All Free Agriculture MCQs with Answers

• A. Gene sanctuaries
• B. Genetic erosion
• C. Genetic diversity
• D. Field gene banks

Explanation: Genetic diversity is the variation in genes and genotypes within a crop species or population.

• A. ICRISAT
• B. Florida
• C. CIP
• D. ICARDA

Explanation: ICARDA maintains the global barley germplasm collection at its genebank.

• A. ICARDA
• B. ICRISAT
• C. CIP Peru
• D. None of the above

Explanation: The global sorghum collection is maintained by ICRISAT, whose genebank conserves major dryland cereals and legumes.

• A. Exotic collection
• B. Indigenous collection
• C. Working collection
• D. None of the above

Explanation: A working collection is kept for immediate use in breeding and is generally stored for a short period of about 3 to 5 years.

• A. 12%
• B. 20%
• C. 15%
• D. 18%

Explanation: Tea, coffee and mango have seeds that lose viability rapidly when dried too far, so they cannot be safely reduced below about 12% moisture…

• A. Vavilov
• B. Jacob
• C. Wilkins
• D. None of the above

Explanation: Vavilov proposed the law of homologous or parallel variation, stating that related species tend to show parallel patterns of hereditary…

• A. Fischer
• B. Morgan
• C. Knight
• D. Muller

Explanation: Thomas Andrew Knight carried out the first artificial hybridization work in fruit crops, especially in strawberries and other…

• A. T.S. Verma
• B. R.S. Paroda
• C. R.B. Singh
• D. T.S. Venkatraman

Explanation: T. S. Venkatraman successfully produced the first reported intergeneric cross between bamboo and sugarcane.

• A. Hayman
• B. Falconer
• C. Mather
• D. Fisher

Explanation: R. A. Fisher introduced the statistical and biometrical framework used to analyse quantitative genetic variation, including partitioning…

• A. Same sets of females
• B. Few females in a set
• C. Different sets of females
• D. All the aboveTry Prep Courses

Explanation: In a line × tester design, every line from the female set is crossed with the same group of tester males.

• A. Heritability (broad sense)
• B. Co-heritability
• C. Heritability (narrow sense)
• D. Genetic gain

Explanation: Narrow-sense heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variance due specifically to additive genetic variance, written as VA/VP.

• A. Dominance variance
• B. Additive x dominance epistasis
• C. Dominance x dominance epistasis
• D. All the above

Explanation: Specific combining ability reflects non-additive gene action, especially dominance variance and epistatic interactions such as additive ×…

• A. All the above
• B. Phenotypic covanance
• C. Genotypic convanance
• D. Environmental covanance

Explanation: Covariance analysis can partition observed phenotypic covariance into genetic and environmental covariance components, just as variance…

• A. Jinks (1968)
• B. Lemer (1954)
• C. Warner (1952)
• D. Freeman (1971)

Explanation: The term genetic homeostasis was coined by O. H. Lerner in 1954 to describe the ability of a population or genotype to maintain a stable…

• A. Yates (1947)
• B. Hazel (1943)
• C. Mather (1943)
• D. Griffing (1956)

Explanation: Kenneth Mather coined the term polygenes in 1943 for multiple genes with small, cumulative effects that control quantitative traits.

• A. Genetic advance
• B. Genetic gain
• C. Heritability
• D. Coheritability

Explanation: Genetic advance is the improvement in the mean value of progeny from selected plants compared with the original parental population.

• A. Griffing (1965)
• B. Hayman (1958)
• C. Jink (1950)
• D. Kempthome (1957)

Explanation: Generation mean analysis was developed by Hayman in 1958 to partition gene effects such as additive, dominance and epistatic effects from…

• A. Hays (1919)
• B. Hull (1950)
• C. Hull (1945)
• D. Garber (1955)

Explanation: Hull coined the term recurrent selection in 1945 for repeated cycles of selection and recombination.

• A. Richy (1927)
• B. Stadler (1944)
• C. Hull (1945)
• D. East (1920)

Explanation: Stadler is credited in plant-breeding references with proposing genetic selection in 1944.

• A. Bulk
• B. Disruptive
• C. Backcross
• D. Pedigree

Explanation: Backcrossing is most effective for transferring one or a few oligogenic traits into an adapted variety while recovering the recurrent…