Background:
Cow pea (bush type) is a short duration legume vegetable crop grown as cash crop for fresh pods. Especially, the rainy season crop is susceptible to golden mosaic virus disease which causes drastic yield reduction up to 70-80% under severe conditions and sometimes total crop failure. It can be managed through costly pesticides for controlling vector and thus adding more to production cost. The affected pods also become yellow and unmarketable; consequently, there is no formation of seeds also. Thus, it leads to a great economic loss to the growers. Technology Details:
The variety “Pusa Dharni” has been developed by pure line selections from the germplasm collected from local market of Bhabua district Kaimur, Bihar under the project of Underutilized Vegetables in 2009. It was rigorously selected for resistance to Golden mosaic virus during rainy season and evaluated for 5 years as highly resistant variety during rainy season and spring season both. This is identified by AICRP (VC) for its release in Zone-VI and accordingly it is released by CVRC in 2019 for Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat for commercial cultivation. However, it can be grown in other parts of cowpea growing areas also. This variety is early in maturity, bears long green pods (20-25 cm) in 2-4 clusters, sweet in taste and highly suitable for growing during Kharif and spring-summer season both.