In what could be a big boost to India’s efforts to increase the area under oilseed cultivation that is important for cutting downing the edible oil import bill, researchers at the Pune-based Agharkar Research Institute have developed a new soyabean variety which can not only yield more, but also withstand vagaries of heavy monsoon.

More importantly, the variety, which has already been released for cultivation, is more suitable for Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and north-eastern States. None of these States, barring Chhattisgarh, is known for growing soyabean in big way. ARI scientists, who named the cultivar MACS 1407 (after Maharashtra Association of Cultivation of Science), said the seeds of the new variety will be made available to farmers for sowing in the coming kharif season, a statement said.

In 2019, India produced around 90 million tonnes of soyabean, which is widely cultivated as oilseed and seen as a cheap source of protein for animal feed and many packaged meals. High-yielding, disease resistant varieties of the legume crops are key if India wants to be one of the major producers of soyabean in the world.

High-yeilding variety

Working closely with the counterparts at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the MACS-ARI scientists developed the new variety which helps produce 3.9 tonnes of soyabean per hectare, which is much higher than the prevailing soyabean productivity in the country. Apart from being a high-yielding variety, MACS 1407, developed through conventional cross-breeding, is also resistant to a number of insect-pests such as girdle beetle, leaf miner, leaf roller, stem fly, aphids, white fly and defoliators. Besides, its thick stem, higher pod insertion (7 cm) from ground, and resistance to pod shattering make it suitable even for mechanical harvesting.

Benefits of MACS 1407

Santosh Jaybhay, ARI scientist who led this work said, “MACS 1407 showed 17% increase in yield over the best check variety and 14-19% yield advantage over the qualifying varieties. It is highly adaptive to sowing between June 20 to July 5 without any yield loss. This makes it resistant to the vagaries of monsoon as compared to other varieties.”

This requires 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. This high yielding, pest resistant, low water and fertiliser requiring soyabean 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 making it legally available for seed production and cultivation.