Socio- Economic Upliftment of Tribal Farmers through Grain and Hybrid Seed Production of Quality Protein Maize under Hilly Condition of J&K

Maize is the principal food crop of rain-fed hilly areas of Jammu and Kashmir grown during Kharif season. It is staple food of the tribal population as well as fodder for their animals residing in hilly region of the state. Quality Protein Maize cultivars are nutritionally enriched maize with high protein content (more than 9%) and high level of two essential amino acids lysine (4.07% of protein) and tryptophan (1.05% of protein) content with better balanced amino acid composition in grains. In the FLDs, the average grain yield of Vivek QPM - 9 was observed as 27.40 q/ha where as in case of HQPM - 4 the average yield was 26.10 q/ha in comparison to the check cultivar i.e., Bio Seed 9621 (26.30 q/ha) under rainfed conditions of Rajouri district of J&K. The single cross hybrid seed production of QPM showed that the farmer’s income enhancement was about 2.78 times than the grain crop. The B: C ratio of grain yield was 1.72 whereas it was observed 2.78 in case of seed yield.