Thar Sevika
A Seb x Katha cross from ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner. Early maturing, with juicy, sweet fruit at 22 to 24% TSS and about 34 kg a tree at 6 years. CIAH gives no ripening date for it.
Quick facts
- Type
- Open-pollinated
- Season
- Kharif
- Starts bearing
- Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked); early-maturing
- Expected yield
- About 34 kg a tree at 6 years (ICAR-CIAH)
- Suitable soil
- Sandy / light soil
- Disease resistance
- No disease data published
- Release
- ICAR-Central Institute for Arid Horticulture (CIAH), Bikaner, Rajasthan. Announced as a new ber in Indian Horticulture 54(1), 2009; the release year itself was not found
Actual yield depends on sowing time, soil, irrigation, weather, seed quality and crop management.
About this variety
Thar Sevika is a ber variety identified at ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner, made by crossing Seb and Katha. CIAH calls it early maturing, with juicy, sweet fruit at 22 to 24% TSS, and gives an average yield of 34 kg a tree at 6 years of planting. CIAH's 2021 annual report measured TSS of 21.2 to 23.25 Brix across three ripeness stages, and in a training-system trial at CIAH it gave 14.2 to 20.15 kg a plant, the lowest of four varieties. We found no ripening month, fruit weight or release year. Seb ripens from the middle of January to the middle of February at Jodhpur, and Katha is a late, large-fruited type. Treat the early maturity as a claim to check on your own trees.
Should you pick this variety?
Choose Thar Sevika if you want an early, sweet ber and your land is in the arid zone. ICAR-CIAH Bikaner lists it as a Seb x Katha cross that matures early, with fruit at 22 to 24% TSS and 34 kg a tree at 6 years. It does not publish a ripening month or fruit weight. Do not choose it for tonnage. CIAH's own training-system trial gave only 14.2 to 20.15 kg a plant, the lowest of four varieties, and Kaithli gave 119.9 and 88.3 kg in the Bawal trial. Choose it only if an early-season price will pay for the smaller crop, and check that price in your own mandi before you plant. Thar Bhubhraj, also early, has published picking dates.
Sowing & cultivation
Advantages & considerations
Why farmers may choose it
- Early maturing, according to ICAR-CIAH.
- Made for the arid zone by the ICAR institute for arid horticulture.
Things to consider
- 34 kg a tree at 6 years is far below Kaithli's 119.9 and 88.3 kg at Bawal, and CIAH's own training trial gave only 14.2 to 20.15 kg a plant.
- No ripening month, fruit weight or release year was found, so the early crop is unproven on your land.
Suitable regions
States this variety is recommended for — check locally, since a state can have more than one recommended zone.
- Rajasthan
Break-even for an early ber: how much more must it sell for?
Thar Sevika gives 34 kg a tree at 6 years (ICAR-CIAH), though CIAH's own 2021 training-system trial measured only 14.2 to 20.15 kg a plant. The only dry-land Umran numbers we could read are 46.6 kg and 38.6 kg a tree at Bawal. Take those as a rough yardstick. To earn the same money from a Thar Sevika tree, the early fruit has to sell for more per kilo than the late Umran fruit.
The sum is a division. Umran's 38.6 to 46.6 kg divided by Thar Sevika's 34 kg gives a break-even factor of about 1.1 to 1.4. If Thar Sevika gives the 17.56 kg of the training trial instead, the factor is about 2.2 to 2.7. If the quoted 150 to 200 kg for a well-managed Umran tree is right for your land, the factor against 34 kg climbs to about 4 to 6.
Use your own numbers. Ask two traders what ber fetches in the first weeks of the season and in the last. If the early price is clearly above 1.4 times the late price, Thar Sevika pays even at CIAH's 34 kg figure. If it is only 10 to 20% higher, it does not. Also remember CIAH publishes no ripening date for it, so that early premium is a bet until you have recorded your own harvest dates.
Where the planting material comes from
This variety is budded onto a rootstock, not grown from seed. Seed out of its fruit will not come up as this variety, so it cannot be kept as seed. Buy budded plants from a registered nursery or a government farm, so the plant is true to the variety and free of disease.
How it compares with other varieties
Every Ber (Indian Jujube) variety with a page on this site, side by side. The row for this page is highlighted.
| Variety | Best for | Starts bearing | Yield | States |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Banarasi Karaka | Farmers in eastern Uttar Pradesh and the eastern plains who want a large-fruited ber and will plant a second variety nearby | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | 25.5 to 130 kg a tree in three trials (Kanpur, West Bengal, Haryana) | Uttar Pradesh |
| Gola | Farmers in Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab who want an early, sweet ber and can live with a lower yield than Kaithli | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | About 41 to 69 kg a tree in dry-land trials | Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab |
| Kaithli | Farmers on dry, rainfed sandy land in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh who want the most fruit a tree can give | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | About 41 to 120 kg a tree in dry-land trials | Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh |
| Seb (Apple Ber) | Farmers selling to fresh-fruit buyers who pay for a round, apple-shaped ber, and who plan an early crop | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | Good; valued for large fruit size | Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh |
| Thar Bhubhraj | Arid-zone farmers in Rajasthan who sell early, very sweet fresh ber and accept a modest yield | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | About 35 kg a tree at 6 years (ICAR-CIAH) | Rajasthan |
| Thar Malti | Arid-zone farmers who want a heavy-bearing late ber for table sale or processing, and who will test its frost tolerance on a few trees first | Late maturing: fruit ripens 145–150 days from fruit set (ICAR-CIAH) | 65–70 kg a plant (ICAR-CIAH; plant age not stated) | Rajasthan |
| Thar Sevikathis page | Arid-zone farmers in Rajasthan who want an early ber crop and are fine with a modest yield per tree | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked); early-maturing | About 34 kg a tree at 6 years (ICAR-CIAH) | Rajasthan |
| Umran | Farmers who can irrigate and feed their trees and want large, fleshy fruit for a late crop | Bears from year 2–3 (grafted/top-worked) | Often quoted at 150 to 200 kg a tree; trials gave 37 to 48 kg | Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh |
Tools for this crop
The numbers you need next: how much seed to buy, whether the lot germinates, what the fertilizer bill looks like and what Ber (Indian Jujube) is selling for.
- Seed Rate CalculatorHow much seed your Ber (Indian Jujube) plot needs, corrected for the germination of the lot you bought.
- Germination CalculatorTest 100 seeds from the bag before sowing and see whether the lot is fit to sow.
- Seed Variety FinderFilter every Ber (Indian Jujube) variety on this site by state, season, duration and soil.
- Fertilizer CalculatorTurn the NPK recommendation for Ber (Indian Jujube) into bags of urea, DAP and MOP for your field size.
- Crop CalendarMonth-by-month sowing, weeding, irrigation and harvest dates for Ber (Indian Jujube) in your state.
- Crop Profit CalculatorPut your seed, labour and input costs against the yield you expect from this variety.
- Mandi Price CheckerToday's Ber (Indian Jujube) rate in your nearest mandi, before you fix a price with a trader.
Subsidy and government support
Schemes that help with the cost of Ber (Indian Jujube) seed or planting material. Rules and the application route are on each scheme page.
Frequently asked questions
What is Thar Sevika's parentage?
ICAR-CIAH Bikaner describes it as developed by hybridisation, a cross of Seb and Katha. Seb ripens early (mid-January to mid-February at Jodhpur) with a round, apple-shaped fruit. Katha was a late, large-fruited type (34 g, ripening in late February to early March) that the 1986 CAZRI paper found almost identical to Umran. The cross is described as early-maturing.
How does Thar Sevika's yield compare with Umran and Kaithli?
CIAH gives 34 kg a tree at 6 years of planting. In CIAH's own 2021 training-system trial, Thar Sevika gave 17.56 kg a plant on average (14.2 to 20.15 kg by system), the lowest of four varieties: Gola gave 18.64, Thai 20.46 and Goma Kirti 18.39. The Bawal trial in Haryana, on rainfed land with 13-year-old trees, gave Kaithli 119.9 and 88.3 kg and Umran 46.6 and 38.6 kg. The often-quoted 150 to 200 kg for Umran is far above all of these. Sites and tree ages differ, so the comparison is only a guide, but it shows Thar Sevika is a smaller-crop variety.
How early does Thar Sevika actually ripen?
CIAH's variety listing says only early maturing and gives no date for Thar Sevika, and we found no ripening trial for it. For a rough guide, CIAH says its other variety Thar Bhubhraj is ready from the last week of December to the first week of January. Seb, a parent, ripens from the middle of January to the middle of February at Jodhpur, and Gola ripened from 2 February at Bawal. Record your own first pick date for three seasons before you promise any buyer an early supply.
Is Thar Sevika suited to my land outside Rajasthan?
CIAH is the institute for arid horticulture, and its ber trials listed here are in the hot arid ecosystem. No source we read gives a trial outside Rajasthan. If you farm in Haryana, Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh, plant a few trees next to a variety you already know, such as Gola or Kaithli, and compare for three seasons before you plant a block.
Where do I get true-to-name Thar Sevika plants?
Start with ICAR-CIAH Bikaner, which developed it, or your KVK. CIAH's website has a Seed and Plants page with sale notices and rate lists, so ask there whether Thar Sevika plants are in stock. Buy budded plants (TNAU says ber is planted as budded plants), ask for the variety name on the bill, and plant in July and August with pits of 60 x 60 x 60 cm, as TNAU advises.
Sourced from: ICAR-CIAH Bikaner — varieties identified at institute level (ber), Pareek and Vashishtha, Vegetative and fruit characteristics of ber cultivars of Rajasthan, Annals of Arid Zone 25(3), 1986, Saini et al., Performance of selected ber cultivars under rainfed conditions, Annals of Arid Zone 33(4), 1994, ICAR-CIAH Annual Report 2021 (ber varieties, training systems and fruit maturity stages). editorial policy.