- Varietal Replacement Rate (VRR) is one of the important factors in realizing higher crop productivity.
- The pace of progress in food production largely depends upon the progress of seed programmes that are able to supply good quality seed of high yielding varieties with superior genetics.
- Perusal of statistics suggest that, across the crops, the pace of VRR was being highest in wheat followed by mungbean, chickpea, soybean, rapeseed & mustard, rice and pigeonpea.
- In wheat, the average (3 years, 2017-18 to 2019-20) share of varieties, notified during the last five years and ten years in total breeder seed indent were 45.3 % and 74.0 %, respectively.
- Among pulses, mungbean has the share of 16.9 % and 64.4 % w.r.t. varieties, notified during the last five years and ten years to total breeder seed indent, respectively.
- While in chickpea, the share of varieties notified during the last five years is 28.4%, indicating better VRR. In general, the pace of VRR among wheat, chickpea and soybean was being found satisfactory.
Varietal Replacement Rate (VRR) among major field crops
| crops | No. of varieties in seed chain | Total indent (q) | Varieties < 5 years old | Varieties < 10 years old | ||||
| No’s | Indent (q) | % share in total indent | No’s | Indent (q) | % share in total indent | |||
| Rice | 293 | 4720.0 | 68 | 705.3 | 14.8 | 129 | 2264.1 | 47.7 |
| Wheat | 158 | 21873.3 | 45 | 9977.0 | 45.3 | 86 | 16190.3 | 74.0 |
| Pigeonpea | 55 | 312.7 | 8 | 15.1 | 4.9 | 18 | 120.9 | 39.0 |
| Chickpea | 73 | 10045.3 | 15 | 2845.9 | 28.4 | 34 | 6028.0 | 60.1 |
| Mungbean | 53 | 846.4 | 5 | 143.7 | 16.9 | 20 | 546.7 | 64.4 |
| Soybean | 35 | 18189.7 | 12 | 7486.4 | 41.5 | 20 | 10084.6 | 55.6 |
| Groundnut | 46 | 10571.2 | 8 | 1235.9 | 11.5 | 26 | 4095.1 | 38.5 |
| R&M | 43 | 63.6 | 9 | 7.8 | 12.4 | 23 | 32.7 | 51.6 |
Source: aicrp.icar.gov.in and PIB
