Horticulture Board assesses Nauni varsity station for accreditation

A team of the National Horticulture Board (NHB) visited the Regional Horticultural Research and Training Station (RHRTS), Dhaula Kuan, of Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, on Thursday to assess various parameters to grant accreditation to its nursery.

The team, headed by Dr YC Gupta, Consultant-cum-Chairman, included Dr SK Chaurasia, Deputy Director, NHB, Shimla; Dr Raj Kumar, Deputy Director Agriculture, Nahan; Dr Shiwali Dhiman, Subject Matter Specialist; and other NHB representatives.

Priyanka Thakur, Associate Director of the RHRTS Dhaula Kuan, along with Dr Shilpa, Assistant Professor (Fruit Science), guided the team through inspections of the nursery units and mother blocks of major fruit crops, including mango, litchi, guava, citrus, fig, sapota, pomegranate, ber, phalsa, karonda, loquat and jamun.

Spread over 5.66 hectares, the centre serves as a crucial resource for the farming community. Its facilities include 10,000 sq. m of nursery production area, polyhouses, working sheds and a dedicated litchi mother block. An additional 40,066 sq. m is under mother blocks of kinnow, mango, guava, citrus, dragon fruit, fig, phalsa, karonda, aonla, sapota and pomegranate.

Over the past decade, the centre has supplied lakhs of certified nursery plants to farmers within Himachal Pradesh and neighbouring states. It specialises in producing high-quality planting material using both in-soil and polybag production technologies. This year, 23,102 nursery plants of various crops are being raised to ensure year-round availability, ready for direct field transplantation after polybag removal.

The team also reviewed ongoing research activities. RHRTS Dhaulakuan maintains rich varietal diversity, including 23 citrus varieties, 15 mango varieties, five litchi varieties and several varieties of guava, fig, pomegranate, ‘jamun’ and ‘sapota’.