VARANASI, February 6: The farmers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s adopted village Jayapur would now be cultivating apples along with traditional crops. The village received a gift of 100 saplings of a special variety of Kashmiri apple on Wednesday and BJP termed as an initiative of the PM.
The saplings have been arranged by the Ahmedabad based National Innovation Foundation-India, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology of the Central government. It is based on Honey Bee Network philosophy, which provides institutional support to grassroots innovators and outstanding traditional knowledge holders from the unorganized sector of the society.
“The saplings were brought here by plane on Tuesday for free distribution among the farmers,” said Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi, a progressive farmer who was awarded by the NIF with ‘Plant Genome Savior Recognition Certificate’. He said that 15 farmers of Jayapur were given five saplings each for cultivation, while 20 saplings would be sent to the district horticulture department for growing. Prakash himself will grow five trees.
On the climatic conditions, he said, “It is just a trial. If we succeed in growing apple trees in this region, more such trees will be planted for commercial purpose,” he said. He claimed that the new variety of apple ‘HRMN-99’ developed by an innovator of Himachal Pradesh Hariman Sharma can be grown in hot climatic conditions.
“This variety can also be cultivated in those areas where maximum temperature goes up to 45-48 degree Celsius in summer,” he claimed and said that the guidance of horticulture experts of premier institutions will also be sought for the cultivation and protection of apple trees.
NIF innovation officer Hardev Choudhary told TOI over phone that the experiment of growing this variety of apple in Karnataka and Haryana has been successful. “The variety has been developed for the cultivation in hot weather conditions and we are getting expected results,” he said.
Though the farmers are happy with the gift, agricultural scientists see a low chance for growing apple in hot weather conditions. A retired agricultural scientist and plant breeder at the Institute of Agricultural Science, Banaras Hindu University Dr Uday Pratap Singh said, “Apple is not the fruit of hot weather, but is cultivated in cold regions. However, some experiments are being conducted to grow it in plains.”
“It would be great if this experiment is successful in Varanasi,” he said.
Pramod, a farmer who received five saplings, was extremely happy and excited on getting to grow apple trees. The farmers were also informed about the method to plant the saplings and ways to look after them. A two-page leaflet that highlights preparation of soil, plantation of tree, irrigation and protection of trees was also distributed among the farmers.
“Apple saplings have been arranged on the initiative of the PM,” said BJP regional secretary Mahesh Chandra Srivastava. He said it would be a great achievement if the trial bears fruit.
