Identification of Alternatives to Landraces of Kale (Brassica oleracea Group Acephala) for Off-season Cultivation and Seed-to-seed Production in Kashmir Valley

Aim: To characterize kale (Brassica oleracea group Acephala) germplasm well adapted for July to December cropping season in Kashmir valley for suitability for year round cultivation with respect to leaf yield (t/ha).

Study Design: Random Complete Block Design with two replications.

Place and duration of study: The study was done in Vegetable Experimental Field of ICAR-Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India from 2017-18 to 2018-19.

Methodology: The germplasm comprising breeding lines and landraces as checks was sown and then transplanted at different times of the year to evaluate for leaf yield potential at edible maturity stage. The final yield for each genotype was calculated by summing up all pickings. Critical differences among genotypes for total leaf yield were calculated from ANOVA using OPSTAT online tool for one factor analysis.

Results: Considering the average performance of two years in terms of leaf yield in tone per hectare, NW-Saag-1 (24.77, 25.08 and 25.01), CITH-KC-16 (28.79, 26.74 and 11.20) and CITH-KC-18 (24.25, 24.14 and 11.91) were found to yield significantly better than local checks Khanyari (7.77, 8.47 and 21.31) and GM Dari (10.36, 15.98 and 9.65) when transplanted in May, June and July, respectively. Months of April, May, June, July and August were most conducive for normal nursery production followed by May to September transplanting to get economical yields. January sowing of selected genotypes in polyhouse along with added protection from polysheet resulted in vigorous and healthy seedlings. Their transplanting in the second fortnight of March resulted only in short vegetative phase of the crop followed by bolting and seed production. However, this approach came out as an opportunity to produce seed in 7 months (January to July) compared to 1 year normally taken in farmer adopted seed production method.

Conclusion: NW-Saag-1, CITH-KC-16 and CITH-KC-18 lines yielded significantly higher than local landrace kales for offseason cultivation and seed-to-seed technique of seed production is an economic and short method of kale seed production in Kashmir valley.