February 12, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 04 ,1429

KARACHI, Feb 11: A group of scientists at the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), the University of Karachi, has discovered over 20,000 base pairs of DNA sequences of mangoes, the first breakthrough of its kind in the world.

Commenting on the achievement, Dr Kamran Azim, the team leader and assistant professor at the ICCBS, said that the valuable research would help increase the production of mangoes and tackle its different diseases. The genetic data has been submitted to the International GenBank in Washington.

“It’s a great achievement considering the fact that cultivation of mango has immense economic significance for Pakistan that stands fifth in the production among mango growing countries,” he said, adding that many attempts in recent past to improve yield had proved futile.

The team worked on the project for two years and is currently involved in research on different mango varieties. For that purpose, 20 species have been brought from the Sindh Horticulture Research Institute, Mirpurkhas.

Dr Azim pointed out that Pakistan despite holding a prominent position in mango production was producing yield much lower than its potential, primarily because of myriad disease risks.

“Diseases such as powdery, mildew and midge cause heavy losses in mango production and a lot of our resources go waste simply because there is a lack of information related to molecular biology of mango tree.

“This advancement has opened new avenues of research for the enhancement of mango production and development of novel herbicides and pesticides for mango crops,” he observed.

Explaining the reasons why there is little research on the subject, Dr Azim said that mangoes, native to the subcontinent which gradually spread to many parts of the world, were cultivated on a smaller scale as compared to other fruits being produced on a commercial scale in the world.