By Ismat Sabir
THE SCIENTISTS of National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) have developed a new seedless variety of kinnow, which is known as kinnow mandarin orange in the world. The production of seedless kinnow on commercial scale in orchards of Sahiwal would probably be started by this year and hopefully show bright prospects of export. Chaudhry Niaz, a team member of NARC, who discovered the seedless kinnow said, “The new plant can bear fruit in two years, while full production would start in three to four years that will reduce the high number of seeds.” According to international standards a fruit having one to five seeds is categorised as ‘seedless fruit’ while a normal kinnow have about 18 to 30 seeds, which people from western countries don’t like as much.
History: Most citrus species originated in Asia, around the Khasia Hills of Assam and southern parts of China, from where this fruit was taken to other parts of the world. In the 15th century, citrus trees were raised only in private gardens of Mughal emperors and other rich people, as this was considered to be a luxury crop.
The records show that an orange variety popularly known as ‘sangtareh’ had found in the region of Lahore, Pakistan. Mughal Emperor, Humayun Khan praised this fruit in the following words. “Indeed there is no tasty fruit than the ‘sangtareh’, a local name for sweet orange. Further, sangtara has been mentioned in the famous book ‘Ain-e-Akbari’ by Mughal Emperor, Akbar Khan. After this the fruit was popularly called as ‘shahi sangtara’ or King Orange.
Kinnow was evolved as a result of cross between ‘king’ and ‘willow-leaf’. The cross was made by H B Frost, a citrus breeder at the Citrus Research Centre, University of California, USA, in 1951. Both of the parents have Indo-China origins. The name was derived by combining the first and last words of the two parents i.e. ‘kin’ from king and ‘ow’ from willow.
The fruit was commercially exploited since 1958, and is now grown in Pakistan. It has been identified in all over the world for its special flavour and taste, which is the result of a series of grafting and hybridization research work conducted in Pakistan over the years.
Pakistan is among the top 10 citrus growing countries in the world. The country has vast potential to produce tropical, subtropical and temperate fruits, flowers and vegetables, which are waiting to be exploited. There is a need to focus on horticulture and processing industries for value addition.
The government has declared horticulture as a priority sector and making efforts to improve the value chain and identifying new markets.
Harvesting season: Kinnow can be harvested from mid November and continues up to May. However, January to March is the peak harvesting season.
Storage life: The storage life of Kinnow varies from 60 days, late harvest, to 90 days, early harvest, if placed inside cold storage at 5 degree Celsius with plus minus variation of 2 degree Celsius, and relative humidity 85 to 90 percent.
Exports: Kinnow has already been introduced in more than 25 countries of the world. Its exports can further be increased by manifold if modern marketing techniques are applied. The fruit is among the main exportable horticulture commodities from Pakistan. Annual production of citrus on an average is estimated about 2 million ton, of which 90 percent are kinnow, and export also reached to 360,625 tonnes. Pakistan exports to Gulf States, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and CIS that have been supposed as traditional markets. East Europe, Iran and China are emerging markets.
Packaging standard: The general packaging standards is 6, 8, 10 and 13 Kg in corrugated boxes. The number can be varied from 32 pieces to 72 pieces per box. Both packaging size and number of counts per package may be according to the importer’s demand.
Under the WTO regime quality of the products will be of paramount importance for penetrating into the international markets. Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Board (PHDEB) under its mandate is responsible for designing and implementing quality standards in terms of variety, size, colour, appearance and taste of the produce and to define specifications for packaging and labeling. It also pursue private sector to invest in grading and processing plants and uniform export quality produce to build importers confidence.
Research and development: PHDEB has collaborated with various research institutions to assist companies in providing technical and marketing support in line with the latest techniques, developments and changes occurring in the international trade. Information dissemination is one of the key goals of PHDEB. It is aimed to provide all types of information including practical information on international trade, marketing, rules and regulations, standards, results of research studies, management techniques, latest technologies, etc.
The Board is trying to develop not only technical skills but also administrative and managerial skills of horticulture sector entrepreneurs, growers, processors and exporters, so that the industry may be able to meet the challenges of globalization and the requirements of WTO. PHDEB also aims to develop institutional capacity by supporting both government and private institutions like chambers and associations through donor supported projects and programmes so that there could be an effective implementation of the overall development plans. Formation of farmer cooperatives, groups is another integral part of PHDEB’s mandate to attain important outputs.
http://www.technologytimes.pk/mag/2011/jan11/issue01/production_of_kinnow_in_pakistan.php
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