Plant breeding plays an important role for future vegetable production. The growing human population is outstriping vegetable production. Further, the climate change is adversely affecting crop growth and development. To cope with the growing human population and climate change, there is a need to improve the productivity and stability of vegetable crops by developing high yielding and good quality vegetable varieties. Vegetable crop improvement programme in India have concentrated on development of improved varieties with high yield, nutritive values along with abiotic and biotic stress resistance for cultivation at various locations across the country. A high yielding brinjal variety facilitates in improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of brinjal cultivation in India. Department of Vegetable Science, ASPEE College of Horticulture has developed a high yielding, anthocyanin rich brinjal variety for cultivation in North-West Zone of India. GNRB-1 was evaluated at various locations around the country with four other entries and was compared with the standard check variety Swarna Mani. GNRB-1(393.67 q/ha) has recorded yield improvement of 16.86 % over national check Swarna Mani (336.89 q/ha) under Zone-I condition. It endows with special attributes viz., round, dark purple fruits which is rich in anthocyanin (475.3 mg/100g) and crude fibre (1.42%), and also contains total Phenol (2.07%), TSS (3.09 %), Vitamin C (2.90 mg/100g), β- carotene (0.77 mg/100g) and Glycoalkaloids (0.16%). This variety has recorded lesser incidence of little leaf disease, has less number of whitefly and jassid population per leaf. GNRB-1 was unidentified for notification by the Varietal Release Committee of AICRP (Vegetable Crops) held during 2020 and was notified for release by the Central Committee on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties for Agricultural Crops, vide the Gazette of India notification No. S.O. 3254 (E) dated 20th July, 2022.

Brinjal, GNRB-1, Anthocyanin, Yield and Quality

GNRB-1 is a high yielding, anthocyanin rich variety which is suitable for cultivation in Kharif and Rabi season, at 90 cm row spacing under normal environmental, irrigated condition in North West Zone of India. It required 400-500 g seeds for planting one hectare area. Its high yield and better quality will play a significant role in improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of brinjal cultivation in North-West Zone of India.

Hetal R. Rathod, C. G. Intwala, A. I. Patel, J. M. Vashi and N. K. Patel (2023). A High Yielding Anthocyanin Rich Brinjal Variety GNRB-1. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(8): 196-200.