Cactus pear ( Opuntia ficus indica Mill.) as an emerging fruit crop for arid and semi-arid regions of India

Abstract

Cactus pear (Opuntia ficus indica Mill.) is gradually gaining popularity as fruit and vegetable crop in hot arid regions of the world. In Mexico, it plays a strategic role in subsistence agriculture from the semi-arid lands. In India also, cactus pear is spreading fast owing to its nutritious and sweet fruits, tender cladodes as vegetable and digestible fodder. Spiny and spineless cultivars are available in Miexcio but most of the Indian geno types are thorny which are used for live fencing around field boundaries. Visualizing its importance as fruit, vegetable, animal feed and industrial raw material and its suitability to Indian desertic climate, cactus pear can be a potential crop of these regions. Efforts are now on war footings to exploit the potential of this crop in the most neglected arid and semi-arid regions of the country where most of the crops are rainfed and less productive. Works related to propagation, planting techniques, water and nutrient management, canopy management, flowering, fruiting and harvesting of cactus pear in India and abroad have been reviewed in this paper.