Kerala Agriculture Minister P Prasad has stressed the need to augment domestic production of vegetables through high yielding hybrids released by the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU).
Among the 89 vegetable varieties released by KAU, he said 10 are hybrids and the government is implementing schemes for multiplying the hybrid seeds on a mission mode.
KAU has already taken initiative in transferring the innovative breeding technology to leading seed companies and the state government undertakings at a subsidized cost. The initiative between the government and KAU will definitely improve the domestic vegetable production and these hybrid seeds can be marketed as K-Seed on Pan India basis, he said.
The Minister highlighted the role of high yielding hybrids released by KAU in boosting domestic vegetable production recently at the discussion in the State Assembly.
Low cost for farmers
The newly developed hybrids from the Department of Vegetable Science, KAU, Vellanikkara using cutting edge technologies will provide quality hybrid seeds at a much lower cost to the farmers, T Pradeepkumar, HoD of Vegetable Science, KAU, said.
Kerala is known for the rich biodiversity of native vegetables and most of the varieties released from the university are selections from these landraces. In the last decade, novel hybrids were released from KAU in cucurbit crops encompassing bitter gourd, ridge gourd, cucumber and watermelon, he said.
The seedless watermelon hybrids such as Swarna and Shonima were developed using triploid technology. In India, KAU is the only public sector institute distributing seeds as well as the technology for production of hybrid seeds of seedless watermelon. The recent development of orange seedless watermelon underscores the research strength of KAU in this sector, he added.
In Kerala, around 15 tonnes of hybrid seeds were marketed by the private seed companies. The seeds of bitter gourd, pumpkin and okra are leading the hybrid segment, he said.