JAMMU: A team of experts and Co-ordinator from Netherlands visited Advanced Centre for Horticulture Development (ACHR), Udheywalla here on Monday for establishment of Centre of Excellence (Fruits) under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture.
The team members included Jacques Hessen, PUM (Fruits), an expert from Holland , Dr. Leon Husson PUM COE Co-ordinator, India and Anand Krishnan, Deputy-Counsellor Agriculture (India and Srilanka) Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherland.
M.H Malik Secretary Horticulture J and K, Bhawani Rakwal Director Horticulture Jammu, Dr. J.P Sharma Director Research SKUAST-J, Tarvinder Singh, Joint Director Horticulture Jammu, Mukesh Sharma DLSMS Horticulture Jammu accompanied the team.
Secretary Horticulture laid emphasis on the setting of the Centre for facilitating the farmers of Jammu Division so that the productivity of the fruits is increased.
Dr V.K Wali, Co-ordinator, Centre of Excellence briefed the visiting team about the prospects as well as road map for developing Centre of Excellence in 10 Ha of Land. The main components of the Centre of Excellence shall be establishment of mother blocks, protected cultivation, efficient micro irrigation network, demonstration units, virus free planting material, farmers facilitation centre, soil and leaf testing laboratory, soil testing laboratory etc.
Dr Parshant Bakshi, Head, ACHR, Udheywalla deliberated upon the working mechanism to be adopted so that the Centre of Excellence may come up as a world class facility for dissemination of new technologies and planting material in the field of fruit crops.
The team also visited the Bio Control Lab being established in Advanced Centre for Horticulture Development (ACHR), Udheywalla. The scientists of ACHR Jammu were also present during the visit.