Ajmer Ajwain 73: Revolutionizing Ajwain Yield Potential with a Superior Variety

Variety development programme at ICAR-NRCSS through AICRP on Spices have identified a new high yielding variety named as Ajmer Ajwain-73 (AA-73) during Workshop of AICRP on Spices held at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University during 14-16 November, 2019. AA-73 is a new variety of Ajwain developed through mass selection by material collected from Bari Sadri, District Chittorgarh, Rajasthan during May, 2001. AA-73 demonstrates a generally superior yield performance compared to AA-1 and AA-2 across different locations and years. In multi-locations testing during 2012-13 to 2018-19 at different locations across the country, the proposed variety gave average seed yield of 1066.08 kgha-1, which was 25.91 and 21.93 per cent higher yield than Ajmer Ajwain-1 (National Check) and Ajmer Ajwain-2 (National Check), respectively. At ICAR-NRCSS Ajmer during 2012-13 to 2015-16, AA 73 produced (1428 kgha-1) 26.82% % higher than AA-1 (1045 kgha-1) and 11.43 % higher than AA-2 (1265 kgha-1). AA-73 contains 9.15% total oil, it is 7 and 39% higher total oil in than AA-1 and AA-2, respectively. It also contains higher essential oil (6.38%) by 1 and 17% than AA- 1 and AA-2 respectively. This variety is more resistant against root rot and Sclerotium rot having Root rot PDI of 2.2, which is slightly lower than AA-1 (2.3) and significantly lower than AA-2 (2.9). AA-73 produced the highest seed yield (1321.0 kg/ha) compared to AA-2 (1202.8 kg/ha) and AA-93 (1047.2 kg/ha). It also gave to the highest straw yield (2427.5 kg/ha), indicating its overall superior biomass production compared to the other genotypes. AA-73 produced maximizing yield and quality attributes with spacing 40 cm x 20 cm and 125% RDF fertilizer.