Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) has appealed to the State Agriculture Department for effectively monitoring the performance of newly released varieties and also those that are in cultivation.
The appeal, made at the recently concluded scientific workers’ conference, comes in the wake of reports that the varieties the Central Government de-notified continue to be cultivated.
With reference the paddy variety ADT 27, the University pointed out that though the Central Government de-notified the variety in 1970 it had to repeat the de-notification in 1991.
The Government de-notifies a variety because the production has not been at the expected level or there is a better variety available in the market or for other similar reasons.
Once a variety – seed or propagating material if its banana or sugarcane – the Agriculture Department withdraws the same from market. In short, it is similar to using a product post its expiry date but without side effects.
The University says in the absence of a proper communication from the State Agriculture Department, the University is unable to identify the varieties that are poor in performance and initiate measures for de-notification. And, also stop seed production of those varieties.
This, at the macro level, hurts the agriculture production, farmers’ income also the State’s agriculture output, as farmers could have used better yielding variety.
The University says it wants to prepare a list of varieties to be de-notified, crop-wise so as to take up breeding new varieties and eliminate the ‘seed garbage’ in the production chain.
The release of a new variety starts with plant breeders conducting preliminary yield trial for two years, multi-location trial for two more years and adoptive research trial for another two years. Based on the study conducted during the trial period, the breeders submit a proposal to the University, which convenes its Variety Release Committee.
It then forwards the proposal to the State Variety Release Committee, which sends it to the Central Variety Release Committee for notification.
This notification is state-wise, the University says, explaining that a variety release is State-specific. If other states want the release of a variety released in Tamil Nadu for them, they will have to approach the Central Variety Release Committee for specific notification.
Once notified, the State Agriculture Department gets the breeder seed from the university, prepares foundation seed and then gets it certified from the Seed Certification Department for release to farmers.
