VL Gehun 738 -- an awnless high-yielding variety of wheat for north-western hills

摘要

Wheat is the most important winter (rabi) season crop of northern hills zone comprising the states of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and 9 hill districts of Uttar Pradesh. Though majority of the area of this zone is rainfed, the seasonal precipitation of about 200 mm is sufficient to grow a good crop of wheat under rainfed condition. Furthermore, comparatively cooler season and longer crop duration in hills are beneficial to achieve fairly good yields even under rainfed conditions, if appropriate high-yielding varieties and matching agro-technology are adopted. Despite these apparent advantages wheat productivity is quite low in the zone as compared to the national average. Frequent occurrence of hail storms at the time of crop maturity does a great harm thus further reduces the realization of high yield. Since majority of farmers prefer awnless varieties of wheat, hence there was a long-standing demand from the farmers of this region for an improved high-yielding and disease-resistant, awnless variety which can be grown under both irrigated as ,,veil as rainfed conditions. Recently, the first awnless improved wheat variety VL Gehun 738, combining high degree of rust resistance and higher grain yield than the existing varieties, viz. Sonalika, HD 2380 and HS 240, has been developed by the Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora. The awnless character of this variety is preferred by farmers not only for good quality straw but also due to relatively less yield losses by frequent occurrence of hail storms in this region.