GUAR VARIETY “BR-22”: A STEP TOWARDS MAXIMIZING AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL

Abstract

Guar is a summer annual legume that blooms in drought conditions and is well-suited to the arid as well as semi-arid regions of Pakistan. Guar gum, derived from guar seeds, is a vital product with diverse applications across various industries worldwide. Due to more importance of guar crop and its guar gum contents, there was a need to develop a high-yielding, short-duration, and early- maturing guar variety which will combats the present climatic conditions of the grown area and will be able to maintained the yield stability. The Agricultural Research Station in Bahawalpur is engaged in developing new crop varieties. The recently developed BR-22 (strain S-5885) is a high- yielding guar variety with broad genetic adaptability. Over a period of eleven years (2011–2022), guar varietal performance experiments were used to gather data on grain yield. Using a commercial variety as the standard, this strain outperformed the commercial variety in seven different yield performance experiments from 2013 to 2019. Additionally, the BR-22 variety consistently outperformed the check variety in agronomic trials involving planting date, fertilizer requirements, row spacing, and irrigation levels throughout the period of several study years. Distinguished character of BR-22 is that this variety has one main compacted stem same like BR-17 but also included 6-8 branches which enhances its biomass resulted in more fodder and seed yield. In comparison to earlier produced types, it also has a higher gum content (34.9%). Because of its early maturity and relative resistance to diseases and insect pests, this type is better suited for timely seeding of rabi crops such as chickpeas, wheat, and raya.