SPROUT Research Facility Inaugurated at BRIC-NIPGR to Cut Chickpea Cycle to 40 Days

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh inaugurated the SPROUT facility on 15 September 2026 at the BRIC-National Institute of Plant Genome Research (BRIC-NIPGR) in New Delhi. SPROUT, short for SpeedSeed Phenotyping and Resource Optimization for Unified Trait Analysis, will first work on chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and can complete one chickpea generation in only 40 days. The facility links genomics, genome editing and high throughput phenotyping on a single platform to develop faster, climate resilient crop varieties for India.

What Is the SPROUT Facility?

The SPROUT facility at BRIC-NIPGR is a season independent, controlled environment platform for rapid crop generation and precise trait checking. SPROUT combines rapid generation growth, field like soil plots, and automated imaging to test germplasm, breeding lines, mutants, transgenic lines and genome edited lines in one place.

SPROUT was developed by the plant stress biology team at BRIC-NIPGR led by Dr Senthil-Kumar Muthappa, with Senior Research Fellow Sandeep Dulla as lead researcher. The work was published in 2026 in the journal Plant Stress as SPROUT: Rapid generation advancement enabled phenotyping platform for chickpea improvement. The event was attended by BRIC-NIPGR Director Prof Manoj Prasad (as of September 2026) and Department of Biotechnology Scientist-H Dr Nitin Jain. The Minister also planted a sapling under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign during the programme.

SPROUT uses soil based, field mimicking mini plots instead of only small pots or artificial media. This design keeps plant growth closer to real field conditions while still allowing full control of light, temperature, humidity, planting density, irrigation and nutrition. The platform includes customised lighting with far red light control, precise irrigation, RGB and thermal imaging for non invasive growth monitoring, root phenotyping tools, and BSL-2 compliant containment for safe handling of transgenic and edited material. RGB imaging records visible growth and disease symptoms, while thermal imaging tracks canopy temperature linked to water stress and disease response.

The facility is built for high throughput phenotyping, precision stress screening and evaluation of large populations through the year, without waiting for the normal crop season. In practical terms, researchers can grow a population, record its growth and stress response with cameras and sensors, select promising plants, and move them to the next generation within weeks.

Host Institution: BRIC-NIPGR in New Delhi

The National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) is an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology. The formal announcement for NIPGR was made on 30 November 1997 and the institute started functioning in 1998. NIPGR is located inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in New Delhi on about 15 acres of leased land.

NIPGR works on functional, structural and applied genomics of plants, including crop plants. Its mandate is to use molecular biology, omics methods and genetic engineering to create plants with better yield, tolerance to drought, salinity, pests and diseases, and improved nutrition. The institute has about 28 scientists and around 250 research fellows, and it runs the National Genomics and Genotyping Facility (NGGF) as a single window service for sequencing and genotyping.

NIPGR now operates as BRIC-NIPGR under the Biotechnology Research and Innovation Council (BRIC). BRIC is an autonomous society formed by the Department of Biotechnology to bring 13 autonomous institutes under one governance system for better use of resources and stronger joint research. The BRIC institutes include NIPGR, the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) at Mohali, the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) at Thiruvananthapuram, the National Institute of Immunology (NII) and others. The stated goals of BRIC are mission linked research, shared skills and infrastructure, and faster movement of lab results to farms, industry and health systems in line with Atmanirbhar Bharat.

NIPGR has a strong record in chickpea genomics. NIPGR teams have built chickpea genome resources such as the Chickpea Genome Analysis Project (CGAP) and databases for wild chickpea, transcriptomes and microsatellite markers. NIPGR researchers have also reported a salinity tolerant high yielding chickpea line developed through genomics guided breeding, and gene edited rice and mustard lines for fertilizer use and nutrition traits.

How Does SpeedSeed Reduce the Chickpea Cycle to 40 Days?

What is speed breeding. Speed breeding is a method that uses controlled light, temperature, humidity and nutrition to make plants flower and set seed much earlier than in the open field. SPROUT applies this idea through its own protocol called SpeedSeed technology.

SpeedSeed shortens the chickpea seed to seed cycle to about 40 days, which is a 60 to 70 percent reduction compared to normal cycles of several months. The BRIC-NIPGR team reports that SpeedSeed can support 8 to 10 chickpea generations per year under controlled field plot conditions. This is the first reported chickpea platform to reach this speed while keeping plant vigour and seed output healthy.

The result matters because normal chickpea breeding is slow and season bound. A single field generation takes months, and developing a stable improved variety often takes 10 to 15 years through field selection. Even transgenic breeding can take 4 to 5 years. Speed breeding can compress early generations from years to months by advancing 6 generations per year in wheat, barley, chickpea and pea in standard protocols, and up to 8 to 10 in the SPROUT chickpea system.

SpeedSeed works by tuning several factors together. Chickpea is a long day cool season crop that responds to longer light hours of 14 to 16 hours. SPROUT optimises light quality including far red light, light intensity in the photosynthetic range, day and night temperature near 25 degrees Celsius, humidity, planting density, irrigation timing and crop nutrition. Researchers also harvest immature seeds early and germinate them directly to save days between generations. Water stress is managed carefully in late stages to push early maturity without harming seed viability.

A clear example is disease screening. Screening for dry root rot, a serious soil disease of chickpea, normally needs 50 to 60 days. On the SPROUT platform the same screening was completed in 21 to 25 days using combined imaging and controlled stress. The team used this system to screen a large mutant population and found three highly resistant lines. One line, Mutant NEM 1043, showed clearly lower disease levels than the presently known tolerant variety.

What Is Genomics, Genome Editing and Phenotyping?

What is genomics. Genomics is the study of the full set of genes in an organism, called the genome, and how those genes control growth, yield and stress response. SPROUT uses genomics to find useful genes and markers, and then connects them to real plant performance.

Genomics in plant breeding means reading and comparing DNA to locate genes for traits such as drought tolerance, disease resistance or grain size. Once such genes or linked markers are known, breeders can select parent plants more accurately through genomic selection and marker assisted methods. NIPGR supports this work through sequencing, genotyping arrays, transcriptome profiling and Small RNA studies.

What is phenotyping. Phenotyping is the measurement of observable plant traits such as height, leaf area, flowering time, yield, canopy temperature and response to drought, heat, salinity or disease. What is phenotyping in agriculture. In farming research it means recording these traits carefully across many plants to judge which line truly performs better.

SPROUT focuses on high throughput phenotyping. This means automated, repeated, non destructive measurement of thousands of plants using sensors instead of slow manual scoring. RGB cameras capture growth and lesions, thermal cameras capture water stress through leaf temperature, and root imaging captures below ground traits that are hard to see in the field.

What is genome editing in plants. Genome editing in plants is a tool that makes precise changes in the DNA of a crop to improve a trait, without necessarily adding foreign genes. The most used tool is CRISPR-Cas9, which acts like molecular scissors guided to a chosen DNA address to cut and correct the sequence. An older tool family is zinc finger nuclease, which also cuts DNA at selected points but is harder to design and use at scale.

The two ideas are often confused, so the difference is important.

SPROUT closes the gap between these two sides. Genomics and genome editing create new variation and candidate lines. Phenotyping tests whether that variation truly gives a better trait under stress. Faster and more accurate phenotyping therefore speeds up trait validation, which is the step that confirms a gene really improves the crop before it enters breeding.

Why Was Chickpea Chosen First?

Chickpea, known in India as chana or gram, is the largest pulse crop of India and a key source of protein in vegetarian diets. Chickpea grain contains about 20 to 22 percent protein and also provides fibre, minerals and unsaturated fats. The crop also improves soil health by fixing atmospheric nitrogen of up to 140 kg per hectare.

Chickpea is a cool season rabi crop with the scientific name Cicer arietinum. It is a self pollinating diploid plant with chromosome number 2n equal to 16. Indian farmers grow two main types. Desi chickpea has small dark seeds and thicker coats, while kabuli chickpea has larger white seeds. Popular desi varieties include JG 11 and JAKI 9218, while kabuli types include KAK 2 and ICCV 2.

India is the largest producer of chickpea in the world, with about 65 percent share of global output. Chickpea accounts for nearly 46 percent of total pulse production in India. The leading states are Madhya Pradesh with about 38 percent share, followed by Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Because the crop is grown mainly in arid and semi arid zones, it faces repeated stress from drought, heat, soil salinity and root diseases such as dry root rot and wilt.

Chickpea has high visible variation but a narrow genetic base, which makes it hard to create elite high yielding lines by simple selection alone. This is why NIPGR selected chickpea for whole genome sequencing and for genomics guided breeding. A faster platform that can test salinity, drought and disease response through the year directly addresses the main limits on chickpea yield. Success with chickpea can later be extended to other pulses, oilseeds, cereals and millets.

Significance for Climate Resilient Agriculture

India has highly diverse agro climatic zones, so a variety that performs well in one region may fail in another. SPROUT allows researchers to test the same breeding material under different temperature, water and disease pressures inside one facility. This improves the chance of finding lines that hold yield under drought, heat, salinity, floods and pest attack.

The facility fits directly into the BioE3 Policy for Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment, approved in 2024. The BioE3 Policy promotes high performance biomanufacturing and lists climate resilient agriculture as a strategic theme. The Minister noted that plant biotechnology and human biotechnology are advancing together under this policy push, with genomics, gene technologies and precision phenotyping becoming central tools.

The wider record shows why such translation matters. Between 2014 and 2026, the Department of Biotechnology supported more than 300 projects in agriculture biotechnology and allied areas. More than 50 improved varieties of rice, wheat, chickpea, mustard, vegetables and forestry species were developed with better tolerance to drought, floods, salinity, pests and diseases. A flagship genomics assisted programme produced 17 climate resilient rice varieties now grown on nearly 15 lakh hectares. In May 2025, India released its first genome edited rice varieties, DRR Dhan 100 Kamala and Pusa DST Rice 1. These examples show how lab advances in gene discovery can reach farmers fields when testing and breeding systems are fast and precise.

For industry and seed systems, SPROUT offers faster germplasm evaluation, mutant screening, pre breeding, seed stock management, tissue culture support and controlled environment research. For farmers, the benefit is indirect but real. Shorter breeding cycles mean tolerant varieties reach trials and release sooner, which protects yield and income under changing weather.

The Way Forward

The immediate task for BRIC-NIPGR is to use SPROUT to move promising chickpea lines from gene discovery to field ready testing. This includes advancing mutant, mapping and gene edited lines, multiplying seed quickly, and sharing elite material with breeding partners such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research institutes and state agriculture universities for multi location trials.

NIPGR has also planned wider translation centres for speed breeding and high throughput phenotyping at Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh and at the NCR Biotech Science Cluster in Faridabad. These centres will take the Delhi lab model closer to field conditions and industry users.

The Minister asked institutes to work more closely with industry, farmers and communicators. He suggested regular open meetings with outside stakeholders, and short films and workshops that show the farm problem before the technology and the benefit after it. Such steps will help technologies like SPROUT move from papers and pilot lines to certified varieties, quality seed supply and actual planting across chickpea growing states.

Key Takeaways

• SPROUT stands for SpeedSeed Phenotyping and Resource Optimization for Unified Trait Analysis and was inaugurated on 15 September 2026 at BRIC-NIPGR, New Delhi.
• SPROUT uses SpeedSeed technology to complete a chickpea generation in about 40 days, enabling 8 to 10 generations per year.
• The platform integrates genomics, genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9, and high throughput phenotyping using RGB, thermal and root imaging.
• Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is the first focus crop, with dry root rot screening cut from 50 to 60 days to 21 to 25 days and resistant Mutant NEM 1043 identified.
• NIPGR was announced on 30 November 1997 and started functioning in 1998, and now works under the Biotechnology Research and Innovation Council (BRIC) of the Department of Biotechnology.
• SPROUT supports the BioE3 Policy of 2024, which lists climate resilient agriculture as a strategic theme for biomanufacturing growth.