Discuss the importance of testing of new plant varieties in a geographically vast country like India.

(N/A) The newly selected plant lines are evaluated for their yield and other agronomic traits such as quality and disease resistance.
This evaluation is initially conducted in research fields under ideal conditions,including optimal fertilizer application,irrigation,and crop management practices.
Following this,the materials are tested in farmers' fields for at least three growing seasons across various locations in the country.
These locations are chosen to represent all the agroclimatic zones where the crop is typically cultivated.
Finally,the performance of the new variety is evaluated by comparing it with the best available local crop cultivar,which serves as a check or reference cultivar.