Tamarind monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future

8.3.3 India
In India, most of the area under tamarind cultivation is planted with
unselected, inferior cultivars. Selections from tamarind provenances are
available. The Bharata Agricultural and Industrial Foundation (BAIF), Pune,
India has attempted to supply improved planting material to smallholders by
selecting superior trees from among existing natural populations. The
parameters for selection of superior trees have been based entirely on pod
characters such as pod length, pod colour and pulp yield per pod (Daniel,
1999; personal communication) and the association of fruit characters has
been worked out (Karale et al., 1999), as well as genotype x environment
effects of different locations on fruit size grades (Parameswari et al., 2000).
Under this programme, 15 superior tamarind provenances have been
identified and a multiplication stand has been established in the BAIF's
Central Research Station in Pune. Among them, selections such as
Prathisthan from Maharashtra and Periyakulam (PKM-1) and Urigam from
Tamil Nadu are well established and preferred by farmers. The most
preferred cultivar is Periyakulam 1 (PKM-1), a sour type, a clonal selection
from a local form in a village named Endapalli near Periyakulam. The
Horticultural Research Station of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,
Periyakulam, released this cultivar which is an early bearer, especially when
grafted when they come into bearing from the third year (compared with the
fifth year in the local form). It has a pulp recovery percentage of 39%
compared to the local cultivar which is 28%. The yield is also higher in the
Periyakulam cultivar, with 263 kg/tree against 167 kg/tree in the local
cultivar (Daniel, 1999, personal communication).
Studies were also undertaken to select high yielding cultivars based on their
flowering pattern. In seedling populations, early, mid and late flowering
tamarind types have been identified. Duration of flowering is longer in late
flowering trees than in mid and early flowering trees. In mid and late
flowering trees natural cross-pollination is greater than with early flowering
trees which are mostly self-pollinated under natural conditions. Hence mid
and late flowering trees can be selected and are most suitable for selection
for improvement (Usha and Singh, 1994).
There is also interest in India in using fruit tree genotypes for ameliorating
marginal farmland, e.g. in semi-arid areas of Gujarat (see for instance Patel
and Singh, 2000), or wastelands as in Tamil Nadhu (see Madhu et al., 2001).
Pareek (1999) lists selections ‘Yogesharai’, ‘PKM’, ‘T3’ and ‘TIB’ as
suitable cultivars for arid zones.
8.3.4 Current constraints
The preliminary studies undertaken by different countries provide ample
evidence on the status of germplasm evaluations of tamarind. It is also
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