PUNE: ICAR-Directorate of Floricultural Research (DFR), Pune has developed a new variety of ‘Dwarf Tuberose’ through hybridisation. Aiming to create a variety which can be used as pot plants or for gardening, the plant can attain a height of 48 cm to 50 cm as against the normal height of 100-120 cm.
By the end of the year, this dwarf variety of Tuberose (Rajnigandha) will be sent to 22 coordinated centres of All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on floriculture across the country for multi-location testing.
Taraknath Saha and P Naveen Kumar were the lead scientists who were working on this project for the last four years.
Saha said, “There are 18 varieties of Tuberose and most of them are in white. We have created this dwarf variety by bringing two parent varieties together resulting in around 500 seeds.”
“There were 500 individual plants and it took us three years to evaluate every one of them from which we have chosen five to six promising ones. Among them, we selected this dwarf variety on which we are currently working,” added Saha.
Saha also said that this dwarf variety will be sent to 22 centres for multi-location testing.
He said, “We have to conduct tests to check how this variety behaves in different agro-climatic conditions and hence, we will be sending it in December as normally tuberose is dormant during winters.”
“We aimed to create a novel variety and this dwarf variety can be used as pot plants, gardening and also in vertical gardens. This variety can be used where space is a constraint. The maximum length of this plant is around 50 cm and therefore, it can be easily kept indoors when it is in the blooming stage and one can enjoy the fragrance during its blooming period. It can be used in gardens also due to its uniformity in size,” said Principal Scientist Kumar.
“A tuberose is commercially cultivated for its loose flowers and cut stem, mostly for bouquets and floral decorations. Besides that, the fragrant flowers can also be used for the extraction of essential oils. Keeping in mind the commercial importance, ICAR-DFR decided to research on the same,” said Director, ICAR-Directorate of Floricultural Research KV Prasad.
“Once this variety is tested in different agro-climatic conditions across the country, based on that report, we will release this as one of the varieties of tuberose,” he added.
