Enhancing Adaptability, Nutritional Quality in Tropical Tuber Crops: Source for Adaptive Food and Nutrition

The tropical roots and tuber crops (R and T) consist of cassava, sweet potato, yams, elephant foot yam, taro, tannia and a couple of minor tuber crops. Tropical tuber crops are the third most important food crops after cereals and pulses. These crops play a crucial role in providing food and nutritional security to the rural masses in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. Cassava and sweet potato rank among the top 10 food crops produced in developing countries and contribute to about 6% of world’s dietary calories. In India, tropical tubers are grown mostly in states like Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and North East covering 4.5% of the total area under vegetables with 5.7% of the total vegetable production. Low income farmers and most undernourished households in India depend on R and T crops. They value these crops for their high calorie and stable yields under conditions in which other crops may fail. Genetic diversity of major tropical tuber crops provides options for its diverse usage in “multicuisine”, “nutrition”, “feed”, health care” and renewable resources of processing firms. Water productivity is also higher, for example, to produce 1 kg of tubers, sweet potatoes require water (383 l), taro (606 l), yam (343 l), as compared to rice (1673 l), maize (1222 l), wheat (1827 l), etc. Tuber crops are one of most efficient producers of dry matter and edible energy. These crops have potential to reverse soil degradation. Cassava is already recognized as drought tolerant followed by yam. Tubers of taro, elephant foot yam and yams can be stored under zero energy conditions for 6 - 7 months unlike temperate potatoes in cold storage. The natural climatic resilience as well as inherent nutrition attributes, has been explored further. Such studies made these crops more robust to changing climate and as the source of nutrient enriched food bowls. Sweet potato variety Bhu Krishna is the first purple flesh variety in India containing (90 mg/100 g anthocyanin) coupled with starch 22% - 25%. Similarly, the orange flesh Bhu Sona containing beta carotene (14 mg/100 g) coupled with high starch 22% - 24% is the first variety having both high beta carotene and high starch. These varieties are tolerant to salinity and Bhu Krishna is resistant to weevil. Likewise, developed improved taro varieties resistant to biotic blight stress, tolerant to salinity and are enriched with micro nutrients. These improved varieties are used to breed the superior types further. All these climate resilient, nutritionally enriched varieties will have a greater impact on supplementing rainbow food for all. These can address the issues like “food insecurity”, “malnutrition”, diet related issue of mass consumers across the world. The analysis of innovations on enhancing adaptability, nutritional quality with a management matrix would help in strengthening future programme.

Influence of biochar on growth performances,yield of root and tuber crops and controlling plant-parasitic nematodes

Root and tuber crops are important sources of food and provide income for millions of people worldwide besides an observed high demand for organically produced harvests.Hence,recent attention has been given to utilizing biochar,a carbon-rich material produced from the pyrolysis of organic materials,which improves soil structure,water-holding capacity,and nutrient availability,as an amendment to produce organic root and tuber crops.These effects are caused by the formation of organic coatings on the surface of biochar,which decreases hydrophobicity and increases the ability to retain nutrients,acting as a slow-release mechanism delivering nutrients dependent on plant physiological requirements.However,comprehensive studies on the impact of biochar application on root and tuber crop growth,productivity,and effectiveness in eliminating soil parasites have not been extensively studied.Thus,the purpose of this review is to explore the use of biochar and biochar-based soil amendments and their potential applications for improving the growth,yield,and efficacy of controlling parasitic nematodes in a wide range of root crops.Most of the studies have investigated the effects of biochar on cassava,sweet potatoes,and minor root crops such as ginger and turmeric.It has been observed that biochar application rates(5-20 t ha^(−1))increase the vine length and the number of leaves,tubers,and tuber weight.The addition of biochar demonstrates the ability to control plant-parasitic nematodes in a rate-dependent manner.While biochar has shown promising results in improving crop growth and yield of limited root and tuber crops based on a few biochar types,ample opportunities are around to evaluate the influence of biochar produced in different temperatures,feedstock,modifications and controlling parasitic nematodes.

A Study on Genetic Variability, Character Association and Path Co-Efficient Analysis on Morphological and Yield Attributing Characters of Taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott]

The study investigated genotypic and phenotypic co-efficients of variation, heritability, genetic advance at 5% selection intensity and in percentage of population mean of nine characters (plant height, leaf number, length and width of leaf lamina, number and weight of cormels per plant, weight of corm per plant, dry matter percentage in the tubers and tuber yield per from 14 cultivars of taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott]). Results indicated highest genotypic co-efficient of variation for dry matter percentage (47.91), which was 95.78% of the phenotypic co-efficient of variation, whereas tuber yield per plant showed the widest range (819.37). Number of cormels per plant and dry matter percentage ehibited considerably higher heritability (84.90% and 91.70%, respectively) and genetic advance (81.19 and 79.00, respectively), indicating the potentiality of selection for improvement of such characters. These two characters were found to be positively correlated to tuber yield per plant. Path analysis revealed that weight of cormels per plant possessed the highest direct effect on tuber yield, indicating the importance of selection based on this character to increase tuber yield per plant.