A three-day India-CIMMYT conference, held in the capital organised by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Wheat Research Institute, CIMMYT, located in Mexico, also identified the thrust areas for implementation.

It was decided that S Rajaram and S Nagarajan will lead the second generation of green revolution in wheat, while S Pandey and N N Singh will lead the second green revolution in maize.

It was decided to expand the genetic variability of Indian wheat through Aegilops gene pool for abiotic and biotic stresses, capturing on the productivity potential of NEPZ and CZ by addressing specific research and development issues clearly flagged. They identified breeding varieties adopted to RW system and suited to the emerging tillage options and adoption of raisedbed planting system in NWPZ.

It was decided to increase productivity and quality levels in NWPZ through hybrids and super wheat as this area has congenial conditions for growth and expansion.

Breeding of wheat varieties durable to disease should be encouraged. Research on durum wheat should also be encouraged with an emphasis on industrial quality needs and trade. Development of superior cultivators with early maturity, specially for marginal and tribal areas should be taken up in right ernest. High-yielding and stable-performing cultivators with greater tolerance to water-logging should be identified and developed.

Similarly high-yielding and stable-performing cultivators with separate tolerance to drought, leaf and sheath blight, post-flowing stalk rots, stem borers should be identified and developed.

The agreement also called for development of high-yielding and stress-tolerant inbred lines with high general combining ability of cultivators.

It further stressed upon strengthening seed productioncapacity through research on economics of seed output and provision of superior germplasm and information to national seed enterprises.

It was decided to make wheat technology available to marginal and tribal farmers to augment their food and nutritional security. The social dimensions needed to be understood through accelerated process, the agreement stressed.

Regarding effective management of resources, the agreement underlined the need to optimise the usage of water, nutrient, seed and other inputs to promote sustainable yields. Molecular biology and genetic engineering should be applied to sustain wheat productivity. GIS and information base should be used as new management tools and closer regional cooperation and exchange of information should be undertaken, keeping in view the epidemiological realities.

Added importance should be given to the increasing collaboration with socio-economics and GIS to better research priority setting, improved product targeting, enhancing spill-over effects andmeasuring impacts. Besides human resource development programme of a longer duration in frontier areas of science both in maize and wheat was considered vital.

In wheat, the partnership between India and CIMMYT is rated to have paid rich dividends primarily through the flow of germplasm, new knowledge and approaches. The new breed of genotypes coming out of winter and spring wheat gene pool have shown distinct yield advantage. Varieties like PBW 343, WH 542, UP 2338, GW 109 are believed to occupy still larger area soon and would certainly reflect on production gains.

The raised bed planting system and zero tillage technology offers savings on inputs, reduces cost of cultivation without sacrificing yield. The built in resistance to wheat rusts contributed towards both stable and higher yields.

Forty years of collaboration between ICAR and CIMMYT or its predecessor organisation in research led to improved maize cultivators planted in half of sown areas of the country. The future collaboration betweenIndia and CIMMYT is believed to be on increasing productivity and sustainability of maize systems, specially for unfavourable environments through development of high-yielding, stable-performing and input responsive cultivators with high nutritional quality, to specially help the relatively resource-poor farmers and consumers and to protect natural resources in more risk-prone marginal environments.

The ICAR-CIMMYT collaboration would aim at enhancing maize productivity in favourable environments through popularisation of single-cross technology and characterisation of Indian maize germplasm through the use of widely utilised heterotic testers and molecular finger-printing to develop and improve heterotic pools and populations for more efficient exploitation of heterosis. Use of molecular markers and genetic engineering technologies for improving tolerance to major biotic and abiotic stresses should be encouraged. The maize quality should be improved to increase its nutritional QPM and industrial value forstarch, oil, popcorn, sweet corn and baby corn.