MACS 1407 - A high-yielding and pest-resistant variety of Soybean : Daily Current Affairs

MACS 1407- A high-yielding and pest-resistant variety of Soybean

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A new variety of Soybean MACS 1407 has been developed by Indian scientist that is high yielding and pest resistant.

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MACS 1407, a new variety of soybean, is fit for cultivation in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and North-Eastern states. Its seeds will be made available to farmers for sowing during the 2022 Kharif season.

In 2019, India produced around 90 million tons of soybean. It is largely cultivated as oil seeds and is also cheap source of protein for animal feed and many packaged meals. This new variety can make India to be a major producer of Soybean in the world.

Scientists from MACS- Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India in collaboration with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi have developed this high yielding variety of soybean.

Using the conventional cross breeding technique they developed MACS 1407 which gives 39 quintals per hectare making it a high yielding variety and is also resistant to major insect-pests like girdle beetle, leaf miner, leaf roller, stem fly, aphids, white fly and defoliators. 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.

MACS 1407 needs an average 43 days for 50 % flowering and take 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.

This high yielding, pest resistant, low water and fertilizer requiring soybean variety, suitable for mechanical harvesting has recently been released by the Central Sub-Committee on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties of Agricultural Crops under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India making it legally available for seed production and cultivation.