Mosquito-Repellant Plant To Hit Market

BTL is involved in the commercial cultivation of orchids for cut flowers. It has tied up with Fidari Pedro Plant Co of Holland and Norwa Laboratory of Poland for transfering tissue culture technology for multiplication of Citrosa with exclusive rights in India for producing the wonder plant.

According to A P Boekestijn of the Dutch Fidari Pedro Plant Company, the plant has been a big rage in Canada and other countries. He hopes that it will draw a good response in India and other tropical countries, where mosquito menace is a major problem.

BTL, set up in 1989 by a team of technocrats led by C Sivaram Reddy with a doctorate in plant breeding and genetics from Texas University, has a capacity to produce 3 million plants per annum in their 6.5 acre farm near Keesara village, 20 kms from here.

 

Sivaram Reddy said BTL will initially import around 3,000 plants per month of Citrosa and start tissue culturing at the rate of 50,000 to 1 lakh plants a month from the fourth month onwards. It will be sold at a price of Rs 250.

Citrosa, when kept in a room, can keep mosquitoes and other insects away and lasts for four years.

It can not be multiplied in the house.