Variety Released
Crop Variety: Dhavana PKM1
Year of release: 2012
- Mass selection from Chinnamanur type
- Profuse branching type.
- Leaves – silvery green, fragrant.
- First harvest – 40 days after transplanting.
- Fresh herbage yield – 38.65 g/plant
- Yield/ha – 16.78 t.
- Essential oil yield- 20.32 kg / ha.
- Crop duration -145 -150 days.
Agro – Techniques Developed
1. Nutrient management in tuberose
The application of 50% N through distillery spent wash and 50% N through recommended dose of fertilizers as inorganic in tuberose cv. Mexican single showed 22 % yield increase and it also increased the soil nutrient content (N:11.5%,:22% and K :42.9%). Application of Nutrient mixture containing Urea ( 0.05%), KCl (0.5%), MgSO4 (0.1%0,) ZnSO4 (0.1%), CaSO4 (0.1%), FeSO4 (0.1%), MnSO4 (0.05%), Boric acid (0.1%,) CuSO4 (0.04%), Sodium molybdate (0.025%) and citric acid (0.1%) along with 50ppm GA3 and 50ppm NAA produced the highest yield of 9.06 t/ha in tuberose var. “Mexican Single”.
2. Standardization of media composition for pot grown roses
The nutrient media containing Soil + FYM + Leaf mould found to be the best media for growing miniature pot grown roses’.
3. Development of organic production techniques for noni (Morinda citrifolia) under varying water regimes through drip irrigation for higher yield and post harvest quality
Application of 100 % WRC through drip irrigation + 50 % FYM + 50 % VC recorded superior performance for morphological characters, physiological parameters, soil biological properties, fruit characters, yield parameters and fruit quality parameters.
4. Post harvest of jasmine and tuberose
Jasmine: The shelf life of Jasmine flowers was increased by 3.39 days using Aluminium sulphate (0.1%). Packing jasmine flowers in polyethylene bags with no ventilation and 0.25% ventilation is beneficial in maintaining higher quality and extending the shelf life of the flowers (3.36% in local market and 2.95% for long distance transport).
Tuberose : Sucrose 2% + 8 HQC 200ppm + Ag(NO3 ) 250ppm increased vase life of cv. Suvasini by 12 days and by 10 days in cv. Prajwal.
5. Utilization of flower waste as a bio-sorbent for removal of heavy metals from tannery effluent
The flower waste biomass pretreated with 0.5N sodium hydroxide exhibited greater pollutant adsorption capacity and efficiency than that of other pretreatments and untreated biomass. Hence, the biomass of flower waste could be effectively utilized to remove pollutants from industrial effluent by pre treating it with NaOH.
6. Exploring the use of ornamental flowers as natural food colourants
Extraction of natural colours from flowers have shown that four species viz. (Hibiscus rosa sinensis, Ixora duffii, Nerium oleander, Quisqualis indica) of flower crops commonly found all over India, have resulted in an recovery of about 5 to 6% of red colour dye. Similarly two species viz. (Clitoria ternatea and Lagerstroemia indica) have yielded blue colour dye and three species viz. (Cassia fistula, Tecoma stans. and Cassia glauca) have yielded yellow colour dye. The dyes will be further refined as powder form and its properties are being analyzed.
7. Effect of packaging and storage on keeping quality of garland flowers of tuberose Packaging materials :
Considering the shelf life and other flower qualities of tuberose, CFB boxes with 100 gauge polyethylene lining is the best.
Storage temperature:
Cold storage 40C registered the highest number of 9.33 days shelf life in CFB boxes.
8. Studies on post harvest packing of loose marigold flowers:
Plastic crates found to be one of the best packing materials for transport of marigold flowers for short distance market as it shows the lowest moisture loss per cent (6.75%) and highest shelf life (4 days).
9. Standardization of dry flower production technology:
For flowers, Microwave oven drying of flowers embedded in silica gel + sand (1:1) was considered as the best. For foliage, the Glycerinisation (full dip) and (Glycerinisation uptake) gave the good results.
10. Standardization of bleaching technology:
Sodium chlorite+hydrochloric acid treatment were the best for both flowers and foliages.
11. Standardization of dyeing technology:
The acrylic dyes was found to be the best dye to color bleached leaves and flowers with high dyeing consistency, wash fastness, rubbing fastness and light fastness.
12. Evaluation of traditional cut flowers and foliage and nontraditional flowers and foliage for dry flower technology:
Among flowers, Sterlitzia reginae, Wedelia trilobata, and Mussaenda luteola dried with silica gel was most suitable for dry flower processing. Bleaching with sodium chlorite was the best. Among cut foliage, Grevillea robusta, Philodendron bipinnatifidum, Bauhinia tomentosa, Passiflora edulis, Juniperus pyramidalis, Dracaena fragrans, Casuarina equisetifolia dried by immersing in glycerol and water (1:1) and bleached in sodium chlorite had the highest overall acceptability. Among non traditional flowers, Cassia glauca dried by microwave oven drying was the most suitable for dry flower processing. The recovery percentage of dyes was high in dyes extracted from leaves of Tectona grandis, bark of Eugenia jambulina and flowers of Hibiscus rosa sinensis. Hibiscus rosa- sinensis in citric acid, Syzygium cumini (fruits) in ferrous sulphate and Tectona grandis in Terminalia chebula gave the best red,blue and yellow shades respectively.