No X’mas tree this season? Try the X-plant

It isn’t that oh-so familiar evergreen shrub one would normally deck up for Christmas but ‘X-plant’ has taken the fancy of Amdavadis this season. Call it a supplant of the Christmas tree, X-plant, as its tagline reads, brings ‘nature at the desktop’ in this digitally shrunk world. And there’s a range of such miniature ornamental plants—tulsi, croton, caladium, vilsa—all made and marketed by Third Year BSc (Biochemistry) students at the city’s St Xaviers’ College using plant tissue culture.

The plants have already found their target customers in schools, restaurants and gift shops. Attractively packed and preserved in designer test-tubes filled with coloured chemical gel, the city’s churches too will take a dekko at them.

The students — 38 in all — have done it all, R&D and conceptualisation to production and design at the college’s own industrial training unit. And the brand name, X-plant, incidentally is a tribute to their college, X standing for Xaviers. What’s more, now Final Year Industrial Chemistry students of the college too will join them in starting production of items like test tubes and pipettes that are used by students for developing and designing these gift items.

‘‘Now with Industrial Chemistry students producing test tubes of different hues and designing and selling them to their friends at the X-plant, not only will profit margin increase but better designed products will be possible,’’ said Fr Vincent J Braganza, Chairman-Secretary of the Xaviers Research Foundation, a sister unit of St Xaviers College that will now house the X-plant production centre.The products are based on the simple principle of plant tissue culture. And with a little design enhancement, they have been made attractive and marketable. For the students, it adds to the learning curve as they get lessons in entrepreneurship.

‘‘The plant has a specific requirement of nutrients, and at our research unit we prepare nutrients as per the plant requirement in the form of colourful gel. We standardise protocols for different plants that we preserve in test tubes. These nutrients, in gel form, are added with attractive colour component and treated at the unit so as to last for at least two months,’’ explains Chitra Iyer, who heads Research and Development work of X-plant and is currently researching on developing protocols for ornamental plants like rose, red cabbage, lettuce and chilli that once used, will be the first effort of its kind and add to the beauty of the gift item.

There is a team of six students who form the core members of the enterprise, heading units like R&D, Marketing, Production, Product Design, Administration and Human Resource. ‘‘It will be a holistic company with the Industrial Chemistry students aiding us with the designer test tubes to preserve plants. This will give us freedom with design,’’ said Ira Jani, who heads the Product Designing section of the unit. For Christmas, she added that seven more design prototypes like baskets, sledges, Santa Claus were on the anvil. ‘‘Customers will be naturally attracted to such designs this Christmas season,’’ Ira adds.

The preparation process is otherwise simple: nutrients are made depending on the plant-type, these are then packed in meticulously-designed test tubes, sterilised so that the tube can be freed from microbes, then packed and finally marketed.‘‘With final-year students getting practical experience beyond theory classes, the X-plant also involves them in entrepreneurial training and this we believe is a unique effort. By involving students from Industrial Chemistry, we will be increasing the scope of the exercise,’’ said Father Braganza.

Source : Expressindia.com