In India, groundnut is an important oil, food and forage crop, cultivated on 8 million hectares with an annual production of nearly 8 million tons. Sunflower is another important oilseed crop, which is cultivated on 2.1 million hectares with an annual production of 1.2 million tons. More than 9 million small and marginal farmers depend on these crops for their livelihoods.

Challenges: These two crops are vulnerable to tobacco streak virus (TSV), which causes necrosis in sunflower, and stem necrosis in groundnut and combined losses in these two crops exceed US$ 90 million per year. The most cost-efficient method of controlling viruses in crops is to cultivate varieties that resist infection. However, screening of sunflower and groundnut germplasm indicated that none of the widely grown cultivars possess resistance to TSV infection. Therefore, a viable alternative is to develop resistance using genetic engineering methods to confer ‘pathogen derived resistance’.

Project Aim: The development of transgenic sunflower and groundnut seeds resistant to tobacco streak virus.

Potential Benefits: This project would likely benefit about nine million marginal farmers and the expected gain is estimated to exceed U$470 million per annum in India.

Country for deployment is India.

Collaborators:
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (DDPSC) in USA.

India:
Mahyco Research Foundation (MRF)
International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Maharashtra Hybrids Seeds Company (Mahyco)
Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU)
National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR)