Chennai, October 31, 2018: Dr Vijaya Bhaskar, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Kassel, today presented the results of his work on “Organic and conventional breeding affects early vigour traits of wheat,” at the Foundation.
His study takes into account conventional and organically grown varieties of wheat, which are tested for their performance at an organic field site. According to him, one of the core reasons to conduct this research is to identify potential wheat varieties suitable for organic cultivation, as many pedigree varieties may not perform as expected under organic cultivation practices due to lesser phenotypic plasticity. His research outcome identified wheat varieties OQ, OYQ, ‘Tobias’, ‘Poesie’, ‘Butaro’ and the conventional variety ‘Capo’ as best suited for organic conditions, while the hybrid bread-making variety ‘Hybery’ performs quite poorly under organic environment.
This study has great scope to develop different varieties on the response to the bred varieties suitable for organic cultivation.
The seminar was attended by researchers, scholars and scientists and led to a very interactive discussion with the speaker.