Patancheru, India
June 5, 2009
When the world gets warmer with
climate change, the dryland tracts will become even drier making
it more difficult for the farmers to grow crops in this region.
The improved crops developed by the
International Crops Research
Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and its
partners, are able to withstand severe droughts, tolerate higher
temperatures and mature early, enabling the farmers to be ready
to meet the challenges of climate change.
According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the
current research strategy at the Institute is to improve the
heat-tolerance and drought-resistance qualities of ICRISAT’s
mandate crops.
“As the world celebrates the Environment Day, we at ICRISAT,
along with our NARS partners, strengthen our efforts to develop
crop varieties that will overcome the adversities of climate
change, and thereby reinforce the food and income security for
the poor in the developing countries,” said Dr Dar.
ICRISAT’s research is focused on crops that are important for
the livelihoods of the people in the dryland areas. They are
pearl millet, sorghum, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut. These
crops have several natural evolutionary advantages for the
global warming scenarios.
Both pearl millet and sorghum have high levels of salinity
tolerance, and hence are better adapted to areas that are
becoming saline due to global warming. Some of the pearl millet
varieties and hybrids, developed from ICRISAT’s germplasm, are
able to flower and set seeds at temperatures more than 42
degrees centigrade, in areas such as Western Rajasthan and
Gujarat in India. Improved sorghum lines have also been
developed that are capable of producing good yields in
temperatures of 42 degrees C, and have stay-green traits that
can enhance terminal drought tolerance.
Short-duration groundnut varieties such as ICGV 91114 have good
levels of drought tolerance, and are already replacing more
susceptible older varieties. For chickpea, ICRISAT has developed
extra-early (85 to 90 days to maturity) and super-early (75 to
80 days) varieties that can escape terminal drought. More
recently, ICRISAT researchers have identified chickpea lines
that have high levels of heat tolerance, which will enable them
to be grown in areas with higher temperatures during
heat-sensitive pod filling stage. |
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