BARC plants a national record with mutant seeds

BARC’s scientists, who helped Gunde by providing their fruits of research are jubilant at the prospects of a revenue-earning agreement in the offing. BARC has been actively engaged in developing various mutant seed varieties in groundnuts, pulses and other oil seeds for the last 30 years. The scientists enhance genetic attributes of seeds by exposing them to gamma rays, neutrons etc. "When the seeds are sown in the second generation, a number of variations will be observed in the plant characteristics. Plants carrying such variations are called mutants," explained P S Rao, head of the Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division.

Left to the course of Nature, such mutations can only occur in one in a million plants. By using radiations scientists increase this ratio to one in 100. The two varieties developed by the scientists are direct or indirect mutants, those obtained by cross-breeding two mutant varieties. “BARC has developed nine mutant varieties of groundnut so far and many have additional characters like disease tolerance, drought resistance, seed dormancy, early maturity etc, apart from high yield,” said Dr G S S Murty, who directed the groundnut project. “Not all the mutants are important from agronomical point of view. A few may be of little use," explained D M Kale, who co-ordinated between the field and lab work. Though happy about the achievemnet, Gunde is disturbed at the dull propsects for agriculturists in the country. Talking to The Indian Express, he said, “Unfortunately, farmers don’t get what they deserve. The remuneration for crops is not satisfactory. We don’t have a say in fixing the price of the crops.”