Kannur (Kerala), May 6 (IANS) The Kerala Agriculture University’s Pepper Research Station at Panniyur in Kannur district is getting ready to release a new pepper variety which is more resistant to wilt disease and drought conditions. Quick wilt is the major disease that has devastated pepper plantations in Kerala.

“We have sent the new variety to different states to assess its performance in diverse environment. We are waiting for feed-back,” said K.P. Mammootty, an associate professor of the university, who heads the research station.

The new variety ‘Panniyur 8′ is said to be early bearing in nature and is a progeny of Panniyur 5 and 6, all developed by the research station.

“Research in perennial crops is a long drawn process. It takes a long time to get the results,” said Mammootty.

The station has its eye set on developing a variety totally resistant to wilt and capable of high yield.

“We had developed a wilt resistant variety by crossing the Brazilian wild pepper (Piper colubrinum) and our black pepper (Piper nigrum), but it has very low yield. Now, we are trying to back cross it to induce high yield,” he said.