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Philippines: Unconventional breeding yields sweeter jackfruit
Scientists claim it is the sweetest jackfruit ever, with a taste and aroma far more superior than all the rest. And so it is, with a sugar content of 25.14 brix, the international measurement of sweetness based on total soluble solids. Normally, the sweetest jackfruit has a sugar content of 16 to 18 brix. The new jackfruit variety, called EVIARC Sweet, grows to about seven meters and produces an average of 35 fruits annually, each weighing about 12 kilograms, nearly half (42.58 percent) of it edible. It is golden yellow, juicy, very sweet, smooth and crispy textured with a very strong aroma that only langka can give. Nearly 3,000 has. of jackfruit are planted in Eastern Visayas, and already about 15 percent of that is EVIARC Sweet. The largest farm is a 30-hectare jackfruit plantation in Ormoc City.
"That’s quite a fast rate," said Dr. Carlos S. De la Cruz, head of the Regional Integrated Agricultural Research Center (RIARC) in Abuyog which developed the EVIARC Sweet. EVIARC is named after its parent institution, the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Eastern Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center. One reason for the take off is that the cleft grafting of EVIARC Sweet has a 92-percent success rate in propagation, De la Cruz told Malaya Business Insight. EVIARC Sweet was certified a new variety in 2006. Since then, farmers have been trained on cleft grafting which joins a rootstock and a scion (or "branch") of a mother tree until they are united permanently; it is the most common method of propagating jackfruit. Leyte now has 28 scion groves or nurseries where seedlings are raised.
The next step is tissue, or test tube, culture. "Initial research shows it is possible," De la Cruz said. "We have even established the protocols up to the rooting stage." "The problem was in the proliferation, or how to produce more plants," he said, adding tissue culture research was shelved in 2008 for lack of funding. EVIARC Sweet was developed in just three fruiting years – from 2004 to 2006 – through unconventional breeding, or simply choosing the best mother tree among hundreds. Current conventional plant breeding is based on genetics, using the genes of a plant to select desirable traits and develop improved varieties that are faster growing and with higher yields. This way, conventional breeding would have taken five to 10 years to develop a new variety. This time, however, researchers turned to the ancient technique of selecting the best looking plants – in this case the best tasting and best fruit-bearing trees.
What researchers did was to travel long distances to evaluate jackfruit trees and look for the best mother trees that were then propagated by marcotting them with ordinary stocks. "We evaluated hundreds of varieties from all over the country for yield, and especially sugar content as the sweet taste is most important," explained De la Cruz who, along with RIARC Senior Agriculturist, Dr. Francisco T. Dayap, led jackfruit R&D.
Payback
"The new variety has a very high potential as an export revenue earner and very suitable for reforestation, ecopark and watershed development," De la Cruz said. "It is a platform technology since it could spawn processed products such as juice, tart, pastilles, puree, jelly, jam, candies, vacuum fried and dehydrated jackfruit and more," said De la Cruz. Because of jackfruit’s potentials, the DA’s Plant Now Pay Later scheme aims to expand EVIARC Sweet farms. Some 124,052 grafted EVIARC Sweet seedlings so far distributed in Eastern Visayas, for example, could cover the equivalent of 795 has. At an estimated yield of 9,799.92 kg. per hectare, these new plantations could produce 7.790 million kg. of jackfruits a year. A payback period in the fifth year is shown in a cost and return analysis of a hectare of EVIARC Sweet jackfruit.
According to a financial analysis made by the Regional Development Council, a highly desirable 332 percent Return on Investment – or a return of about 65 centavos per peso invested – is possible in a hectare of jackfruit trees. The Financial Internal Rate of Return is 25.77 percent; the grower recovers capital and generates around 26 centavos per peso of investment. Even before EVIARC Sweet, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, jackfruit production areas in Eastern Visayas expanded from 984 has. in 1987 to 2,180 has. in 1995 then 2,509 has. in 2006. Production was not far behind. In just one year from 2004 to 2005, harvests upped from 2,052 metric tons to 2,253 MT. An additional 500 hectares in Eastern Visayas will be planted to jackfruit by 2015.
Source: malaya.com.ph
Scientists claim it is the sweetest jackfruit ever, with a taste and aroma far more superior than all the rest. And so it is, with a sugar content of 25.14 brix, the international measurement of sweetness based on total soluble solids. Normally, the sweetest jackfruit has a sugar content of 16 to 18 brix. The new jackfruit variety, called EVIARC Sweet, grows to about seven meters and produces an average of 35 fruits annually, each weighing about 12 kilograms, nearly half (42.58 percent) of it edible. It is golden yellow, juicy, very sweet, smooth and crispy textured with a very strong aroma that only langka can give. Nearly 3,000 has. of jackfruit are planted in Eastern Visayas, and already about 15 percent of that is EVIARC Sweet. The largest farm is a 30-hectare jackfruit plantation in Ormoc City.
"That’s quite a fast rate," said Dr. Carlos S. De la Cruz, head of the Regional Integrated Agricultural Research Center (RIARC) in Abuyog which developed the EVIARC Sweet. EVIARC is named after its parent institution, the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Eastern Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center. One reason for the take off is that the cleft grafting of EVIARC Sweet has a 92-percent success rate in propagation, De la Cruz told Malaya Business Insight. EVIARC Sweet was certified a new variety in 2006. Since then, farmers have been trained on cleft grafting which joins a rootstock and a scion (or "branch") of a mother tree until they are united permanently; it is the most common method of propagating jackfruit. Leyte now has 28 scion groves or nurseries where seedlings are raised.
The next step is tissue, or test tube, culture. "Initial research shows it is possible," De la Cruz said. "We have even established the protocols up to the rooting stage." "The problem was in the proliferation, or how to produce more plants," he said, adding tissue culture research was shelved in 2008 for lack of funding. EVIARC Sweet was developed in just three fruiting years – from 2004 to 2006 – through unconventional breeding, or simply choosing the best mother tree among hundreds. Current conventional plant breeding is based on genetics, using the genes of a plant to select desirable traits and develop improved varieties that are faster growing and with higher yields. This way, conventional breeding would have taken five to 10 years to develop a new variety. This time, however, researchers turned to the ancient technique of selecting the best looking plants – in this case the best tasting and best fruit-bearing trees.
What researchers did was to travel long distances to evaluate jackfruit trees and look for the best mother trees that were then propagated by marcotting them with ordinary stocks. "We evaluated hundreds of varieties from all over the country for yield, and especially sugar content as the sweet taste is most important," explained De la Cruz who, along with RIARC Senior Agriculturist, Dr. Francisco T. Dayap, led jackfruit R&D.
Payback
"The new variety has a very high potential as an export revenue earner and very suitable for reforestation, ecopark and watershed development," De la Cruz said. "It is a platform technology since it could spawn processed products such as juice, tart, pastilles, puree, jelly, jam, candies, vacuum fried and dehydrated jackfruit and more," said De la Cruz. Because of jackfruit’s potentials, the DA’s Plant Now Pay Later scheme aims to expand EVIARC Sweet farms. Some 124,052 grafted EVIARC Sweet seedlings so far distributed in Eastern Visayas, for example, could cover the equivalent of 795 has. At an estimated yield of 9,799.92 kg. per hectare, these new plantations could produce 7.790 million kg. of jackfruits a year. A payback period in the fifth year is shown in a cost and return analysis of a hectare of EVIARC Sweet jackfruit.
According to a financial analysis made by the Regional Development Council, a highly desirable 332 percent Return on Investment – or a return of about 65 centavos per peso invested – is possible in a hectare of jackfruit trees. The Financial Internal Rate of Return is 25.77 percent; the grower recovers capital and generates around 26 centavos per peso of investment. Even before EVIARC Sweet, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, jackfruit production areas in Eastern Visayas expanded from 984 has. in 1987 to 2,180 has. in 1995 then 2,509 has. in 2006. Production was not far behind. In just one year from 2004 to 2005, harvests upped from 2,052 metric tons to 2,253 MT. An additional 500 hectares in Eastern Visayas will be planted to jackfruit by 2015.
Source: malaya.com.ph
Publication date: 5/13/2011
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