Kerala Agricultural University develops tech for ginger seed production

Thrissur: Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) has come up with a seed production technology to address the scarcity of quality ginger seeds.

The high price and non-availability of seed materials have been hampering ginger production in south Indian states. The vitro micro rhizome technology initiated at Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology (CPBMB), College of Horticulture, Vellani-kkara, offers a realistic solution to the vexed issue confronting farmers.

Since propagation of ginger is exclusively through seed rhizomes, lack of availability of quality assured and disease-free seed rhizomes remains a major problem in ginger cultivation, KAU vice-chancellor Dr R. Chandra Babu said.

"Preliminary studies have shown that the in vitro micro-rhizome technology can ensure disease -free seed material and quantum jump in seed production. Attempts to induce micro rhizomes in three KAU released varieties of ginger viz. Athira, Karthika and Aswathy by producing multiple shoot cultures from rhizome sprouts have been successful," he explained.

The major benefit of this technology is that rhizomes can be harvested in the same season while in conventional tissue culture plants, one more season is required for rhizome harvest.

According to CPBMB head Dr M.R. Shylaja, trials conducted by CPBMB has found that in vitro induced micro rhizomes could be included in the seed chain of ginger, micro rhizomes could be produced in vitro with simple tissue culture facility and high tech poly house cultivation can be adopted for seed production.