• Field facilities (area): Nearly one and half hectares
• Irrigation facilities and system of irrigation: Deep tube well, surface irrigation as well as drip irrigation
• Field laboratory facilities: Poly house, bacterial sick bed, oven, field balance and minor implements.
• Laboratory and office facilities: Oven, chemical balance, BOD incubator, Microscope, Laminar air flow, Digital Vernier calipers, Digital hand refractometer, RHS colour chart, Camera, LCD projector, Refrigerator, Desktop computer with printer and scanner, lap top computer etc.

• Collection, maintenance, evaluation and conservation of situation specific vegetable germplasm with special emphasis on value added germplasm.
• Development and improvement of vegetable varieties through breeding and selection.
• Disease resistance breeding by utilizing local sources of resistance through selection and evaluation of local germplasm and national entries against important vegetable diseases.
• Evaluation of national entries of Brinjal, Chilli, Tomato, Cowpea, Dolichos bean, Pumpkin, Ash gourd, and pointed gourd through field trial for yield and quality of vegetables.
• Screening of national entries of Brinjal, Okra and Tomato against Bacterial wilt, Yellow Vein Mosaic Virus and Tomato Leaf Curl Virus, respectively.
• Development of integrated disease management practices with minimum use of agrochemicals for sustainable production of vegetable crops.

Conservation and characterization of germplasm

A large repository of vegetable germplasm have been maintained both through in situ and ex situ methods at C Block Farm under AICRP on Vegetable Crops, Kalyani, B.C.K.V. at present. A good number of genotypes having mutant genes in them have been assembled which is being used in different breeding programmes in the Viswavidyalaya. A brief account of special characteristics of germplasm is presented in Table-1 & 2.

Table-1. Characterization of vegetable germplasm

Table-2. Mutant genotypes of tomato in the germplasm stock

b. Evaluation of National entries

The centre has been conducted varietal trials on tomato, brinjal, chilli, cowpea, dolichos bean,pointed gourd ; hybrid trials on tomato (determinate and indeterminate) and chilli; resistant varietal trials on okra against YVMV, tomato against leaf curl virus and root knot nematode, brinjal against bacterial wilt during the last five years. A brief outcome on these trials is presented in Tables-3, 4, 5.

Table-3. Most promising OP varieties at the Gangetic alluvium of W.B.

Table-4. Most promising hybrids at the Gangetic alluvium of W.B.

Table-5. Most promising resistant varieties at the Gangetic alluvium of W.B.

*MR= Moderately resistant; R= Resistant

c. Utilization of germplasm and development of varieties and hybrids
Two varieties of vegetable cowpea (Bidhan Barbati-1 and Bidhan Barbati-2 ) under SVRC and one hybrid of tomato (BCTH-4) under CVRC have already been released long back.

i. Development of OP varieties under pipeline for release
We have so far been developed three varieties each of pointed gourd (BCPG-3, BCPG-4, BCPG-5) and Brinjal (BCB-11, BCB-30; BCB-40); two varieties each of Chilli (BCC-1, BCCH Sel-4) and one variety each of vegetable Cowpea (BCCP-3) and Dolichos bean (BCDB-1); one hybrid of tomato (BCTH-62) from indigenous germplasms assemblage and combination breeding and were tested under AICRP trials and recommended for release at SVRC. A brief description of varieties/hybrid is presented in Table-6.

Table-6: Brief description of OP varieties/hybrid which are in pipeline for release

ii. Development of promising trait-specific hybrids
We have identified some trait specific hybrid combinations by utilization of diverse indigenous and exotic genotypes to develop following commercially utilizable hybrids.

• Soil application of green manuring + neem cake @ 5q/ha, and seed and soil treatment with bioagents (Trichoderma [email protected] kg/ha) are effective for the management of Root and collar rot of okra.
• Leaf wetness duration (8-12 hrs. of leaf wet duration) and average temperature (18-220 C) were identified as major climatological factors for the development of Downy mildew disease of cucumber.
• Border crop with maize (25 days before sowing of okra) followed by seed treatment with Imidacloprid and four spraying alternatively with Acephate (1.5g/l) + neem oil , Imidacloprid (0.5 ml/l) + neem oil, Admire (Imidacloprid 70% WG) @ 2 g/15l + neem oil and Hostathion (1 ml/l) + neem oil at the interval of 10 days starting from 20 days after sowing of okra was found to be effective considering yield, YVMV disease severity and economic points of view.
• Spraying of Propiconazole @ 1 ml/l at the initiation of Cercospora leaf spot disease of cowpea at 10 days interval for two times was found to be effective considering yield, disease severity and economic points of view.
• Maximum temperature (28-320C) and average RH above 80% was found to be conducive for population build up of whitefly and severity of YVMV disease of okra. Minimum RH and minimum temperature were found to be the most important predictor for Forewarning of YVMV disease severity of okra. R. solanacearum of brinjal isolates of WB belongs to Race-1 and Biovar-III.
• Seed treatment with metalaxyl-mancozeb(0.25%) and two need based spray with fosetyl-Al(0.25%) or cymoxanil-mancozeb(0.25%) at 10--15 days interval for economic management of downy mildew disease of cucumber.
• Border crop with maize (30 days before transplanting of tomato and chilli) followed by covering of the nursery bed with 40-60 mesh fine nylon net and spray the seedlings with Imidacloprid (3.5 ml / 10lt) and laying of agri-silver mulch followed by 3 foliar sprays with Imidachlorpid (3.5 ml/10l)or Acetameprid (0.25g/l) or Thiomethoxam(.3g/l) at 10 days interval and alternate the spray schedule with NSKE (0.5%) was found effective considering yield, leaf curl virus disease severity and economic point of view of tomato and chilli.

• Prospective technologies imparted to the farmers
  • Production of genetically pure seeds of improved varieties of different vegetables.
  • Providing support for plant protection measures against different biotic stresses of vegetables.
  • Post harvest handling operations and storage of vegetables
• Breeder seed production & distribution
  A small amount of seeds/planting materials of some improved varieties/hybrids (Bidhan Barbati-1, Bidhan Barbati-2, BCCP-3 of cowpea; BCB-11, BCB-30, BCB-40 of brinjal; BCC-1 and BCCH Sl-4 of chilli; BCDB-1 of dolichos bean; BCO-1of okra; and BCPG-3, BCPG-4, BCPG-5 of pointed gourd) are being produced and distributed among the farmers in regular manner.
• Service to the farmers
  • Imparting training to the farmers, organizing field day, delivering lectures in TV programmes, selection of varieties through farmers’ participatory mode are some of the activities of the project.
  • Regular contact with the farmers through Toll Free line Plant Health Clinic.
  • Indian Council of Agricultural research, New Delhi has launched Tribal Sub Plan project during XII Plan Period for the overall economic development of ST farmers of the country. AICRP on Vegetable Crops, Kalyani centre has been entrusted to such project on Food and nutritional security of tribal through vegetable farming during 2013-14 and operated in two districts (Burdwan and Birbhum) of West Bengal facilitating more than 400 tribal farmers.

Publications (2013-18)

• Books (UG & PG standard) : Two
• Books (Regional language): Two
• Book chapter: Two
• Extension bulletin/Training manual: Five
• Leaflets: Thirty (Both in English & Bengali)
• Research papers published in National refereed journal: Twenty five
• Research papers in International refereed journal: Twenty two
• Ten Research papers have NAAS rating between 6.0 & 6.5
• Two Research papers have NAAS rating between 6.5 & 7.0
• Three Research papers have NAAS rating > 7.5

• i. Isolation of mutant with exerted stigma and anther non-dehiscence characters in PS-2 functional male sterile line of tomato for utilization in hybrid seed production funded by Bhava Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai (Completed).
• NICRA project on Real Time Pest Surveillance on Tomato funded by the ICAR, New Delhi (On-going).
• DUS testing on pointed gourd funded by PPV & FR Authority (On-Going).
• Food and nutritional security of tribal farmers through vegetable farming funded by the ICAR, New Delhi (On-Going).
• Enhancement of nutritional quality of tomato by increasing lycopene and anthocyanin contents through mutant genes funded by DST, GOI (On-going)
• Agri-Biodiversity, Management and use of PGR-Component-II-Evaluation and use in prioritized crops-Okra funded by the ICAR, New Delhi (Completed).
• Development and validation of grafted seedlings of brinjal for the management of bacterial wilt disease funded by SERB, GOI (On-going).

• Received Lt. Amit Singh Memorial Award for the best AICRP on Vegetable Crops centre in India conferred by the ICAR, New Delhi during 2012-13.
• Received the Best poster Awards in different National seminars on held at IGKV, Raipur during 2013, held at BCKV, Kalyani during 2015, held at IIVR, Varanasi during 2016
• Scientists acted as National Presenters in Crop improvement and Disease Management Sessions in Annual Group Meet of the project for the last couple of years.
• Scientists recognized as Fellows in CWSS, BCKV & ISVS, Varanasi

Integrated management of YVMV, ToLCV, PepLCV diseases