7376105454
In agricultural development and modernization, use of quality seeds of improved varieties suitable to location specific condition have played a most significant role in enhancing agricultural production and productivity. It is, therefore, imperative to place more emphasis for developing an efficient, effective and latest technology for seeds production involving farmers, which should be relatively low cost and affordable to the low-income farmers in the area jurisdiction of university as well as state as a whole.
Besides, teaching, research and extension, production of quality seeds of promising varieties/hybrids of field crops/vegetables/forage crops seeds/seedlings/ saplings of flowers and fruits, mushroom and fingerling production suitable to local specific conditions is the mandatory responsibility of state Agricultural Universities. Keeping in view the increasing importance and awareness of quality seeds among cultivators, the university re-oriented its seeds production programme. Consequently production of all categories of seeds (Breeder, foundation and certified seeds) of field and vegetable crops increased from 3800q during 1986-87 to 9000 q in 2007-08. But to percolate the benefits of high yielding, fertilizer responsive and disease resistant varieties/hybrids suitable to local specific condition to lowest strata of farmers community by way of higher seeds replacement rate, still there is an urgent need for strengthening and expending seeds production programme of the university.
The functional area of the university encompasses 28 districts of the state in six divisions of South-Western Semi Arid Zone, Central Plain Zone and Bundelkhand Zone. Out of the 17248 thousand ha net sown area of U.P. 7225 thousand ha is covered in the service area of the university which shares about 42 per cent.
This zone occupies 20 per cent of service area of the university. The major crops grown here are wheat, rape seeds & mustard, barley, chickpea and field pea in Rabi and pearlmillet, maize and paddy in Kharif season. Some other crops like sugarcane, potato, groundnut, linseeds, cotton, mungbean, urdbean and pigeonpea are also grown in sizeable area. To supply the quality seeds to the farmers, university is required to produce 12,000 q foundation seeds. While, at present only 5,000 q seeds of major crops is being produced. Thus, there is a gap of 7,000 q to cover the area at 20 per cent replacement rate.
It has an area of about 52 per cent of service area of the university. The cropping intensity of this zone is 138 per cent. The major crops are wheat, chickpea, mustard and potato in Rabi and paddy, maize, pearlmillet, pigeonpea and sorghum in Kharif season. Some other crops like barley, lensesame, pea, sesame and groundnut are also cultivated in sizeable area. Under mustardfed situation, crop rotations of sorghum (fodder)-mustard/chickpea/pea/lentil, mungbean/urdbean-chickpea/fieldpea/mustard and maize-mustard are being adopted by the farmers. Dairying, goat and sheep farming along with mushroom, vegetable and fruit production are the prevalent farming systems in the zone.
For replacement of 20 per cent area with quality seeds, 27,000 q foundation seeds shall be required for producing the certified seeds. However, as now, we are producing only 8,000q foundation seeds. After implementation of the project, some new area will be reclaimed and university will be able to produce 18,000 q foundation seeds which in turn will produce more than 4.0 lac q certified seeds after three years.
It has area of about 27 per cent of the total service area of the university. The cropping intensity of this zone is only 112 per cent. Irrigation is a limiting factor holding down the productivity and production of this zone. Wheat, chickpea, fieldpea and lentil in Rabi and sorghum, pigeonpea & urdbean in Kharif are the main crops. Paddy, linseeds, sesame, soybean, groundnut are also grown in sizeable area. In Bundelkhand Zone, besides agriculture farming some farmers have initiated the plantation of orchard and production of vegetables and ornamental crops.
To fulfill the requirement of quality seeds for this zone, there is a need to produce 11,000 q foundation seeds, whereas present status of production of foundation seeds is only 1,000 q. Thus, there is strong need to develop the infrastructural facilities under university farms of this zone and also reclaim new areas.
3.1 Field crops production of certified seeds of different crops revealed that maximum
seeds replacement rate is for paddy 915%), followed by mustard (15%), wheat (11%), pigeonpea (6%), pearlmillet (5%), barely (4%) sesame (3%), pea (2%), chickpea (2%), lentil (1%), maize (1%), groundnut (0.2%), sorghum (0.1%) and linseeds ().1%). Except mustard/mustard, the crops showing lower replacement rate with poor productivity are pulses oil seeds and millets, which are also occupying major area in jurisdiction of the university. This situation indicates that recently released varieties of these crops are not being cultivated adopted by the farmers, which is the major cause of poor productivity of these crops. The possible reasons of reduced replacement rate in these crops are due to some physical, socio-economic and technical constraints. These include matchless seeds production of different categories, specially Breeder-seeds, remoteness of area, low economic viability and inurn, low risk bearing capacity of farmers, small holding, non-availability of location specific technologies, poor extension network, lack of marketing avenues, besides unpredictable climatic factors.
4.1 Facilities available :
In all there are 40 farms spread over in three agro climatic zones namely South Western Semi Arid Zone, Central Plain Zone and Bundelkhand Zone under the are jurisdiction of this university. These farms were established way back in between 1906-57 and were transferred to the university during 1975. Details of farms in each agro climatic zone are as follows: