ADVERTISEMENTS:
A few observations from the author on this over all scenario on varietal development in vegetables in India including their impacts through national agricultural research system are as follows:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
1. In terms of numbers, the progress on development of varieties and hybrids under NARS in vegetables can be rated as impressive.
2. A large majority of these varieties/hybrids is only on record and they could never reach to the farmers either due to not meeting the market requirements or due to non-availability of seed in desired quantity. This is a point to ponder and lesson to the future researchers and research managers.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
3. There have been several successful and direct introductions in peas, watermelon, French-beans, tomato, cabbage, radish, carrot, sweet pepper and turnip, etc. A few of these which made their presence felt and continue to be most sought after even today, are Arkel in peas (bred in UK and introduced in India in early seventies), watermelon Sugar Baby (bred in USA in 1954 and introduced in India in seventies) and sweet pepper California Wonder (selected from farmer’s variety in USA in 1928 and introduced to India in seventies).
This shows that for really good cultivars, there is hardly any expiry date. Besides direct introductions, quite a large number of cultivars have been developed through mass selection/pure-line selection from the introduced exotic stocks/indigenous stocks. Mass selections have been in abundance in onion, cauliflower, carrot and radish while pure-line selections were quite often in cucurbits which though are cross-pollinated but behave like self-pollinated crops in breeding behavior i.e. show negligible inbreeding depression and conversely negligible heterosis as well.
Thus, introductions or selections from introductions (both exotic and indigenous ones) have thus far been the major breeding approach leading to a huge number of cultivars specifically adapted to specific locations under jurisdiction of SAUs/ICAR institutes. Thus, over all breeding approach has been “me too” approach.
4. It may be noted that typical hybridization followed by application of pedigree method of breeding and development of composites/synthetics/hybrids has also been pursued but on a lower scale.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
5. In background of impressive out-come in terms of large number of products developed through common sense conventional breeding approaches in vegetable crops, can we look for a few turning point indigenous breeding achievements resulting from a bit of long term innovative approaches? Perhaps yes. In my opinion, only a few developments fall in this category.
These include development of tomato yellow leaf curl virus tolerant tomato cultivars like H-24 and H-86 by Dr. G. Kalloo and his team at HAU, Hissar using L.hirsutum f. glabratum as donor and yellow vein mosaic virus resistant okra cultivars like Parbhani Kranti by Dr. Y. S. Nerkar and his group at MAU, Parbhani and Arka Anamika by Dr. O.P. Dutta and his group at IIHR, Bangalore using Abelmoschos manihot as a donor and common bean mosaic virus resistant French-bean cultivar UPF- 612 (Pant Bean-2) by Dr. Hari Har Ram and his team at GBPUAT, Pant Nagar using Turkish Brown as a source of resistance.
These products except Arka Anamika are no longer commercially cultivated on a significant scale and even the level of resistance/tolerance originally claimed in tomato and okra has broken down due to change perhaps in the pathogen but these developments have worked as trigger to pursue disease resistance breeding in vegetables.
Similarly, in tropical cauliflower, development of synthetics/hybrids using self-incompatibility system by Dr. Vishnu Swarup and Dr. Chatterji at IARI, New Delhi and by Dr. Hari Har Ram and his team at GBPUAT, Pant Nagar can be considered something different than the “me too” approach in vegetable breeding.
However, mentioning of these developments as something innovative in vegetable breeding in India does not take away the due credit from persons like Dr. Harbhajan Singh and of his types who contributed enormously in vegetable breeding through robust common sense conventional breeding approach making best possible use of the available germplasm either from abroad or locally. There is no substitute of robust common sense breeding approach even today when precision breeding based on molecular markers is gradually becoming the order of the day.
6. Lately, private sector seed companies have come in a big way and the bulk of the vegetable seed marketing primarily of hybrids is being done by them. Some of these companies have world class R&D facilities and competent manpower and a lot of new and innovative products are available to the consumers on competitive prices with assured quality. Because of this, the products developed by SAUs/ICAR institutes with the exception of vegetable peas and beans are just not reaching to the farmers and even the seed availability of these has become a serious problem.
7. In view of above, vegetable breeding in India is at a cross road and it seems public- private-partnership mode of operation in R&D and seed production and marketing is likely to occupy the center-stage.
