Iranian Company Ameliorates Pistachio Seedlings for Desert Climate
“Production of modified pistachio seedlings through tissue culture has not been performed in the world so far and it is suitable for dry areas in Southern Iran,” Fereshteh Kamyab, the managing director of the knowledge-based Nahal Kavir company affiliated to Islamic Azad University’s Rafsanjan branch, told ANA on the sidelines of Asreh Omid Event in Tehran.
Asreh Omid Event was held in Tehran's Mosalla from May 29 to June 1, 2022. The event aimed to exhibit new achievements and products in the technological and innovation arenas in line with opening new windows towards strengthening the idea of creating ground for knowledge-based businesses at the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Azad University. Some 3,000 knowledge-based companies, laboratories, research centers, and startups took part in the Event.
“Since it takes six to seven years to grow fruit trees before we can commercialize them, therefore, the laboratory sample should be studied in the garden first and then the product can be commercialized,” Nahal Kavir company’s managing director said.
Kamyab noted that after finding the best genotypes for each region of Iran and checking their compatibility, three knowledge-based products (type 1) of the best pistachio seedlings were produced, adding that one of them has been mass-produced and commercialized.
“This genotype, which has been imported from the US, is a high-growth base suitable for planting in the Central, Northern and Western regions of Iran,” she stated.
“In addition to pistachio micro-propagation, we have also carried out extensive work on ornamental plants, and we are mass-producing a number of them which had been imported from abroad before and their number is limited, and we grow and sell a large number of them monthly,” Kamyab said.
Iran exported different types of pistachios to 75 countries in the last Persian calendar year (March 21, 2021, to March 20, 2022).
The Iranian customs administration announced in April that the country exported 135,322 tons of pistachios worth $914,427,826 in the period.
Spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) Rouhollah Latifi said that 115,557 tons out of the total pistachio exports were fresh raw pistachios with shells worth $696,043,124.
China, India, Russia, Iraq and Kyrgyzstan were the top five purchasers of Iranian pistachios, he said.
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