Awareness workshop on Ultra High-density apple plantation techniques held at Thanamandi

RAJOURI : A day-long awareness workshop on Ultra High-density apple plantation techniques was today held here at Behrote area of Thanamandi tehsil.

The training cum awareness workshop was organised by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.(NAFED) in collaboration with the Horticulture Department.

District Horticulture Officer, Shafqat Khan; SMS, Arvind Verma, Sarpanch, Panchs, representative of Indo-Dutch Horticulture Technologies Pvt. Ltd besides farmers from Thanamandi and its adjoining areas attended the workshop.

The ultra high-density apple plantation is being carried out in J&K by Indo Dutch Horticulture Technology Private limited and the nodal agency is NAFED.

The resource person from NAFED, Lokesh Kumar briefed in detail the benefits of ultra-high-density plantation and new high yielding varieties of apple on specialized rootstock having the potential to yield 50-60 tonnes per hectare against the present production of 10-11 tonnes, which will raise the income of farmers and their standard of living.

The farmers were also made aware of the modern technology used in the ultra-high-density apple plantation.

Plants of ultra High-density apples have been cultivated on 70 kanal of land in Thanamandi tehsil this season and near about 200 kanal of temperate areas of Rajouri district would be covered under plantation drive in the next season.

The participants were told that due to the increasing pressure on land and reduction in average landholdings, shifting from low-density planting systems to high-density planting systems has become the need of the hour, especially in the horticulture sector.

The high density Trees are more precocious, heavy yielders and produce better quality fruits and can play a significant role in improving the apple economy of a region.