Important Facts For Prelims
MACS 1407: Variety of Soybean
- 30 Apr 2021
- 3 min read
Why in News
Recently, Indian Scientists have developed a high-yielding and pest-resistant variety of soybean, called MACS 1407.
- Scientists from MACS- Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, in collaboration with Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi have developed it.
Key Points
- MACS 1407:
- Using the conventional cross breeding technique, scientists developed MACS 1407 which gives 39 quintals per hectare making it a high yielding variety.
- It requires an average 43 days for 50% flowering and takes 104 days to mature from the date of sowing.
- It has white coloured flowers, yellow seeds and black hilum. Its seeds have 19.81% oil content, 41% protein content and show good germinability.
- Its thick stem, higher pod insertion (7 cm) from ground, and resistance to pod shattering make it suitable even for mechanical harvesting.
- It is suitable for rain-fed conditions of north- east India.
- It is suitable for cultivation in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and North-Eastern states.
- Variety is also resistant to major insect-pests like girdle beetle, leaf miner, leaf roller, stem fly, aphids, white fly and defoliators.
- Its seeds will be made available to farmers for sowing during the 2022 Kharif season.
- It is highly adaptive to sowing from 20 June to 5 July without any yield loss. This makes it resistant to the vagaries of Monsoon as compared to other varieties.
- Significance:
- In 2019, India produced around 90 million tons of soybean, widely cultivated as oil seeds as well as a cheap source of protein for animal feed and many packaged meals and is striving to be among the world’s major producers of soybean.
- High-yielding, disease resistant varieties of the legume can help achieve this target.
Kharif Season
- Crops are sown from June to July and Harvesting is done in between September-October.
- Crops are: Rice, maize, jowar, bajra, tur, moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut, soyabean etc.
- States are: Assam, West Bengal, coastal regions of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra.
Rabi Season
- Crops are sown from October to December and Harvesting is done in between April-June.
- Crops are: Wheat, barley, peas, gram, mustard etc.
- States are: Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Zaid Season
- In between the rabi and the kharif seasons, there is a short season during the summer months known as the Zaid season.
- Crops are: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops.
