The Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru, will release a variety of tomato meant for the food processing industry after three months, according to Director M.R. Dinesh. He told The Hindu, on the sidelines of the ‘krishi yantra mela’ which concluded at Puttur on Monday, that the “processing variety” will have characteristics like being sour for making ketchup, sauce and other products.
“We will be done with the experiment on the processing variety within three months. Later we will release it,” the director said.
Now food processing majors in the country are importing the processing variety as the country does not produce it.
Pilot project
Mr. Dinesh said the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the IIHR are working on a pilot project to give production advisory to State government on mango crop.
“The first advisory on mango crop production in Ramanagaram and Kolar belts which are the major mango producing areas in Karnataka is expected by 2020,” he said. This can help the government to fix the base price for the crop.
Both the institutes have signed an agreement three months ago to give production advisory on perennial crops to the government.
The advisory will be prepared based on the space and drone data collected by the ISRO and ground data by the IIHR.
The data pertains to moisture level, climate, temperature, humidity, soil type and soil fertility and the like. In addition to the disease resistant varieties of vegetables and fruits already released, the IIHR will roll out more such (disease resistant) varieties of beans, capsicum, yard long beans, okra in the coming months, the director said.
Now 23 States in the country are growing vegetable varieties developed by the IIHR, he added.