High yielding, new groundnut variety seeds Girinar 4 and 5 released in Telangana

Hyderabad: State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy said the groundnut farmers in the State will be provided with quality seed varieties developed by the ICRISAT and ICAR as per the international standards.

As part of this, the Girinar-4 and Girinar-5 groundnut varieties of seeds containing 80 per cent Oleic acid, which were released for the first time in the country, will be provided to the farmers during the coming Yasangi agriculture season after.

After a review meeting with the officials on Tuesday, he said the certified seed production will start after growing the breeder seed. The minister said normally the groundnut contains only 40 per cent of Oleic acid and the new seed varieties are expected to provide 30 per cent more yields than the normal varieties.

Against the normal oil content of 40 to 50 per cent in the normal seed varieties, the new varieties will have 53 per cent oil content and the farmers can harvest the crop within 115 days. The new varieties will have the quality present in the olive oil. Besides, they are also useful to the food processing units producing products with longer shelf life.

That apart, the new varieties are beneficial for the health of consumers and provide better price to the farmers in the market. The new Girinar varieties can also compete with the groundnut products from USA, Australia, Argentina and China in the international markets.

He said that the new varieties are suitable to be grown in the combined Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda districts. Another key feature of the new varieties that absence of moisture during the harvesting will yield the groundnut without Aflataxin competitive with international standards.

It was against this backdrop, the representatives of the ICRISAT have asked the minister to take up seed production in a big way with the cooperation of the Telangana Seed Development Corporation (TSDC)

State Agriculture Secretary Janardhan Reddy, ICRISAT Asia Research Programmes Director Dr Puran A Gaur, TSDC Managing Director Dr Kesavulu, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University (PJTSAU), Principal Scientist Dr Pradeep among those participated in the review meeting.