Lakadong turmeric: Package of practice for organic production, challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Turmeric is an important indigenous spice of India, grown widely in different parts of the country. The crop is having huge potential for improving the livelihood security of the farmers through production, processing and value addition. North eastern India being a hot spot of biodiversity, a wider genetic variability has been observed in local landraces of the turmeric for different agromorphological
and quality traits. Amongst them, “Lakadong”, a local geographical indication (GI) tag genotype from West Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya, has been found superior for curcumin content of over > 7.0%. There is also wide variability in curcumin content within the genotypes of Lakadong grown in the niche area and to get better prices, there is a need for the selection and multiplication of the planting materials of curcumin-rich genotypes. Moreover, the high-yielding (20–25 t/ha), curcumin-rich (6.6%) genotype Megha Turmeric-1 developed through clonal selection from the Lakadong should be promoted to other parts of the region. Productivity of the crop can also be
enhanced by the adoption of a developed organic package of practices. Further, the use of newly developed machinery such as manually operated washer, slicer and hybrid drier can increase the efficiency of the post-harvest operation and farmers can get a better price by improving the quality of the produce.