A former Principal Scientist & President of the Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding and an IAEA Expert, he has worked at the Division of Genetics, ICAR - Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi for more than 40 years. He has made significant contributions in the field of mutation breeding by breeding four high yielding chickpea mutant varieties – Pusa 408, Pusa 413, Pusa 417 and Pusa 547. These are the very first ever examples of direct use of induced micro-mutants in the world. These four mutant varieties were released and notified by Govt. of India for farmers cultivation.

Ever since the discovery of Infrared radiations by Herschel in 1800 and then Ultraviolet rays in 1801 by Ritter, several other radiations like radio waves, X-Rays, Alpha & Beta Rays, Gamma Rays, Cosmic Rays and Neutron radiationshave been discovered and used successfully in service of humanity in a bigway. Some of these radiations have made significant contributions in the field of agriculture, health and medical services during the last hundred years. A major contribution of these radiations has been made though mutation breeding towards improving the production and productivity of a large number of crops directly used for food and feed of humans and animals. Radiation technology has also been successfully used for safe post-harvest storage, extension of shelf-life of perishable products and their transport all over the world, thus making a substantial contribution to the world trade of agricultural commodities. A detailed global survey of success stories of countries that have made successful use of radiation technology in breeding mutant varieties in a wide range of crop plants will be presented in this lecture.

Radiation processing is emerging as an alternate technology for application to fruits and vegetables. It can be effectively used for sprout control in bulbs and tuber crops like potato and onion. A few commercial facilities for catering to this application are already functioning. The technology has a vast potential for replacing the dangerous fumigants for quarantine treatment. This potential is

also beginning to be tapped for commercial application and is likely to pick up a great deal under the WTO regime for trade in fresh horticultural commodities.

Other potential uses of this technology required to be tapped relate to the delay in ripening and senescence of fruits and vegetables and also for shelf-life extension and hygienization of pre-cut or minimally processed fruits and vegetables. Over the years several techniques have been developed for improving post-harvest shelf-life and quality of fruits and vegetables. These techniques include use of radiations in physical, chemical, bio-chemical and biological agents. Application of many of these agents has advantages as well as limitations. Radiation processing of foods is an environment friendly emerging technology to overcome some of these problems. There is an increasing trend both in advanced countries and many developing countries to centrally process fresh fruits and vegetables, properly packaged, for distribution and marketing.

Irradiation technology has proved to be effective in reducing post-harvest losses, and controlling the stored product insects and the microorganisms. Gamma irradiation has been successfully employed to restrain potato and onion sprouting and kill pests in grain, fruits and spices. Irradiation has proved to be extremely beneficial in terms of prolonging the fruit and vegetable shelf life by 3-5 times.