Cactus Pear: Cultivation and uses

Abstract

Climate change has become one of the biggest challenges for the sustainable crop production. Prolonged droughts and desertification are the major issues faced by Indian hot arid zone where rural poor and smallholders are most heavily affected. Therefore, the crops which can withstand to such conditions like; drought, high temperatures and poor soils need more emphasis. Cactus crops are gaining increasing interest across the globe, in particular cactus pear or prickly pear (Opuntia ficus indica (L) Mill.) because of its unique characteristics which provide resilience to the harsh ecological conditions. Cactus pear can be grown on land where no other crops are able to grow; it can be used to restore degraded land. It is the only crop that can be relied on when everything else fails. Thus, it is environment friendly crop which can withstand long periods of drought. Even today cactus pear is treated as underutilized crop in India, though it has multiple utility. Cactus cladode is rich in pectin, mucilage, minerals, polyphenols, nicotiflorin, vitamins, polyunsaturated fatty acids and amino acids. Cactus nopal pulp has numerous compounds (dietary fibre, vitamin C, phenolic compounds) with the potential to provide important benefits like intestinal, cardiovascular, hepatic health, antioxidant activity and cancer prevention. The most important economic species in the world is Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. Presently, it is grown in Mexico, Malta, Spain, Sicily, Italy, Greece, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel, Chile, Brazil, Turkey, France, Bulgaria, Portugal, Albania, Cyprus and United States. Cultivated of cactus pear was started long back in many countries of the world but, in India, its commercial cultivation is yet to start. Few year back research work on planting methods, performance of various accessions, exploitation and uses of vegetable type cactus and biomass production was initiated at CIAH, Bikaner. Micropropagation technique of spine-less, vegetable type cactus pear (nopal cactus) was standardized by ICA RCIAH, Bikaner recently in 2009 and its morphological and nutritional evaluation was done under green house conditions. Further several value added and culinary products from cactus pear have been developed at CIAH, Bikaner for making this crop more remunerative.The field evaluation of this nopal cactus is being carried out with other cactus pear existing germplasm at CIAH farm. The cultivation of vegetable type for human consumption is depends on selection of the spineless varieties. The most important species for nopales production is Opuntia ficus indica (L.) Mill. Now-a-days, it is parts of kitchen gardens in arid and semi-arid regions due to nutritional and medicinal properties. Cactus is alternative resource to meet the food supply andnutritional health requirements.