Dr. Ashwini Rana

Development leads to different - ways of thinking, working, and explaining. As we move forward on our professional front in terms of work experience; there is a remarkable change in our way of thinking, working, and explaining. We learn from our mistakes and finally, we keep on moving towards perfection. Different success stories were presented in our e-learning platform “Pragati”. These success stories/examples boost our morale and give us the self-confidence to venture into the path of difficult/impossible tasks.

During COVID 19 nationwide lockdown there were difficulties in outsourcing outside labourers for pollination work due to government rules and regulations. We were having only 2 crop-designated crew members stationed at the R&D farm and it was very difficult to maintain more than 250 entries of breeding lines, hybrid parents, and new hybrids (pollination/seed production work) taking into account the limited flowering period. This was a critical moment as our entire work was at stake. We applied the concept of “Development: Different way of Thinking, Working and Explaining”.

R&D is purely based on the principle of “Knowledge-Experimentation-Application” plus moral ethics. We were having only 2 crew members and some honey bee boxes. Therefore, it was decided to use the resources available to us, and the same “Barrier system of pollination” calibrated as per the breeding system of carrot/onion was applied in an integrated way. The basic principle is that carrots and onions do not cross with each other and using the same; honeybee boxes were alternately kept in for carrot/onion pollination work carefully taking into consideration the crop/breeding entry specific peak period of pollen dehiscence, pollen viability, and stigma receptivity.

Moreover, it takes about 48 hours for the honey bees to get rid of pollen from the previously pollinated entry. We applied our previous year’s bolting and flowering time database for planning a pollination schedule for all the entries; duties were assigned along with proper follow-up via video call to accomplish the same with accuracy. Although the final output of some breeding lines w.r.t. seed quantity was less we were successful in maintaining all the entries.