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India strawberry growers may shift from imported patented plants
Farmers in Mahabaleshwar region say they must buy imported mother plants and replace them each season, with heavy weather risks and an annual outlay of $2,500 for a half-acre operation.
India strawberry production centers on the Mahabaleshwar region, where an elevation above 1,000 meters supports a cool growing season from November to March, but growers say the crop is labor intensive and vulnerable to sudden heavy rains that can wipe out an entire harvest. BBC Business reports that strawberry plants are replaced every season rather than grown from seed, and farmers must buy young plants from suppliers.
The industry has continued to rely on imported strawberry varieties from California and Florida in the US, and from Italy and Spain in Europe, because no one in India has developed domestic varieties. BBC Business says breeders in the US and Europe can take 10 to 15 years to develop top quality fruit and then patent their varieties, meaning Indian growers import certified mother plants.
Once imported, the plants go through government quarantine before being used in nurseries to produce daughter plants for farmers. According to BBC Business, a single imported mother plant can generate an average of 20 daughter plants, with advanced growers pushing higher.
At Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth (MPKV) in Maharashtra, an agricultural university partnered with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) on a breeding experiment that could reduce reliance on imported varieties, according to BBC Business. The report describes MPKV and BARC research as targeting changes that could affect how strawberry planting material is sourced in India.