Blurb: Nutrition gardening, nursery management and innovative technologies for horticulture…

A four days training cum exposure visit for farmers on nutrition gardening, nursery management and innovative technology on horticulture was organised at Centre of Excellence on Horticulture, Deras, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, from July 13 to 16, 2022. This was in collaboration with the Assistant Director of Horticulture, Centre of Excellence, Deras. A total of 33 participants (30 progressive farmers and 3 staff members) participated in the four-day programme.

Farmers received skills during the in-house sessions, and practical demonstrations along with exposure visit to several institutions were organised. Topics covered included:

• Importance of nutrition garden
• Management of nutrition garden
• Nutrient, disease and pest management in nutrition garden
• Vegetable nursery development (soil mixture and seed bed preparation, potting of seedlings, and soil less nurseries for vegetable seedling production, etc.)
• Disease and pest management for vegetable nurseries
• Grafting technology in Mango and Guava
• Nursery management of quality planting material production for root and tuber crops
• Nutrient management of roots and tubers
• Paddy straw mushroom cultivation
• Innovative technology on horticulture

On the third day of the programme, farmers were taken on an exposure visit to the hi-tech nursery of Centre of Excellence, Deras, where they learned about growing vegetable seedlings on pro-trays by using coco peat. This process provides more germination and there are fewer pests and diseases. They also visited poly houses where they learned about the brinjal and bitter gourd cultivation process using technologies like drip irrigation, trellis, polythene mulching, and temperature maintenance with electric fans.

Farmers later visited the Regional Centre of Central Tuber Crop Research Institute (CTCRI) in Bhubaneswar, where they witnessed nursery field demonstrations and the processing unit for tuber crops. A visit to the ICAR-Central Horticultural Experiment Station (CHES) at Bhubaneswar was also organised to expose farmers to the creeper vegetable-growing using trellis method and grafting techniques of fruits-bearing plants. Farmers also visited the Orissa University of Agricultural Technology (OUAT), Bhubaneswar, the Horticulture Farm at Ekamrakanan, Bhubaneswar, and the Kalinga Mushroom Farm at Dandamukundapur, Pipili in Puri.

On the last day, all the participants appeared for an evaluation examination and received certificates.

The capacity building of farmers was organised under the project – Improving household dietary diversity of rural and tribal people though promotion of nutrition gardens in Koraput district of Odisha, and is funded by Government of Odisha under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).