Kerala: Indigenous tissue culture protocol awaits patent

KOZHIKODE: Kannur District Agricultural Farm at Karimbam in Taliparamba has developed own medium for the tissue culture of their focal product banana. The farm has been using the technology successfully for the last one year and is now planning to go for a patent for the protocol. At a time the tissue culture sector is facing a crisis with the ban of ammonium nitrate (a major ingredient in the medium) by the government due to security reasons, the indigenous protocol will help the farm for better results and also avoid the exploitation of multinational biotech companies.

Farm Agricultural Biotechnology Division officer-in Charge V.G Hareendran said the protocol had tremendously boosted the production of tissue cultured plants. “In tissue culture, Banana is our focal item and varieties like Grand Naine, Nendran, etc. have a great demand in our state,” he told DC.

“We were using the ‘Murashige and Skoog’ media for production of these varieties by culturing. However, with the order banning the use of Ammonium Nitrate, the protocol become non-adoptable. The industry widely suffered with the order and that forced us to develop indigenous technique suitable for banana without including Ammonium Nitrate. It works well and so far the protocol produced more than half a lakh plants in last two months,” he said.