ICAR

1. Context 

2. Key points

• This comes even as cereal inflation soared to a record 16.12 per cent year-on-year in January driven primarily by wheat and atta (flour), whose consumer prices registered an annual increase of 25.05 per cent.
• The situation has been rendered worse by wheat stocks in government godowns: These, at 154.44 lakh tonnes on February 1, were the lowest in six years for the same date.
• However, a bigger source of uncertainty has to do with the wheat now in farmers' fields, due to harvesting only in April.
• Last year, a spike in March temperatures singed the crop just when the grains were accumulating starch and protein, leading to a significant drop in output as well as government procurement.
• There are fears of a repeat this time, with both maximum and minimum temperatures already 3-5 degrees Celsius above normal in many wheat-growing areas.
• But whether or not March 2022 will happen again climate change specifically, the tendency for the early onset of summer with hardly any spring break has made India's wheat crop vulnerable to terminal heat stress during the final grain formation and filling stages.
• One "beat the heat" solution put forth by scientists at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is to advance the time of sowing.

3. Wheat cropping pattern in India

• Wheat is typically a 140-145 days crop planted mostly in November before the middle of the month in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (Post the harvesting of paddy, cotton and Soyabean) and the second half and beyond in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (after sugarcane and paddy).
• If sowing can be preponed and taken up from around October 20, the crop is not exposed to terminal heat, with much of the grain-filling being completed by around the third week of March. It can, then, be comfortably harvested by the month-end.
• But the solution is easier said than done for the simple reason that the wheat sown before early November is also prone to premature flowering.
• The crop seeded in the first half of November normally takes 80-95 days to come to heading (i.e. for the baali'  or earheads bearing the flowers and eventual grain, to fully emerge from the wheat tillers).
• But if you sow in October, the heading is cut short by 10-20 days and occurs in 70-75 days.
• This affects yields, as the crop does not get enough time for vegetative growth (of roots, stems and leaves).

4. Mild vernalisation requirement

• To get around the problem, IARI scientists have bred wheat varieties with what is termed "mild vernalisation requirement" or the need for a certain minimum period of low winter temperatures for initiation of flowering.
• In this case, the crop, when sown on October 20-25, will come to heading only in 100-110 days.
• Adding another 4-5 days for pollination, which leaves a long window from mid-February for grain formation and filling.
• Maximum temperatures should ideally be in the early-thirty degrees range during the 30-40 days when the kernels are formed, take in nutrients from the stems and leaves and ripen after hardening and drying.
• The early-sown IARI varieties not only have a longer window for grain development, but also for vegetative stage growth between germination and flowering.
• By not heading early despite early sowing the new varieties can accumulate more biomass along with grain weight and they can beat the heat.

4.1. HDCSW-18 Variety

• The first, HDCSW-18 was released and officially notified in 2016.
• Although having a potential wheat yield of over 7 tonnes per hectare as against 6-6.5 tonnes for existing popular varieties such as HD-2967 and HD-3086 its plants grew to 105-110 cm.
• Being tall, compared to 90-95 cm for normal high-yielding varieties, makes them prone to lodging or bending over when their heads were heavy with well-filled grains.

4.2. HD-3410 Variety

4.3. HD-3385 Variety

• But it's the third one, HD-3385, which looks most promising.
• With the same yields as HD-3410, a plant height of just 95 cm and strong stems, it is least lodging-prone and most amendable for early sowing.
• This variety, sown this time at IARI's trial fields on October 22, has reached the pollination stage while the emergence of the earheads is yet to start for the wheat that was planted in the normal time.
• IARI has registered HD-3385 with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority (PPVFRA).
• It has also licenced the variety to the DCM Shriram Ltd-owned Bioseed for undertaking multi-location trials and seed multiplication.
• This is our first-ever public-private partnership experiment. 
• By registering the variety with PPVFRA, we are ensuring full protection of our intellectual property rights.
• Involving the private sector in the commercialisation of publicly-bred crop varieties will benefit farmers through faster adoption and diffusion of technology.
• It is also beneficial for ICAR because our institutes will earn a royalty on every kg of seed sold by the license, which they can plough back into research. And the country gains through higher production from climate-smart varieties.