04 Jun New varieties of feed barley for northern plains and hills with management practices
उत्तरी मैदानों और पहाड़ियों के लिए चारे वाली जौ फसल की नई किस्में। Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is an ancient cereal grain, which upon domestication has evolved from food grain to a feed and malting grain. It is considered fourth largest cereal crop in the world, with a share of 7% of the global cereal production. Barley grains have higher soluble dietary fibre and lower low density lipoprotein (LDL) content and hence also recommended medicinally. Barley is also a rich source of tocols, including tocopherols and tocotrienols, which are known to reduce serum LDL cholesterol through their antioxidant action. Barley is grown nearly by 100 countries worldwide and during 2011, the global area under the crop was nearly 48.60 million hectares with a production of 134.27 million tonnes. In India, area under the crop is concentrated in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Bihar etc. in plains and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir in the hills. During 2011-12, in India, barley occupied nearly 0.65 m ha area producing nearly 1.61 m tons grain, with a per hectare productivity of 24.8 q. This rise in production over last year was due to the availability of new high yielding, stable and disease resistant varieties with adoption...