“I have, so far, shared the newly developed turmeric variety with some 500 farmers located in the villages spread in the districts of Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, and Raigad,” says 48-year-old farmer Sachin Kamlakar Karekar of Abloli village, 55 km from Chiplun, in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district.
The variety, SK4, is a high-yielding turmeric cultivar created by Karekar. He was among a select group of grassroots innovators honoured by President Draupadi Murmu at the 11th Biennial National Grassroots Innovation and Outstanding Traditional Knowledge Awards.
From local variety to innovation
With more than 30 varieties grown in different states, SK4 is the newest addition to the family of Curcuma Longa — the yellow spice we use in our food, ceremonies, and traditional Indian medicine.
The Sangli’s Rajapuri Salem variety accounts for 70% of Maharashtra’s turmeric production. Though grown in over 20 states, the largest share is contributed by four — Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. In 2022-23, India produced 11.61 lakh tonnes of turmeric making it the world’s largest producer, consumer, and exporter.
“In 1998, I planted the local variety, Kadja, and observed a few plants that were early maturing and possessed good vigour. I harvested the produce from these plants and selected the ones untouched by disease, had bigger rhizomes, were bright in colour and high-yielding,” says Karekar, who introduces himself as “12th fail”, and has been growing turmeric as an intercrop between the 500 areca nut palms, and 50 coconut palms standing on his family farm since the age of 22.
Why call it SK-4?
By 2008, Karekar was able to develop a superior clone with all the desired traits and named it SK-4, taking the first letter of Shendge Kaka, the farmer who initially gave him tubers of Sangli Kadapa variety, Special Konkan, and his own name.
During the 2020 Kharif season, the Dapoli-based Dr Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth (DBSKKV) carried out validation trials at the National Innovation Foundation’s (NIF) behest.
According to NIF, “The variety was promising, with a high rhizome yield (56t/ha). Among the 32 tested varieties, SK-4 was observed to be superior over 28 check varieties and at par with the best check variety Sona (64t/ha), in terms of yield/ha.”
“Our trials were spread over two years and we found that SK-4 was characterised by its high yield potential, like Rajendra Sona. The latter’s seed material is always scarce and we hope the new variety will fulfil the demand. SK-4 is a good alternative for those growing it in Konkan’s high-rainfall region. Incidentally, the variety is yet to be evaluated in low rainfall areas,” says Dr Prafulla Mali, horticulturist, DBSKKV.
High curcumin content
The variety possesses an attractive bright reddish-yellow colour and has big-sized rhizomes. It is a short duration (160-170 days) variety suitable for high rainfall regions and with good tolerance to karpa (rhizome rot disease).
It possesses a curcumin content of 4 per cent. For comparison, the premium-yielding Rajapuri Salem variety yields 315.29g fresh rhizome per plant with a curcumin content of 3.5 per cent and output of 32.67t/ha.
Numerous farmers in Sindhudurg and Raigad districts, along with Ratnagiri are presently cultivating this variety. One Vishram Mali (58) of Velamb village in Guhagar taluka achieved the highest output last year: turmeric pods weighing 8.15 kg from one sapling!
Elaborating on the agronomic practices for cultivating the SK-4, he says, “The rhizomes or fingers are planted in nursery bags in April, and by June they are transplanted on fields prepared with organic fertiliser. In August, the saplings are fed a second dose of water-soluble fertiliser.”
The crop is irrigated till January and harvested in the last week of February, with each sapling yielding 3.2 kg or more. He has been propagating the variety for ten years now and regularly imparts training on plantation management to farmers.
“Growing the rhizomes in nursery bags rather than planting them directly on the field offers 90 per cent success,” says farmer Gajendra Paunikar (55) of Nigundan village, who was, till very recently, the Agriculture Extension Officer, Panchayat Samiti, Guhagar.
Grown in 13 states
During the NIF event held in New Delhi’s Rashtrapati Bhavan farmers from Nandurbar, Vidarbha along with farmers from 13 states bought tubers of the SK-4 variety for cultivation.
With the Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers Rights Authority (PPV&FRA) granted to SK-4 last December, Kachekar has been recognised as a “plant breeder” and has the exclusive right to produce and sell the variety for six years.
Karekar advises aspiring farmers of the culinary spice to avoid being overly ambitious and to avoid cultivating it on expansive plots of land. “Start with one guntha (each guntha is equal to 1000 sq. ft.), as I did, and have reached 10 gunthas which can accommodate 3,000 saplings,” Karekar, who also manages an agritourism project on his two-acre farm that is popular with bird watchers, says.
Edited by Arunava Banerjee; All images courtesy Sachin Kamlakar Karekar
