The Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday said Indian scientists have developed a high-yielding and pest-resistant variety of soyabean, and its seeds will be available to farmers for sowing from next year.  This newly developed variety called MACS 1407 is suitable for cultivation in Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and north-eastern states. Amid Covid gloom, prices of soyabean have reached Rs 7,250/- per quintal which was just Rs 5,750/-per quintal a month ago.

The new soybean variety has been developed by scientists from MACS- Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India in collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi.

In a statement, the ministry said new variety has been approved for commercial release by the Central Sub-Committee on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties of Agricultural Crops, making it legally available for seed production and cultivation. “...its seeds will be made available to farmers for sowing during the 2022 Kharif season,” it added.

The new variety has been developed using the conventional cross-breeding technique that 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, whitefly and defoliators. Its thick stem, higher pod insertion (7 cm) from the ground, and resistance to pod shattering make it suitable even for mechanical harvesting. It is suitable for rain-fed conditions of northeast India, it said.

ARI scientist Santosh Jaybhay, who led this work, said the new variety showed a 17 per cent increase in yield over the best check variety and 14-19 per cent yield advantage over the qualifying varieties. It is highly adaptive to sowing from June 20 to July 5 without any yield loss. This makes it resistant to the vagaries of Monsoon as compared to other varieties, he added.

According to the ministry, the new variety ‘MACS 1407’ requires an average of 43 days for 50 per cent flowering and takes 104 days to mature from the date of sowing. It has white coloured flowers, yellow seeds and black hilum. Its seeds have 19.81 per cent oil content, 41 per cent protein content and show good germinability.  The variety is suitable for mechanical harvesting.

Soybean production in the country is in the range of 100-146 lakh tonne in the last few years. For the 2020-21 crop year (July-June), production is pegged at 137.11 lakh tonne, as per the government’s second estimate. Meanwhile, the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) has alleged ‘speculative’ increase in prices of soybeans. The rise in prices has been 26 per cent during one months making Indian soyameal out-priced in the international markets, said SEA.