So long, groundnut farmers across the country had at least one problem in common: The germinability of groundnut goes down by 50 per cent with storage. The problem is more serious in states like Orissa, West Bengal and in the North-East, where farmers are forced to buy seeds each year because of the widespread damage to the seeds they stored in their own homes.To prevent rapid loss of seed quality, the National Research Centre for Groundnut in Junagadh, Gujarat, has developed a low-cost, easy-to-follow technology to store seeds.Research found that the high pod-drying temperatures and subsequent high relative humidity of the storage environment led to the damage. Once the technologists had come up with ways to counter these two factors, the method was demonstrated to farmers through the Orissa State Seed Corporation Limited. It was found that seeds stored under the advised conditions showed as much as 88 per cent germinability even after six months of storage.The best part of the technology that it can be followed by a marginal farmer too: It involves storing groundnuts in polythene-lined gunny bags and topping it with a bundle of anahydrous calcium chloride. Seeds stored thus were found to have 72 per cent germinability even after 12 months.
