3. Wheat is the staple food for over ten billion people in as many as 43 countries of the world.

4. Wheat provides nourishment to 35% of world population.

5. Wheat cultivation has traditionally been dominated by the northern region of India. The northern states of Punjab and Haryana Plains in India have been prolific wheat producers.

6. Today, India is exporting sufficient quantities of all types of wheat and extensive research efforts are underway for improving its cereals and grain output in the years to come.

7. The major Wheat production State are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.

9. Wheat Targets - 2030 AD

13. Einkorn - (T. monococcum) A diploid species with wild and cultivated variants . One of the earliest cultivated, but rarely planted today.

14. Common Wheat or Bread wheat - (T. aestivum) A hexaploid species that is the most widely cultivated in the world.

15. Emmer - (T. dicocum) A tetraploid species, cultivated in ancient times but no longer in widespread use.

18. Flowering starts at approximately 2/3 from the base and proceeds in both the directions.

19. Blooming remains throughout the day & it takes 3-5 days for completion .

20. Flower opening is usually during warmer part of the day i.e. , between 9 am to 2 pm and peak period between 10 am to 1 pm

22. Caryopses are single-seeded fruits in which the testa (seed coat) is fused with the thin pericarp (fruit coat).

23. Cereal grains have highly developed embryos and in cereal grains the triploid endosperm consists of the starchy endosperm (dead storage tissue) and the aleurone layer (living cells).

24. Organs of the cereal embryo are:

25. coleoptile (shoot sheath),

26. scutellum,

27. the radicula &

31. The field should be well drained,

32. Free of weeds.

33. The soil neither too acidic not too alkaline.

35. A wheat seed crop should never immediately follow wheat, unless the wheat crop in the previous season was of the same variety and of the same or higher generation.

37. 1-4 % Cross pollination sometime occurs.

38. It is sufficient to isolate seed fields with a strip of 3 meters all around which is planted with a non-cereal crop, or left uncroped.

39. In cases where variety is susceptible to diseases caused by Ustilago spp. ( eg. loose smut) an isolation distance of 180meters between seed field and other fields of wheat is recommended

41. Short and medium duration varieties like Sonalika, HD 1982 should be sown during the second fortnight of November.

43. Running a harrow before the pre-sowing irrigation.

44. Give a light shallow ploughing or discing after pre-sowing irrigation.

45. Levelling is an important part of seed bed preparation.

46. Keep the seed bed free of weeds.

48. The depth of seeding should be 5 cm.

49. Seed drill should be thoroughly cleaned and checked before use.

50. Sowing of one variety should be completed before taking up another variety, to avoid mixture.

52. 50 to 60 kg/ha phosphorus

53. 40 kg /ha potash

54. 15 to 20 kg/ha zinc may be given at the seeding time (in case of deficiency).

55. Apply the whole of the phosphoric and Potassic fertilizers and half of nitrogenous fertilizers while sowing, or just before sowing.

56. Apply the remaining half of nitrogenous fertilizer at first irrigation.

59. The first irrigation should be given at crown root initiation stage, about 30-35days after sowing.

60. Other irrigations should be given at late tillering, late jointing, flowering, milk and dough stages.

61. Two to three extra irrigations may be needed on light soils.

62. In case of zero tillage, first irrigation should also be applied similar to conventional tillage.

64. Weed control by Periodic hoeing and weeding.

65. For control of broad-leaved weeds spray 2-4 D at@ 0.5kg active ingredient per hectare in 750 liters of water after 25 to 30 days of sowing.

68. :generally it is not an economically important disease, but where present, yield losses can range from trace amounts to moderate levels.

70. Yield losses depend on the number of spikes affected by the disease; incidence is usually less than one percent and rarely exceeds thirty percent of the spikes in any given location.

72. Do not sow seed visibly infested with bunt (cover smut)

75. The lesions of septoriatritici blotch tend to be linear and restricted laterally

77. When infection occurs early in the crop cycle, the number of tillers is often reduced and spikes are often sterile.

80. The disease is more prevalent in cool, humid climates.

83. If infection occurs during the early crop stages, the effects can be severe: reductions in tillering and losses in grain weight and quality. Under favorable conditions, complete crop loss can occur.

88. Severe early infections can cause significant yield losses, mainly by reducing the number of kernels per spike, test weights, and kernel quality.

91. Diseased kernels give off a fetid or fishy odor when crushed.

92. Karnal bunt is a relatively minor disease. Actual losses in yield are minimal, but the disease is on the quarantine lists of many countries and therefore of importance in world grain trade.

96. Spray the crop (susceptible varieties only) with Propiconazole 25 EC (Tilt 25 EC) @ 0.1% at yellow rust initiation. This spray will also help in control of powdery mildew and Karnal bunt diseases.

97. Seed treatment with Trichodermaviride @ 4 g / Kg seed in combination with Carboxin 75 WP (Vitavax 75 WP) @ 1.25 g / Kg seed or Tebuconazole 2 DS (Raxil 2 DS) @ 1.0 g / Kg seed.

99. The feeding of Schizaphisgraminin is especially damaging, resulting in the development of necrotic areas sometimes accompanied by purpling and rolling of the infested leaves. The feeding of Diuraphisnoxis produces long white stripes on the leaves , leaf rolling, postrate growth habit, and sterile heads

100. Control :. foliar spray of Imidacloprid 200SL @20g a.i./ha on border rows at the start of the aphid colonization be given

106. Biological control

110. Most suitable stage is grain moisture of 20-25%.

111. Mechanical harvesting is a common practice for seed production fields.

112. Breeder and pre-basic seed are harvested by plot combine and do not constitute many problems.

113. foundation and certified seeds have to be harvested with commercial combine harvesters.

116. Threshing should be done promptly.

117. Threshing equipment should be cleaned after threshing other wheat varieties.

118. The threshing floor must be thoroughly cleaned to prevent mixtures.

120. For wheat seed cleaning, mainly screens, indented cylinders and air screen cleaner are used

121. Screens separate based on the width and thickness; a width (or diameter) separation is obtained by round screens, while for thickness separation oblong screens are used .

122. Indented cylinders carry out length separation; the indents (cells or pockets) in the cylinder will, depending on their size, lift the seeds, which fit in the indents.

124. The first air channel removes dust and light materials as the seed falls from the feed hopper.

125. The second air channel removes light seed and materials after the seed passes through the last screen.

126. Screen configurations vary considerably, one or two top or scalping screens remove particles larger than the good seed, and one or two bottom or grading screens remove particles smaller than the good seed.

127. Because the average size of wheat seed varies according to the growing conditions, standard screen sizes cannot be recommended..

131. Another application is the removal of weevil-infested grains from the seed lot and upgrading seed (in order to improve germination).

133. Insecticides are sometimes applied to protect seed in storage and in the soil.

138. Immature or damaged seed cannot survive long storage periods.

139. Mechanical injury to seed during harvest or handling makes it more susceptible to deterioration in storage.

140. seed should be properly dried before going into storage and protected from moisture and high relative humidity.

141. Fungi (Aspergillusand Penicillium) cause damage to stored seed if seed moisture is high.

143. Effective rodent control (traps and poison) is essential in all seed stores.

144. A complete programme of exclusion , sanitation and control should be used;

148. Disinfestation of store

152. In wheat, fungi (Fusariumspp., Tilletiaspp., Drechsleraspp., Septoriaspp. and Ustilagospp.), bacteria (Corynebacterium, Pseudomonas and Xanthomonas) and nematodes (Anguinatritici) are the most important seed-borne diseases due to their worldwide distribution and losses they incur in crop production (Mamluk and van Leur, 1986; Diekmann, 1996a).

153. Chemical seed treatment is one of the efficient and economic plant protection practices and can be used to control both external and internal seed infection.

154. It protects young seedlings or adult plants against attack from seed-borne, soil-borne or airborne pests

155. Meisneret al. (1994) indicated that Vitavax 200 (Carboxin [37.5 percent] and Thiram [37.5 percent]) is an effective broad spectrum seed treatment fungicide, both for externally and internally seed-borne diseases of wheat. Moreover, pre-harvest foliar application of chemicals can also reduce the internally seed-borne fungi and can be combined with seed treatment to produce healthy seed.

157. The labeled use rate for Stamina is 0.4 fl oz per 100 lbs of seed.

158. It has shown to have activity against a broad spectrum of wheat and barley pathogens.

168. This method has not been validated for the determination of Septorianodorumon treated seed.

169. Materials

170. Reference Material: The use of reference cultures or other appropriate material is recommended when ever possible.

171. Media : Malt Agar or Potato Dextrose Agar containing 100 ppm streptomycin sulphate.

172. Sodium hypochlorite solution (1% available chlorine) for seed disinfection.

173. Petri dishes: When sowing density is given by a number of seeds per Petri dish, a diameter of 90 mm is assumed.

174. Incubator: Capable of operating in the range 20 ± 2 ºC.

175. Sample Preparation

179. After 24 h of soaking NaOH is decanted and seeds are thoroughly washed in tap water.

180. Seeds are spread over a blotter paper so to excess water on the surface of seed is absorbed.

181. Later seeds are transferred in to a petridish and examined visually aided with light .

182. The seeds exhibiting jet black shin appearance with hollow or without hollowness are separated and individual seeds are ruptured on a slide in a drop of water and observed for the release of stream of fungal spores under compound microscope

184. Procedure: Soak 2000 seeds in 5% NaOH and 0.02% trypan blue solution(one liter) for 24 h at 25-300C.

185. Pass soaked seed material through 10 mm mesh sieve and retain material in 20 mesh sieve along with showers of tap water.

186. Collect the extracted embryos in beaker and dehydrate embryos in rectified spirit for 5-10 min.

187. The hydrated embryos along with chaff etc are taken in a beaker containing 50 ml lactophenol and add to above beaker 100 ml water, stir it well.

188. Allow to stand for 5 min to settle the chaff at bottom.

189. Collect the floating in beaker containing 25 ml fresh lactophenol and boil the above material for 2 min.

190. Pour embryos in to glass dish and arrange in lines along with some lactophenol and observe the embryos under steriobinacular microscope for the presence of mycelium. Mycelium appears as blue thread like knotted structure in the scutellum portion of the embryo.

193. The private sector, however, may not focus on wheat seed due to its characteristics (self-pollinating, high-volume and low-profit).

194. To meet the demand for improved seeds of wheat, new improved varieties developed by National Agricultural Research Systems (NARSs) should be multiplied and made available to farmers in the shortest possible time. Appropriate seed production techniques coupled with strict quality control measures ensure that varietal purity and identity is maintained, which is the key foundation of the entire quality seed program.

195. Seed enterprises consider ‘wheat seed’ to be of secondary importance, since it is a self-pollinating crop and the grain can also be used as seed, farmers tend to re-plant their own seed.