|
• In South India, over 52,000 hectare, or 49% of the total planted area, is under clonal tea cultivation today against hardly any in the mid-1950s... thanks to the inputs of Dr. K.S. Venkataramani, to whom K.V.S. KRISHNA pays glowing tribute in this article. This outstanding scientist passed away last December.
 Dr. K.S. Venkataramani. |
I first met Dr. K.S. Venkata-ramani while he was at the UPASI Research Station at Devarashola Estate, Gudalur, in 1957. I had just joined Katary Estate as an Assistant. Fortunately, the Company’s Visting Agents, like C.J. Madden and D.M. McIntyre, were keen on clonal work and the Chairman, A.V. Thomas, went by their guidance, instead of Manager W.S. Scott who, however, was skeptical as to whether these cuttings would ever form a tap root! He was also sure they would dry up in the summer months. However, he used to buy in those days shallow bamboo baskets at Rs. 13 a thousand to establish cuttings. Longer baskets would cost more, he said. There were no plastic sleeves in those days. But soon enough 12-14 inch long sleeves were the order of the day, promoting better roots
Dr. Venkataramani gave me growth-promoting substance to enhance rooting percentage of clones and, as a planter, I did what the scientists would do, resulting in a paper being accepted by the Tea Quarterly published by the Tea Research Institute of Ceylon. He also encouraged an innovation, Miniature Manufacture of Tea, a paper on this appearing in the Planters’ Chronicle in 1960. All this work resulted in a close association between the planters and the scientific department.
Whenever he went to Craigmore from Coonoor, he used to find time to break his journey at Sutton Estate to join me for lunch or tea. He had the highest regards for Maclaine Clarke of Craigmore for his leadership in clonal work he undertook.
|
The tea clone specialist
Dr. Kaniyur Sundaram Venkataramani, a Madras Christian College graduate, started his pioneering research work in 1948 at the UPASI Scientific Department as its first Botanist, joining after doing his Ph.D. at the University of Madras. His work was on bananas at Madras University Botanical Laboratories (UCG Centre of Advanced Studies in Botany). Clonal selection work in the UPASI Tea Scientific Department was started by him at the Tea Experimental Station at Devarshola in Gudalur. This line of work abruptly stopped when he resigned in 1959 to join the Coimbatore Agricultural College, but, following his return to the Department a year later, he did systematic and intensive research in the Nilgiris, to select promising tea clones that would be agroclimatically suitable for both yield and quality. His monumental work between 1961 and 1964, when he served as Botanist as well as Deputy Chief Scientific Officer (from 1962), resulted in 280 clones of which 24 were released to the industry for commercial cultivation in 1974. ‘Athrey’ (B/6/61-UPASI-9) is the most widely planted tea clone in South India. Dr. C.S. Venkataram, who succeeded Dr. Venkataramani as Director, said, “What this one man has achieved in three years of work is a shining example of dedication and motivation.”
Dr. Venkataramani was also responsible for starting investigations on chemical weed control in tea. He rightly emphasised weed control, rather than weed eradication in the tea fields on the steep slopes of South India. Furthermore, he was also responsible for work on tea diseases until a full-time Plant Pathologist was appointed.
Dr. Venkataramani took over as Chief Scientific Officer in 1965. In 1966, he married Dr. K.S. Kanthamani who also joined the Tea Research Station as Tea Chemist. Under his guidance and leadership, the newly established UPASI Tea Research Station at Cinchona, near Valparai, blossomed into a premier centre for tea research. He retired in 1975.
The Indian Academy of Sciences elected Dr. Venkataramani a fellow in 1968 for his contributions in tea research. He was also a Fellow of Indian Academy of Horticultural Sciences and Fellow of Indian Botanical Society.
To Dr. K.S. Venkataramani, tea science was his profession, passion and pastime. – Courtesy: Planters’ Chronicle.
|
My wife and I used to meet him often at his residence, Brooklands, in Coonoor. He had a cook by name Vaikuntam who made excellent South Indian dishes. Vaikuntam would call him “Venkataramani, I am going to the market” or “Venkatramani, food is ready”, a privilege he enjoyed since he had been with Venkataramani’s family for a very long time.
Venkataramani used to serve teas made by his mincing machine from the mother bushes of Brooklands estate, which has yielded famous clones of UPASI – ‘Sundaram’, ‘Athrey’, ‘Jayaram’, ‘Golkonda’, and ‘Swarna’ – which have covered much of the plantation area of South India. He encouraged me to plant clonal blocks of Sutton and Katary clones. Though I was transferred to Carady Goody Estate in Kerala, I took with me in 1965 these clones and my head nursery worker.
UPASI informs me that today over 52,000 hectares are under clonal tea in South India, which works out to over 49% of the planted area. These clonal areas not only give substantially higher yields (two to three times) than their seedling counterparts, but also give higher value for their intrinsic high quality yields. Several British planters, including my Visiting Agent, C.J. Madden, were decorated by the British with MBEs for promoting tea development, but Venkataramani received nothing for his pioneering work.
When he retired from UPASI, Venkataramani had several estates requesting him to visit and give advice. As soon as I took charge of a group of estates in the Central Travancore region, I requested him to make a visit. He visited us and gave very useful advice, but the company could not implement some of his suggestions and he politely excused himself from further visits.
In his early days with UPASI, there were hardly any agricultural graduates, or graduates of any sort for that matter, in the planting industry. The various companies were in transition from the British to Indian ownership. This brought about changes in management and one main change was getting scientific-minded graduates into management. It was just not the question of recruiting the right scientists by UPASI but the right management personnel on estates that was influenced by Venkataramani.
If the tea production of South India went up from 60 million kg during the 1950s to the present 250 million kg, it is indicative of the scientific approach to tea cultivation inspired by scientists like Dr. K.S. Venkataramani.
Whenever I met him, when he got into the mood, he would say, “My best clone is ‘Sundaram’. It means beauty, beautiful, and it is my beloved father’s name too, but it’s now a number – B/5/63.” It sounds like retaining the hospital tag of a child and not giving it the name the parents want. Is it not possible to pay a lasting tribute to Venkataramani by naming this famous clone he discovered ‘Sundaram’once again?
The tea industry has lost an eminent scientist to whom it owes a lot more than anyone talks about in the industry.
|
