New Delhi, Feb 23 (PTI) Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar will address the 61st convocation of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) on Friday and also release different varieties of cereals, fruits and vegetables.

The 61st convocation of IARI, New Delhi will be organised on Friday at Pusa complex in the national capital, its Director A K Singh told reporters here.

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Union Minster of Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Chaudhary and Minister of State for Agriculture Shobha Karandlaje will also be present at the event.

Singh also announced that Kisan Mela will be organised during March 2-4.

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During the convocation, around 402 students will receive their degrees, including foreign students from several countries. On this occasion, the merit medals will be presented to the PG students.

IARI has added a new chapter by opening up its door to the undergraduate teaching, Singh said.

Under the new education policy, the first batch of 306 undergraduate students at IARI and outreach centres in various programmes have been initiated.

The students have been admitted to B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture at IARI New Delhi, IARI Jharkhand and IARI Assam. The institute has also began UG programmes for the B.Tech. (Agril. Engineering), B.Tech. (Biotechnology), and B.Sc. (Hons.) Community Science at IARI in collaboration with its sister institutes.

Moreover, the Vice President of India will release different varieties of cereals, fruits and vegetables during the convocation.

This year, 16 varieties/hybrids in field crops were developed through integrated approach of conventional and genomics-assisted breeding.

In wheat, 10 varieties were released, including HD 3406 and HD 3407, which are MAS-derived varieties having resistance to leaf stem- and stripe- rusts.

Besides, HD 3411, developed through MAS, was released for timely sown irrigated conditions. Further, HD 3369, HI 1650 (Pusa Ojaswi), HI 1653 (Pusa Jagrati), HI 1654 (Pusa Aditi), HI 1655 (Pusa Harsha), HI 8826 (Pusa Poshtik) and HI 8830 (Pusa Kirti) have been developed for various agro-ecologies.

During this year, IARI developed two herbicide (Imazethapyr) tolerant rice varieties i.e., Pusa Basmati 1979 and Pusa Basmati 1985. Due to the in-built herbicide tolerance, these varieties are suitable for DSR (direct seeded rice) cultivation in North-Indian plains.

Pusa Basmati 1121, Pusa Basmati 1718, Pusa Basmati 6 and Pusa Basmati 1509 occupied more than 95 per cent of the basmati rice area in the country, and contributed Rs 34,000 crore of foreign exchange during 2022-23.

In chickpea, Pusa JG-16, a drought tolerant variety developed through MAS was released for drylands. Further, Pusa Mustard-34 - a single zero high yielding variety with low erucic acid (0.79 per cent) has also been released.

In this 'International Year of Millets', institute's major focus is on the development of biofortified pearl millet cultivars for providing nutritional security.

Four biofortified pearl millet lines viz., PPMI 1280, PPMI 1281, PPMI 1283 and PPMI 1284 (with high iron and zinc content) were developed.

In Horticultural crops, two varieties of Rose (Pusa Lakshmi and Pusa Bhargava); Marigold (Pusa Parv and Pusa Utsav); Gladiolus (Pusa Rajat); Chrysanthemum (Pusa Lohit) and Bougainvillea (Pusa Akansha) were identified.

Two soft-seeded Guava varieties, Pusa Aarushi and Pusa Pratiksha with red and white pulp, respectively have been developed. A gynodioecious, semi-dwarf papaya variety, Pusa Peet has been released.

Singh informed that microbial technology of PUSA Decomposer, an environment-friendly solution for management of paddy straw/stubbles, has been licensed to 24 private firms.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)