Virender Singh Lather
Indian Agricultural Research Institute, India
Title: Natural hydrogel based novel seed technology for climate resilient agriculture
Biography
Biography: Virender Singh Lather
Abstract
Natural gums are biopolymers produced by algal (alginate), plant (pectin), microbial (dextran) and animal (chitosan) and their useful properties of non-toxic, high swelling ability, stability in wide pH-temperatures,biodegradability, biocompatibility, low cost etc makes them versatile natural hydrogels for biomedical (drug delivery etc) and agricultural uses against sub-optimal moisture stresses in semiarid and rainfed ecology. The major Earth landmass conducive for agriculture is under abiotic stresses (drought, salinity, temperature) which likely to increase due to land degradation, urbanization and climate change. While ‘Green Revolution’ ensured global food security, however increased consumption of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, ground water which degraded the environmental seriously whereas aerobic agriculture suffered with low productivity due to poor seed germination, seedlings-plant growth, dry-matter accumulation etc. Hydrogels are known for mitigation of moisture stresses, but synthetic hydrogels introduced for agricultural purposes has not become popular due to their prohibitive cost, poor delivery system to root zones and environmental concerns as these contain polyvinyl alcohols or polyacrylamides considered carcinogenic and non-biodegradable.
To make efficient use of hydrogel in agriculture, Lather (2015) identified the cost effective natural hydrogels and developed farmer’s friendly herbal hydrogel coated seed technology (HHCST) for climate resilience agriculture by using natural gums which are consumed as human foods since ages e.g. Gum Tragacanth (E-413), Gum Sterculia(E-416 ) and Xanthan gum (E-415) etc. Natural hydrogels coated seed delayed the wilting-mortality of seedling by saving irrigations water and allow the delay of first irrigation which in combination with pre-emergence application of ‘herbicides Pendimethalin’ prove as “Game Changer Technology” for effective weeds control including noxious Phalaris minor in wheat, DSR (direct seeded rice) and other crops. With adoption of natural hydrogel based novel seed technology, the water and energy consumption reduced by half at reduced cultivation cost with significant environmental gains and less incidence of pests-diseases. The farmers shown keen interest in novel seed technology by planted thousands hectares of DSR-paddy, wheat and other crops by proving that if technology is beneficial, there is no need for govt. subsidy regimes which prevalent now in various countries.