Patna: Bihar now boasts of a laboratory where it can test quality of seeds being sold in the market using DNA finger printing technique.

It allows the department to gather information about genetic purity of seeds being sold in the market.

The facility has been set up at a cost of Rs 90 lakh at the farm of the department at Mithapur in Patna. The lab functions under the control of Bihar State Seed Organic Certification Agency (BSSOCA).

Prior to setting up the facility, department experts tested the seed quality through traditional method in which the physical purity of a seed was tested using germination percentage and moisture content.

Terming the lab a big stride in the field of seed testing, a BSSOCA official said: "Apart from research institutions, such a laboratory was available only in Tamil Nadu. Bihar has become the second state in the country where such a facility is available outside research or academic institutions."

Charting the benefits of the availability of the facility, the official said it would help in two ways.

"First, the lab would allow checking the quality of those seeds that come up with details about their genetic data and thus ensure that only genuine seeds are sold in the market. Second, the laboratory would create genetic data of seeds that are in use and whose genetic information is unavailable."

As far as testing the quality of seeds being sold in the market is concerned, the agriculture department collects samples randomly from the market and check its quality.

So far the department has crosschecked the quality of five varieties of paddy seeds and seven varieties of maize seeds and report about the same has been brought to the public domain.

Given the fact that 140 varieties of patent/hybrid seeds of paddy and maize have been made available by different firms, the department has quite a huge task at hand for checking their quality.

The BSSOCA official said testing the quality of seeds with which genetic information was available was comparatively easier as they needed to be tested with few reagents only, whereas finding out the genetic data of other seeds was a time-taking process as around a thousand reagents are needed to be used for gathering correct genetic information of such seeds.

Agriculture minister Prem Kumar said the establishment of DNA fingerprinting lab has helped the department in putting a check on sale of poor-quality seeds in the market, which will help farmers.

He urged farmers to get their seeds tested in the laboratory in case they had any doubt about the quality of the seed they had purchased from the markets.

The BSSOCA DNA fingerprinting test is done gratis.