Rubberfarmer News
Book on "Rubber Harvesting" Published
The Rubber Production Department of the Rubber Board(India) has published a book on harvesting and processing of rubber entitled 'Rubber Tapping'. The book covers the latest aspects in the respective fields and is priced at Rs.18/- (Rupees Eighteen only). The book is available at all Regional Offices of the Board. It is available free of cost to the trainees attending the Tappers' Training Courses conducted by the Rubber Production Department of the Board.
No more bananas now!
LONDON: Imagine a future with no bananas. The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop is in deep trouble as its genetic base the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed, scientists have warned.
Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety the Cavendish the genetic roots of which lie in India.
The Cavendish crop has been threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus, the New Scientist reported in its latest issue.
The main hope for survival of the variety lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings, the report said.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also disappearing.
And now it could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene pool.
In fact, many of the genes that could save the Cavendish may already have been lost, said NeBambi Lutaladio, a plant scientist at the FAO's headquarters in Rome.
One variety that contains genes that resist black sigatoka survives as a single plant in the botanical gardens of Kolkata, he said.