State receives order of 10 lakh pineapple saplings from Israel

SOUMITRA NANDI, MP, 20 Feb 2024, Kolkata: The tissue culture laboratory of the Food Processing Industries and Horticulture (FPI&H) department at Ayeshpur in Nadia that was operationalised in PPP mode in February, last year, has yielded “satisfactory results” with the state receiving orders of 10 lakh pineapple saplings from Israel.

The Odisha-based company has imported pineapple and banana ‘mother culture’ from Israel with the condition that the primary pineapple plant after tissue culture will be sent to the foreign country. However, in the backdrop of an armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups developing from October last year, one lakh pineapple plant consignment has returned. 

“We are planning to take up pineapple cultivation in North Bengal by procuring tissue cultured plants processed at our Ayeshpur laboratory,” Subrata Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary of state FPI & H department said. 

Basab Sarkar, supervisor of Excel Plant Link Pvt Ltd that has operationalised the tissue culture laboratory following an agreement with the state FPI& H department said: “The state government has already distributed 22 lakh banana saplings developed in the tissue culture laboratory.” 

He added that one lakh pineapple saplings have been exported to Bengaluru, Odisha, Gujarat. Two scientists from Israel visited the laboratory twice in this one year and have done necessary upgradation of the same. 

The laboratory was lying in a derelict condition since its establishment in 2009-10 because of lack of technical expertise. Excel Plant Link Pvt Ltd has displayed the cell from Israel and the primary and secondary stage growth of pineapple and banana plant at the three day ‘Horti Food Festival 2024’ that concluded at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday. 

Plant tissue culture is a collection of techniques used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues or organs under sterile conditions on a nutrient culture medium of known communication. It is widely used to produce clones of a plant. 

The applications of tissue culture is mainly for commercial production of plants used as potting, landscape and florist subjects which uses meristem and shoot culture to produce large numbers of identical individuals. 

In Bengal, tissue culture is widely used in banana cultivation and the Horticulture department had to do this exercise from private laboratories.