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HomePosts Tagged "pomegranate"
Agri Genomics, Horticulture, India, Opinions, R&D

By Dr R A Marathe, Director, ICAR-National Research Centre on Pomegranate (NRCP), Solapur, Maharashtra

Pomegranate is one of the most remunerative fruit crops of semi-arid tropics and India is the global leader in pomegranate cultivation with over 2.88 lakh hectare land producing about 32.71 lakh tonnes of fruits annually. The nutraceutically rich and dollar earning crop is one of the choicest fruit crops for growers and consumers all across the world. The consumer awareness of innumerable health benefits has increased market demand for pomegranate, resulting in handsome monetary returns from this horticulture crop especially in India. 

Pomegranate supports livelihood security of an estimated 2.5 lakh farm families mostly in climatically and edaphically challenged regions. This ‘Superfood’ is registering a steep upward trend in export from India 99,000 metric tonnes (216  per cent growth as compared to 2013-14) earning a foreign revenue equivalent to Rs 688.8 crore in 2020-21. Despite being such a valuable and remunerative fruit crop for all the stakeholders including growers and consumers, very limited genomic resources and molecular information are available to support the accelerated pomegranate improvement programme. The narrow genetic base of this crop also poses a serious challenge for researchers involved in the pomegranate improvement programme. So, with the aim of creating useful molecular information, generating genomic wealth and accelerating pomegranate improvement programmes, the genome sequencing programme was initiated by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-National Research Centre on Pomegranate (NRCP), in 2015-16.

Even as India has ramped up production in recent years and has been a world leader in pomegranate production with a 50 per cent contribution to global production, India’s domestic capacity as well as export potential has still remained largely unrealised. This has been due to an assortment of reasons including the limited availability of genomic resources and molecular information about this highly remunerative crop. Being a high value crop, until now, due to lack of resistant pomegranate varieties against major pests and diseases, there has been very high dependence on chemical pesticides for managing biotic stresses. However, now that we have managed to sequence the whole genome of this fruit, this will open up incredible avenues for vastly improving yield, growing much better and safer varieties for human nutritional needs, and all this at a much faster rate. The reference-quality genome assembly of pomegranate variety Bhagawa is a publicly accessible genomic resource for pomegranate researchers across the globe and will provide a great impetus to the pomegranate improvement programme across the globe.

ICAR-NRCP has come up with the assembly of a reference-quality genome (346.08 Mb) of pomegranate variety Bhagawa consisting of only 342 scaffolds with an average N50 value of 16.12 Mb. To accomplish this genome sequence, we deployed four advanced Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms such as Illumina, 10X Genomics Chromium, PacBio Sequel followed by BioNano Genomics. This assembly covered more than 98 per cent of the estimated size of Bhagawa genome, 352.54 Mb. The assessment of assembly quality through LTR Assembly Index (LAI =10) and BUSCO completeness score (93.68 per cent) over the 1440 ortholog genes revealed this genome is of reference quality standards with high continuity. Genome annotation revealed a total 29,435 gene models with a mean transcript length of 2954 bp and a mean coding sequence length of 1090 bp. We discovered a total of 1,573 disease resistance protein coding genes, and 1,533 transcription factor (TF) coding genes and 314 MIR ncRNA genes that code for 26 different families of microRNAs, which regulate various genes for growth and development in pomegranate. The ICAR-NRCP scientists have also carried out the chromosome level assembly using HiC- chromosome conformation capture sequencing for the var. Bhagawa genome to assemble the entire genome into eight chromosomes covering about 345 Mb genome and the final curation and integration led to the validated presence of 33003 genes with 41682 mRNAs.

To read more click on: https://agrospectrumindia.com/e-magazine

By Dr R A Marathe, Director, ICAR-National

Acts & Schemes – Centre, AgroPolicy, Foodgrains, India, People, Vegetables

If FPOs are successful in making farmers wealthy and debt-free, a single farmer will not commit suicide in Vidarbha.

At a recent workshop organised for FPOs in Vidarbha at the 13th Agrovision exhibition, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways said, “Farmer’s Producer Companies (FPC) should work to make farmers prosperous, wealthy, debt-free, and happy. If FPOs are successful in making farmers wealthy and debt-free. In that case, a single farmer will not commit suicide in Vidarbha”.

Gadkari advised farmers to form companies to market and export their products.  Sharad Gadakh, Vice Chancellor of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Agriculture University, Ravi Boratkar, Organising Secretary of Agrovision and Publisher of AgroSpectrum magazine, C D Mayee, Chairman, Advisory committee Agrovision, Ajay Kadu, General Manager, Agricultural Market Committee, Nagpur and other delegates were present at the conference. 

Gadkari said, “FPO is a power of Farmers; with the help of FPOs, farmers can sell their products, without depending on the government. FPO is the social economic transformation of farmers. Farmers should get training in the formation of FPO and market their products. Farmers should find their own market. Five thousand FPOs should be formed in Vidarbha for the development of farmers”.

Ajay Kadu advised farmers on forming FPOs. Till now 27 agro products in Maharashtra have received GI tags. 11 crops in Maharashtra including four from Vidarbha are part of the Maharashtra Agri-Business Network (MAGNET) Project. MAGNET-focused crops are Banana, Guava, Pomegranate, Sapota, Custard Apple, Strawberry, Orange, Sweet lime, Okra, Chilly (Green and Red), and floriculture crops. The state government collaborates with the Asian Development Bank for MAGNET. The Rs 1,000-crore project, which is aimed mainly at fruit and vegetable producers, aims to improve processing and minimise the losses in the perishables sector. Successful FPO owners were honoured by Gadkari.    

If FPOs are successful in making farmers

Agri Genomics, Agro Universities, Horticulture, India, R&D

 This development will catalyse higher yield, better varieties, higher income for farmers while tremendously boosting the export value for Indian pomegranates in the world market

In a path-breaking development for genome research and horticultural science in India, a team of scientists has completed the genome sequencing for pomegranate, known as a wonder fruit to many. For the first time anywhere in the India, the ICAR-NRCP team at Solapur, Maharashtra has been able to identify all the bases of DNA material in perfect sequence in the process unlocking several genetic mysteries such as identifying particular genes responsible for sweetness, seed softness or colour of the fruit, those responsible for disease and pest resistance, and those for the enlargement of the fruit size, among others. The fruit used has been cv. Bhagawa, an Indian pomegranate.

The ICAR-NRCP announced the release of Reference Quality Genome Assembly of Indian pomegranate cv. Bhagawa . The team involved in this landmark research comprised Dr N.V. Singh, Dr P. Roopa Sowjanya, Dr Shilpa Parashuram, Dr. P.G. Patil and Dr. R.A. Marathe, all at ICAR-NRCP, Solapur. It has taken the team six years in accomplishing full genomic sequencing of this Indian pomegranate. The reference-quality genome assembly of the ‘Bhagawa’ developed by ICAR-NRCP under aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi is a huge reservoir of publicly accessible genomic resources for pomegranate researchers across the globe and will provide a great impetus to the pomegranate improvement programme in India. These genomic resources will assist the pomegranate genetic improvement programmes of different research organizations including ICAR-NRCP through genomics assisted trait mapping, breeding and genome editing applications to develop improved varieties with resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses.

The genome sequencing experiment was executed at Nucleome Informatics, a Hyderabad based genomics lab. Nucleome is the only laboratory from Asia which is affiliated with the world’s largest and prestigious genomics program ‘The Vertebrate Genome Project’ to sequence 70000 vertebrate genomes. 

“Being a high value crop, until now, due to lack of resistant pomegranate varieties against major pests and diseases, there has been very high dependence on chemical pesticides for managing biotic stresses. However, now that we have managed to sequence the whole genome of this fruit, this will open up incredible avenues for vastly improving yield, growing much better and safer varieties for human nutritional needs, and all this at a much faster rate,” said Dr R. A. Marathe, Director, ICAR-NRCP.

“Pomegranate supports the livelihood security of an estimated 2.5 lakh farm families mostly in climatically and edaphically-challenged regions.  Now with the achievement of this sequencing and development of even higher quality fruits, India’s export value for pomegranate in the international market will multiply several-fold in a very short period of time,” said Dr. A.K. Singh, DDG (Horticultural Science), ICAR, New Delhi.

 Dushyant Singh Baghel, CEO Nucleome Informatics said, “This is an example of public private partnership in genomics research. With the availability of skilled genomics experts and advanced genomics technologies Scientists can develop genomes and discover useful genes in crops faster.”

 This development will catalyse higher yield, better

AgroPolicy, Dairy, Live Stock, Trade

Indian mangoes and pomegranate get market access in US

In pursuant to the 12th India – USA TPF meeting held on November 23, 2021 Department of Agriculture and farmer’s welfare (DAC&FW) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have signed a framework agreement for implementing the 2 Vs 2 Agri market access issues i.e inspection/oversight transfer for Indian mangoes and pomegranate and market access for pomegranate arils from India and market access for US cherries and US Alfalfa hay.

Mango and pomegranate exports will start from January – February 2022 and pomegranate aril exports from April 2022. Exports of Alfalfa hay and cherries from the US will begin in April 2022.

In addition, based on the ministerial discussions, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) also conveyed its readiness to provide market access for US pork and requested the US side to share a signed copy of the final sanitary certificate for finalising the same.

Indian mangoes and pomegranate get market access

Company News, Types

As part of the AgroStar Technology Farms initiative, the company collaborated with a pomegranate farmer in Devkapadi village.

AgroStar, India’s largest digital farmer network, and Agri-inputs e-commerce platform has been relentlessly working towards increasing the yield of farmers with the use of the right advisory and right inputs. Based on the success of local farmers in doubling yield with 20 per cent lower input cost with the support of AgroStar advisors, AgroStar held a farmers’ meet in Devkapdi village of Banaskantha district recently.

As part of the AgroStar Technology Farms initiative, the company collaborated with a pomegranate farmer in Devkapadi village, a prominent area for pomegranate cultivation in Gujarat. The team of agri-experts, including plant pathologists and nutrition management experts consulted the farmer on the kind of nutrients, pesticides and other inputs to be used, as well as provided on-field guidance on pruning and nurturing of the plants. The result was an increase in yield and superior quality of fruit despite the adverse climatic conditions this year. The farmer, Dasrathbhai, has been able to produce around 30 kg of pomegranates in his one-acre land at the cost of Rs 290 per tree. In comparison, the typical yields in the region have been between 15-20 kg per acre at a cost of Rs 350 per tree.

Close to 100 farmers from the region participated in the meeting where AgroStar experts explained how they were able to achieve a higher yield with lesser inputs cost, and explained some of the key knowledge gaps that exist even among experienced farmers across regions.

Commenting on the success of the initiative, Tushar Bhatt, Director, Farm Solutions said, “AgroStar’s motto has always been helping farmers win. We are delighted by the success of this initiative. Through our continued efforts, many more farmers like Dashrathbhai, will be able to create an impact in the lives of Indian farmers across regions. With technology and data at the forefront, we are capable of providing end-to-end solutions for farmers. As we continue to expand our omnichannel services, it will further enhance our reach to millions of farmers in the country.”

As part of the AgroStar Technology Farms