Context: Indian Scientists have developed a high-yielding and pest-resistant variety of soybean.
This newly developed variety called MACS 1407 is suitable for cultivation in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and North-Eastern states and its seeds will be made available to farmers for sowing during the 2022 Kharif season.
Using the conventional cross breeding technique they developed MACS 1407 which gives 39 quintals per hectare making it a high yielding variety and is also resistant to major insect-pests like girdle beetle, leaf miner, leaf roller, stem fly, aphids, white fly and defoliators.
Its thick stem, higher pod insertion (7 cm) from ground, and resistance to pod shattering make it suitable even for mechanical harvesting.
It is suitable for rain-fed conditions of north- east India.
‘MACS 1407’ showed 17% increase in yield over the best check variety and 14-19 % yield advantage over the qualifying varieties.
It is highly adaptive to sowing from 20 June to 5 July without any yield loss. This makes it resistant to the vagaries of Monsoon as compared to other varieties."