ICAR-CRIJAF achieves breakthrough in jute retting

ICAR-CRIJAF achieves breakthrough in jute retting

Genome sequencing also confirms that retting bacteria degrades pectin, hemicellulose and other non-cellulosic materials, non-harmful for fibre. The bacterial strains are also non-toxic and thus the retting water with microbial strains can successfully be used for irrigation purpose. 

       

 Biswabrata Goswami

 Hummingbird News

KRISHNAGAR, 14 JULY:  Although India is the largest producer of raw jute and jute goods, the quality of the fibres in the international market was deemed not up to the mark. The latest breakthrough by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, ICAR and Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres, CRIJAF, Barrackpore will help improve fibre quality by adopting jute retting with free flowing water, in situ retting tank based farming with a microbial consortium ‘CRIJAF SONA’.

The scientists of ICAR – CRIJAF have decoded the genome sequences of jute retting microbes by high throughput genome sequencing. The in-depth genomic analysis significantly revealed three different species of Bacillus constitute the consortium strains.

Genome sequencing also confirms that retting bacteria degrades pectin, hemicellulose and other non-cellulosic materials, non-harmful for fibre. The bacterial strains are also non-toxic and thus the retting water with microbial strains can successfully be used for irrigation purpose. 

The sequence data has been submitted to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database of NIH, USA.

“India today earns about Rs 2200 crores per annum through jute goods export because of bio-deragdibility and ecofriendly nature of this versatile natural fibre. However, to be suitable for high valued diversified products, the quality of fibre needs further improvement through evolvling better varieties and efficient retting process. Besides the genetic background of the jute varieties, the quality of the fibre largely depends on retting process adopted by the farmers,” said Dr. Gouranga Kar, Director of ICAR-CRIJAF, Barrackore 

According to ICAR, this year starting from the sowing period, initially there was a setback in jute farming due to outbreak of CORONA disease. Also AMPHAN  cyclone wrecked a havoc on standing jute crop in the third week of May, 2020.

Despite COVID outbreak and Amphan cyclone, there is a good standing crop in the field because of concerted efforts of ICAR-CRIJAF and other stakeholders like National Jute Board, Jute Corporation of India.etc. Now harvesting and retting have started and there is a need to adopt the technology of improved retting, so that best quality fibre is obtained.

Owing to its popularity, in last three years alone, 1428 MT of CRIJAF SONA worth Rs.7.85 crore was sold to 3.6 lakh farmers covering more than 50,000 ha area in different jute growing states of the country. The farmersmust use this product to improve fibre quality and to make it internationally competetive through improved retting. Use of ‘CRIJAF SONA, during retting improves the fibre quality by 1-2 grades, reduces duration of retting by 7 days and also reduces retting water requirement by 75%.

While congratulating the team of scientists, Dr Gouranga Kar, Director expressed that such breakthrough is first of its kind in jute and is confident that these breakthrough findings will help the scientists to improve the microbial retting formulation for better efficiency and resilience. 

The genes for degrading pectin, hemicelluloses and other non-cellulosic materials can be altered for enhanced retting efficiency and shortening the retting duration with minimal water usage. Thus, this breakthrough will facilitate to produce high quality jute fiber by farming community which will fetch higher income in the market.

The findings of the genome sequence research are recently published in high impact factor journal Scientific Reports from the Nature Publishing group.

Courtesy: Images from ICAR and iNET.