The scientist who looked towards the wilderness

If India today is a leader in sugarcane research, it is solely because of T.S. Venkataraman, who was closely ass- ociated with the Sugarcane Breeding Station (SBS) (now Sugarcane Breeding Institute) in Coimbatore. He was born in 1884. He had a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Madras and belonged to the  Indian Agricultural Service.

Charles Barber (Director-Superintendent of the Sugarcane Breeding Station, Coimbatore) and Venkataraman were the first in the world to attempt to evolve sugarcane varieties suited for the subtropical parts of the country, while similar stations in Java and Barbados were engaged in developing varieties for tropical conditions. Dealing with this task, Barber and Venkataraman attempted crossing the tropical sugarcane, Saccharum officinarum, with an indigenous taxon cultivated in northern India, later named Saccharum barberi. The Barber-Venkataraman trials went on for a few years; they were, however, unsuccessful. Later, the Barber-Venkataraman team contemplated utilising the ‘relatively useless’ cane species S. spontaneum that was growing wild along the channel borders near the SBS to evolve the much-needed hardy varieties suited for subtropical India. The variety named ‘C0 205’ (&lsquo ;C0’ standing for ‘Coimbatore’) proved a thumping success in  northern India, especially in the Punjab, where it yielded 50 per cent more than what the indigenous varieties produced.

In the 1930s, Venkataraman succeedeed Barber. As the first Indian director of SBS, he perfected developing a range of hybrid sugarcanes that are used the world over today as genetic stock. He always looked at the wilderness as the gene pool for drawing germplasm to improve crop plants, especially sugarcane. C0 205 proved well suited to Indian climate and soil conditions because of its parentage going back to the hardy native S. spontaneum. This achievement of utilising wild plants in hybridisation was novel in plant-breeding efforts throughout the world.

Soon Venkataraman came up with ‘C0 285’ that proved better in performance than ‘C0 205’. For the first time throughout the world, research aiming to combine desirable traits from three species (S. officinarum, S. barberi, S. spontaneum) was made by Venkataraman at SBS. Out came the Coimbatore varieties C0 312, C0 313, C0 419, and a few others, which changed the complexion of sugarcane production and that of the sugar industry not only in India, but also in other sugarcane-growing nations with a similar climate.

A highly significant element that sparkled in Venkataraman’s effort was to reconstitute sugarcane germplasm by hybridising the sugar-yielding cane species with the ‘useless’ wild cane species. Venkataraman’s efforts reinforce what we today value as the vitality and vibrancy of biological diversity.

Venkataraman’s two other passions were in preserving and utilising medicinal plants of India and stalling the rapidly growing human population in the country. Few would know that he was one of the earliest advocates of family planning. He was constantly worried about losing our precious wild plant-genetic stock by irresponsible deforestation. He was convinced that unbridled population growth was a critical pressure point leading to destruction of India’s forest wealth. He played an active role in educating people on the need for family planning and stressed the adverse impact of population growth on natural resources of the country.

Venkataraman died in 1963. He was one of a few Indian scientists who was way ahead of his contemporaries. He was knighted for his contributions to Indian agriculture in 1942, which changed India’s sugar production status – from an empty begging bowl to an overflowing sugar bowl.