Datatrey Nanasaheb Kale (55)is a progressive grapes grower. Studied up to class-XII, he has been involved in grapes farming following the footsteps of his late father NanaSaheb Kale who had developed Sharad seedless grapes variety in 1980s.Datatrey owns 25 acres of vineyards and grows various varieties developed by his family. He has started a nursery to sell the grafts of his seedless grape varieties and is also involved in producing and selling black raisins prepared from Sarita and Nanasaheb purple seedless varieties.

He has developed two new varieties of black grapes- Sarita and Nanasaheb Purple Seedless from the clone of Sharad seedless grape variety with high sugar content (18-20 brix), large sized berries and distinct taste. In 1984 he noticed one naturally mutated clone of Sharad seedless variety with bigger sized berries and attractive colour in his vineyard. He grafted the selected clone over rootstock of dog ridge grapes variety and monitored for distinctness of characters for three years followed by multiplication of this vine by grafting and continued the process till 2003. He named this variety after his mother Sarita Kale.

A few years later, he again observed a clone among the Sarita seedless variety with ovalberry and 25mm size. He repeated the grafting process again and developed another variety- Nanasaheb Purple Seedless after his father in 2008. Thisvariety has unique litchi flavour, more pulp content with high sugar content (>24 brix) and thin purple peel with white coloured pulp preferred for making export quality raisins, while Sarita seedlessbears elongated berries with higher bunch weight and yield and fetches good market price.

During the onsite evaluation carried out by experts from of KVK, Solapur, Maharashtra, it was reported that both the varieties i.e.Sarita Seedless and Nanasaheb Purple Seedlesshave been widely adopted by the growers for profitable cultivation due to their good berry length, taste, attractive purple coloured & litchi flavoured big sized berries. Nanasaheb Purple Seedless variety produces export quality berries and is preferred for making raisins.The variety Nanasaheb Purple Seedless has been disseminated in four states viz. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Karnataka covering more than 21000 hectares’ area and covers 90% in grapes cultivation in Maharashtrawhereas Sarita Seedless is widely cultivated in Solapur and Nashik areas of Maharashtra covering over 17000 hectares. The process of applications for registrationof both the varietiesat PPV & FR Authority has been initiated by NIF-India.