Improved Green Spineless (IGS)

Improved Green Spineless (IGS) is the companion selection to IRS from the same ICAR-National Research Centre for Makhana breeding programme at Darbhanga, Bihar, bred from spineless green-fruited singhara biotypes and evaluated in the same multilocation trials through 2021. Like IRS, it is reported to outyield unimproved local stock with better quality, and its spineless trait — shared across both improved selections — is a genuine practical advantage at harvest, since growers handle the ripe, floating nuts by hand repeatedly over several weeks and a spineless fruit is markedly easier and safer to pick and peel than the sharply two-horned spined types most local ponds still grow.

Plant typeResearch-station selection (tuber-propagated)
Maturity~6–7 months
Yield potentialHigher than unimproved local stock in station trials
Disease resistanceNot separately documented
SoilPond/diked-field silt (standing water)
SeasonKharif

Actual yield depends on sowing time, soil, irrigation, weather, seed quality and crop management.

• Bihar

• Local Red-spined biotype

  The most widely grown planting material across the Bihar–UP–Bengal belt — a farmer-saved local biotype with a reddish, sharply two-spined nut, carried over between ponds rather than bought fresh each year.

  View variety details

• Local Green-spined biotype

  A second common farmer-saved biotype grown alongside the red-spined type in many of the same ponds, including Kashmir's Dal Lake, with a greener nut regarded locally as slightly milder in taste.

  View variety details

• Improved Red Spineless (IRS)

  An ICAR-NRC Makhana (Darbhanga) research selection bred from spineless red biotypes and evaluated across multiple locations through 2021, outyielding unimproved parent stock.

  View variety details