A new indigenous facility called SPROUT has been inaugurated at BRIC-National Institute of Plant Genome Research in New Delhi to accelerate research on climate-resilient crops.
SPROUT stands for SpeedSeed Phenotyping and Resource Optimization for Unified Trait Analysis. The facility is designed to test crops under different environmental conditions and connect genomics with faster trait evaluation. The government says SpeedSeed methods can reduce the chickpea generation cycle to around 40 days under suitable conditions.
The larger significance is breeding speed. Climate adaptation requires crop varieties that can handle heat, drought and changing weather patterns, but conventional breeding cycles can take years.
