Our paper in
Nature got peer revived by eight referees. It took almost one year as the paper was sent back for revision and finally they got convince that we had done something novel. Few said it was workable in only Arabidopsis Thaliana but might not be workable in wheat.
special interview
is India. However, my collaborators are from UK and there is need in other developing nations as well.
At what scale has been the experiment been tried? So, you are confident of its success in field?
We did it at the field scale but not the mass scale. As an academician, we develop and validate. Now, it is for industry to take it up.
Laboratory research generally uses controlled conditions. However, we have used it in uncontrolled conditions as well. But sometimes, there are variations while testing at mass scale. The soil aspect on how the plant will perform in various types, as you are asking, needs to be looked at.
Should Indian government agencies collaborate with you to benefit masses?
Surely there is a way as we have developed a simple method without involving chemical toxins. Generally, the reagents are used to do that are hazardous. But in this case, there is no such thing. To benefit masses, we need to produce our molecule at the large scale and the field testing would be massive. For that we need funding. It may come from agrocompanies as we have initiated talks with them. Once the product is ready, it will automatically go to masses. Also, we are also exploring opportunities to convey our discovery to the government funding agencies as to understand how they could collaborate with us.
Can we become a nation of exporters from the current importer of wheat?
India has bought more than five million tons of wheat since mid-2016, already its biggest annual purchase in a decade, after it began an import campaign to meet a supply shortfall left by two years of lower production.
By using these molecules, there is straight forward
Our paper in
Nature got peer revived by eight referees. It took almost one year as the paper was sent back for revision and finally they got convince that we had done something novel. Few said it was workable in only Arabidopsis Thaliana but might not be workable in wheat.
increase by 50 percent.
Given that wheat is one of India’ s most important and staple food crops, this process brings the possibility of enabling food security, addressing the threat of climate change and in the process, enable the country’ s vision of an evergreen revolution.
56 BioVoiceNews | May 2017