The Hindu : Business : ICAR to prepare registry of cashew germplasm

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 02, 2005

Business

Business

ICAR to prepare registry of cashew germplasm

T. Ramavarman

Aim is to promote high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties

THRISSUR: The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) will prepare a national-level registry of cashew genes and germplasm. This comes under programmes for conservation of cashew varieties and promotion of high-yielding, disease-resistant trees that give quality nuts.

The registry will be maintained at the National Research Centre for Cashew at Puttur, near Mangalore, and nine other centres where the council's All-India Coordinated Research Programme (AICRP) on Cashew is being implemented.

M.G. Bhat, Director of the research centre, told The Hindu here that the just-concluded biennial national group meeting of scientists of the research programme, organised by the council at Kerala Agricultural University, had decided to compile the registry. The germplasm of 1,500 varieties was already available at the council's institutions, such as the research centre and the research programme wings.

He said in-depth surveys would be conducted in plantation corporation estates and studies done on naturally growing trees to locate the better varieties.

Dr. Bhat said cashew productivity was only one tonne a hectare in India, while in countries, such as Vietnam, it was about three tonnes.

`No' to Endosulfan

Dr. Bhat said the national group of scientists had advised against use of Endosulfan as insecticide in cashew plantations, whether through aerial or regular spraying. "Even though we are not sure whether the much-reported human deformities were actually caused by endosulfan, we have advised against its use because of the controversies. We will be continuing the use of endosulfan in the experimental farms of the AICRP for another couple of years to complete the experiments we have undertaken with it, and we will be stopping that also after that period.''

``Anyway, we are for promoting organic management of cashew, with the help of non-chemical fertilizers and pesticides. We export nearly 1.27-lakh tonnes of cashew mainly to the western countries. Any traces of residual chemical in the exported cashew will be detrimental to our global trade potentials. Though thick shells reduce the possibility of residual traces of chemicals in cashew kernel, we have to be careful to ensure that the exported cashew does not contain any traces of chemicals,'' Dr. Bhat said.

According to him, switching over to organic farming of cashew was easier in the country because farmers use only limited quantity of fertilizers and pesticides even now, in comparison to cotton which absorb nearly 50 per cent of the pesticides produced in the country.

"However, farmers will require some pesticides to control the pests at the young stage of cashew plants. Use of neem oil, or plant extracts, as well as some bio-control methods of deploying hostile pests have not been found adequately effective in cashew so far.

The proposal for deploying some hormonal strategies for disease control in cashew has already been submitted to the ICAR,'' he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business