Division of Social Sciences

• A functional seed system model depicting the roles of various stakeholders and the related institutional linkages was developed as an outcome of experimentation, for improved access to quality seed of farmer-preferred varieties at a reasonable cost and at the right time.

• A farmer-led mechanism was developed for speedier diffusion of quality seed of pulse crops, through action-oriented experimentation with 143 key farmers from the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh during 2010–16.
• The model was tested and found effective, delivering 2.7, 4.4 and 3.7-fold increases in the number of farmers covered, the area sown and the quantity of seed made accessible respectively.

• To address constrained availability of quality seed of improved pulse varieties in major pulse producing regions of Uttar Pradesh, eight farmer-led institutions were formed as registered seed societies and engaged in strengthening the formal and informal pulse seed system.
• The societies collectively contributed 975.31 q of seed of all major pulse crops to institutionalized government seed chains during 2016–17 to 2018–19 — sufficient to cover 18,51,942 ha after conversion and multiplication — and facilitated diffusion of a further 550.59 q through informal social networks.

Farmers’ registered seed societies formed under the project

• The M-Pulse model was used to develop four Model Pulse Villages in Kanpur Dehat district, integrating technological interventions (869 on 350 ha), capacity building (17 programmes, 1359 participants), institutional development (4), value addition (2500 kg of pulses) and digital advisory services (2).
• Interventions on pulse production technologies resulted in 31–59% higher yields and increased income for partner farmers. Farmers’ societies produced 2654 kg of quality seed to strengthen village-level seed availability and income.
• Two pulse-processing hubs and two Custom Hiring Centres were set up to promote value addition, mechanization access and rural entrepreneurship, generating gross income of ₹48,596.42 and ₹77,460 respectively.
• Farmers were equipped with 200 storage bins, 198 sprayers, 97 sickles, 47 hand hoes, 25 IIPR manual weeders and 25 IIPR herbicide applicators, improving labour efficiency and crop management and reducing post-harvest losses.

• Implemented with multiple technological interventions for food, nutrition and livelihood security of rural households in Fatehpur district. Intervention modules covered pulse-based, cereal-based, vegetable-based and livestock-based components together with entrepreneurship development.
• During 2016–17 to 2025–26, 3274 technology demonstrations were conducted in project villages of Fatehpur and Hamirpur districts — 1581 on pulses, 968 on cereals, 405 on vegetables and 320 on oilseeds. Partner farmers recorded significant yield advantages throughout.
• 27 crop stage-based training programmes and 12 farmer–scientist interactions were organized in the project villages, with 1855 partner farmers participating.

Demonstrations conducted, 2016–17 to 2025–26

• The R package CompGR was developed to compute compound annual growth rate. Agroclimatic zone-wise CAGR was computed for pigeonpea, lentil, chickpea, blackgram and greengram across selected states, for both area and yield, and district-wise growth rates were analysed for Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Bihar.
• Compound growth rates of area, production and yield of lentil were positive, with low instability. Decomposition analysis reveals that the change in production is due to yield, area and their interaction together.
• Biplot analysis and principal component analysis were performed on maximum and minimum temperature, relative humidity and rainfall recorded during the chickpea growing season (September–April) from 2018 to 2024, drawn from the NASA POWER database. Plant characters — 100-seed weight, days to 50% flowering and days to maturity for 2010–11 to 2022–23 — were taken from the AICRP on Chickpea / Rabi Pulses. Combined analysis identified outlier locations within each chickpea-growing zone.

• A genome-wide search was carried out for classes of antimicrobial proteins — alpha/beta thionins, hevein-like peptides (chitin binding domain), glycine-rich peptides, snakins, gamma thionin, and lipid transfer proteins 1 and 2 — across eight legumes: chickpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, blackgram, common bean, field pea, cowpea and lathyrus.
• The results confirm five classes of AMPs in all selected legumes — heveins (70), snakins (197), LTP-1 (750), LTP-2 (850) and gamma thionin (100). Lathyrus and field pea contain glycine-rich protein. The 3D structure of the identified AMP sequences for chickpea and blackgram was generated using AlphaFold 2.

• Based on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (NSSO) 2023–24 consumption patterns, future pulse demand was estimated using behaviouristic and normative approaches. The behaviouristic approach — accounting for consumption behaviour, income and demographic change — projects direct pulse demand at 19.61 million tonnes by 2050, while the ICMR-based normative approach estimates the direct requirement at 47.80 million tonnes. The gap underscores the need to enhance pulse production, productivity and consumption to achieve nutritional security and self-sufficiency.

• Multi-environment trials generally show significant genotype main effects and genotype × environment interaction, so univariate and multivariate stability methods are used to study it. The Additive Main effects and Multiplicative Interaction model was applied to support breeding programmes through genotypic stability.
• A stability index weighting yield and stability (yield weightage 50% and 75%; stability weightage 50% and 25%) was used to rank 40 promising chickpea genotypes — the higher the index, the better the genotype. These were evaluated at seven south-zone locations of the AICRP on Chickpea programme during 2015–16: Hiriyur, Nandyal, Coimbatore, Dharwad, Lam, Bijapur and Gulbarga.

A web-based expert system for the major pulse crops grown in India — chickpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, urdbean, lentil and pea. Its automatic knowledge acquisition system gives domain experts a friendly interface for entering, storing and structuring knowledge. The knowledge base covers 24 major diseases and 33 major insect-pests appearing from seedling to maturity. Farmers answer textual and pictorial symptom questions, and the system diagnoses the disease or pest with a confidence factor and suggests cultural and chemical control measures.

Developed to speed up data collection, compilation, analysis and report generation for coordinated research trials in MULLaRP crops. The system has three online modules — plant breeding data entry and submission, data analysis, and report generation. The analysis module performs RBD analysis; the report module generates information sheets and location-wise data by crop, trial, zone and location. Built in ASP.NET with C# as front end and SQL Server 2005 as back end.

Holds data on 1097 chickpea, 1058 pigeonpea, 550 mungbean, 734 urdbean and 480 field pea germplasm accessions, including agronomical, morphological and other traits. It has two components — germplasm data management for entry, updation and submission, and report generation to retrieve or search germplasm information on a single character or a combination. Four main reports can be retrieved: qualitative, quantitative, query-based and detailed.

A digital platform built on available information related to improved production and protection technologies together with pulse production and trade statistics. Soil data, weather data, minimum support prices, breeder seed production, major export destinations and import sources, and the crop planner / crop calendar feed the data management portal. The system runs on Linux and Windows, with MySQL and Apache as database and web server, PHP for server-side scripting and HTML, CSS and jQuery on the client side.

A collaborative project with Tata Consultancy Services in which a pilot platform was designed around the best package of practices for better returns in chickpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, urdbean, lentil, fieldpea and rajmash, through a digital connection with farmers. The platform provides a two-way interactive system between farmers, scientists and other stakeholders, with a web console customised for farmer management, knowledge management, advisory management, information management and support services.

A state-wise database and information system designed and developed for chickpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, urdbean, lentil, field pea and total pulses, covering the period 1980–81 to 2023–24. The database is also published on the institute website, where the data can be accessed and downloaded as an e-data book.