Mysuru scientist tests formulation to tackle papaya virus

MYSURU: The fructification of a city-based scientist’s decade-long research is bound to enrich the fruit of many a farmer’s labour, quite literally – Vasanth Kumar Thimakapura’s plant-based eco-friendly formulation is being touted as the preventive remedy against the much-dreaded Papaya Ring Spot Virus (PRV), a bane for ryots dependent on the horticulture crop for their fortunes. Papaya is a biennial crop, and affliction by PRSV is a commonly reported problem in South Karnataka. Thimakapura averred that the formulation he has come up with is non-toxic, and can help control the spread of virus in other crops such as beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, orchids among others.
President of the University of Mysore Old Students’ Association, and director of the technical wing of Green Lifescience Technologies, Thimakapura was determined to come up with a remedy for PRSV, a pestilent menace that is found across the world.
For Thimakapura, the greatest reward for his work has been the results that farmers have reported after using his formulation for the past two years. “It has already been tested by farmers across India. This is besides many of the in-house trials that we have conducted,” said the scientist.
What sets the formulation – Thimakapura has named it ‘PowerPlus’ – apart is that it helps prevent the onslaught by the virus, and can help cure those plants blighted by it. Unaffected papaya plants in his plot growing beside those affected by PSRV, Thimakapura said, attested to the efficacy of his formulation. “The virus has the potential to trigger an epidemic. As of now, there is no variety of papaya that is resistant to the virus, nor is there a foolproof mechanism that can help protect them from its threat. So, I hope that my product will serve as a boon for farmers,” he said.
Consequences of virus infection
Stunted growth, and lack of fruit-breaking ability are two of the most disastrous consequences of affliction by the Papaya Ring Spot Virus (PSRV) in papaya plants. Fruits borne by plants infected by the virus often exhibit clear signs of the disease: These include a discernible change in its taste, bumps and characteristic ring-shaped spots on the skin. PSRV spreads through an insect vector at an exponential rate, and all it takes for an entire plot to grow infested is a small clutch of PSRV-blighted plants. “Farmers dread it because it is impossible to contain its spread,” Vasanth Kumar Thimakapura said.