The Hindu Business Line : Leaf mosaic disease in tapioca — TN tuber growers, processors seek import of planting material

THE Salem, Namakkal based tapioca growers and the sago/starch producers from Tamil Nadu have expressed concern over the falling yield from the present tuber varieties being cultivated by them on account of the mosaic diseases.

They have approached the Centre with a request to explore the possibility for early import of disease-resistant tuber varieties.

"With no local R&D efforts so far proving good enough to arrest the spread of mosaic disease, the tapioca farmers in the State have been pushed to explore the possibility of importing the stem planting material from disease-resistant tapioca varieties," said Mr C. Vyapuri, President of the Salem-based United Farmers Association.

Mr Vyapuri told Business Line that at present three hybrid tapioca strains - 226, H-165 and Mulluvadi - are popular in the State and all the three hybrids have been afflicted by the leaf mosaic disease. The gradual spread of the disease has now brought down the yield of the tuber crop to one-third, he added.

A team of tapioca growers led by Mr Vyapuri and Mr Govindarajan, President of the Athur-based Farmers Club, presented a status report on the tapioca crop in Tamil Nadu to the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, last week.

The team, which attended an international conference on public-private partnership on the potential of rainfed agriculture at New Delhi on October 20, drew the attention of the Union Agriculture Minister and the officials on the need to explore the possibility of importing the disease-resistant tapioca stem as planting material for field multiplication.

Mr Govindarajan pointed out that planting material in the form of stem cuttings from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture at Ivadan, Nigeria, could be explored, as the efforts to evolve a disease-tolerant tuber variety by the domestic plant research bodies in India would take a longer time. In order not to lose further time, the Government should work out a scheme to import the tapioca planting material, as the existing procedure for importing of planting material is cumbersome, he added.

While the tapioca growers are faced with declining prices for their produce, the tapioca processors such as the sago/starch producers have been hampered by the fall in the starch content from the tuber crop in the successive years due to the disease in the local varieties, said Mr V. Anbazhagan, Chairman of the Salem-based Varalaxmi Starch Industries.

According to him, the average yield of tapioca has fallen from 40 tonnes to 19/20 tonnes per hectare in the Salem/Athur belt due to the mosaic leaf diseases and this has also led to the tuber's starch content dropping to around 20 per cent from the average yield of around 30 per cent.

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