By
BISA Team
Every year in March CIMMYT-BISA organises Wheat Field Day as an annual event to celebrate and honour the hard work that goes into producing quality seed at BISA farms. It is the annual celebration of research, productiveness, and perseverance. It’s an effort to accelerate the global breeding process and serve humanity with the best in Wheat. This event allows wheat breeders to evaluate/select new, improved advanced breeding lines for possible use. It’s an amalgamation of farmers, researchers, and young students from the agricultural field, as it opens a platform for co-creation, knowledge exchange and experience sharing.
It is organized on a large scale to showcase the breeding process, new breeding tools, mainstreaming of enhanced grain quality traits and integrating the traits needed for future wheat. This year also, BISA research farms in Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Samastipur (Bihar) and Ludhiana (Punjab) invited scientists from different parts of the country to have a firsthand look at the ongoing variety of trials. It’s been a premier event where researchers interact and learn about CIMMYT’s newest advanced wheat lines: heat, drought and disease resistant.
This year in Ludhiana, more than 100 scientists from the national system (public & private sector) joined the wheat field day. A total of 20169 entries and 22285 plots were planted at the BISA research farm, Ludhiana during the 2024-25 season. Advanced wheat breeding lines from CIMMYT and international nurseries are available for selection by public and private sector national partners.
Dr. Arun Kumar Joshi, MD, BISA was also present on this occasion. He explained about the importance of BISA’s Wheat Field Day and said “the Wheat Field Day serves as a platform for collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and showcasing innovative advancements in wheat breeding. It is an important step in our ongoing efforts to enhance crop productivity, resilience, and sustainability, ultimately benefiting farmers and contributing to global food security.”
Highlights were –
- South Asia Bread Wheat Genomic Prediction Yield Trial (SABWGPYT/TPEs)
- One year in advance to International Yield Trials (ESWYT, HTWYT and SAWYT,).
- International Yield Trials
- Heat tolerance Trial
- BNI Trials
- High yield potential trials and Station trials of best lines
- Phenotyping under early heat stress tolerance and conservation agriculture
- Visit to Maintenance Breeding Block (Nucleus, Breeder and TL Plots).
- Opportunity to select lines based on their phenotypic traits.
- Largest number of plots (~22,000 at BISA Ludhiana only, small & standard plots), similar number at other sites of BISA also.
- High Throughput phenotyping tools (Phenocart and UAV) and their use.
- Farm machinery for different operations under conservation agriculture (CA).
- Post-harvest management of seed.
Jabalpur BISA farm also organised the Wheat field day on 10th March, where around 60 public-private NARES partners participated in the event.
BISA farm in Samastipur too celebrated the ongoing crop season and invited some partners to take a closer look at different wheat varieties. The partners selected promising wheat lines for their breeding programs.
BISA, in the last decade, has focused on mechanization to improve efficiency, and yield production with the lowest cost of production. Thus, having a significant positive impact on Indian agriculture. On Wheat Field Day, BISA also displayed innovative farm machinery, digital tools and equipment used in farming with the latest technology.