Over 90,000 temperate fruit plants sold by Nauni varsity

Nauni (Himachal Pradesh): The restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID 19 have not affected the annual sale of planting material prepared by Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry(UHF), Nauni. Despite the restrictions on large gathering, over 90,000 temperate fruit plants have been sold to over 2,500 farmers from the four university nurseries in Nauni and Kandaghat.
 
This year, the university started the annual sale of planting material from 5th January in a staggered manner by limiting the number of farmers who were allotted plants on any given day ensuring strict compliance with the COVID 19 guidelines. The allotment list of the farmers who had applied for plants by filling the online demand form within the stipulated date was uploaded on the university website. This list mentioned the number of allotted plants along with the date, time and name of the university nursery from where these plants could be collected.
 
Owing to its high quality, the planting material prepared by the university sees a huge demand among the farmers of the state and the many parts of the country. This year, apple varieties like Jeromine, Red Velox, Scarlett Spur, Granny Smith and Gala Group were among the varieties which were popular among the farmers. Continuing with the trend, the demand for various stone fruits also witnessed an increase along with demand for apple plants from the lower regions.
 
On Saturday, Dr Parvinder Kaushal, UHF Vice-Chancellor chaired a meeting of the Seed and Planting Cell of the university. It was decided during the meeting that as the university has already provided plants to a majority of the farmers who had filled the demand form, the remaining plants will be open for sale for all farmers. The sale of the remaining planting material of select varieties of apple, pomegranate, plum, pear, peach, apricot, walnut, fig, etc will be open to everyone from 18th January. The farmers have been advised to confirm the availability of the desired variety of fruit plants from the nursery before visiting. The numbers of the nurseries are as follows- Fruit Science- 9418127315, Model Farm, Nauni -82196 68423, KVK Solan (Kandaghat)- 70188 56503, and Seed Science- 9418140341.
 
In addition to the planting material provided by the university nurseries in Nauni and Kandaghat, the regional stations/ KVK of the university at Mashobra, Bajaura, Reckong Peo, Rohru, Tabo, and Chamba also supply temperate plants to the growers at different dates.