Low seeded Kinnow.
Ludhiana, March 31, 2015: The Board of Management, Punjab Agricultural University in its meeting held at Chandigarh on March 30 lauded the development of low seeded Kinnow mandarin by horticulture scientists of the University. Suresh Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary (Development) and other members of the Board congratulated Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, the Vice-Chancellor, PAU and the team of scientists led by Dr. H. S. Rattanpal for this landmark achievement.
The Kinnow being grown in India has as high as 20-22 seeds per fruit which is not a desirable trait for processing and table purpose. To reduce the number of seeds, PAU started mutation breeding in February, 2007 on the initiative of Dr. B. S. Dhillon who was then Director of Research, PAU. In 2007, 5000 bud woods were irradiated with gamma rays from which 188 were obtained and evaluated. Two mutants have been identified with low seeded fruits having maximum of nine seeds per fruit. These mutants have other important traits namely total soluble solids, acidity and juice content as good as the ordinary Kinnow. PAU has started multiplying these mutants for establishing mother blocks. The low seeded Kinnow plants will be available for distribution to the farmers from 2017 onwards.