Punjab to set up Centre of Excellence for floriculture

Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 27

Come March next year, farmers in Punjab growing flowers or those intending to diversify will have an access to Dutch technologies pertaining to floriculture. To build capacity among farming community while leveraging technology and 

innovation, the state government in collaboration with Dutch government is coming up with a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for floriculture at Doraha in Ludhiana. 

This CoE has already been approved and sanctioned under National Horticulture Mission in the last fiscal year. The Centre would be established over an area of 7.5 acres with a total project cost of around Rs 8 crore. The project cost will be shared between the Centre and state in the 60:40 ratio. This will be the fourth CoE in the state. Currently, the state has CoE for vegetables (at Kartarpur), fruits (at Hoshiarpur) and Potato (at Jalandhar).

The proposed facility will standardise and demonstrate the world class floriculture technology to farmers. At present, around 1,700 hectares in the state are under floriculture. The major flower producing areas in Punjab are Ludhiana, Patiala, Kapurthala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Sangrur.

The state government is of the view that the proposed centre will go a long way in assisting farmers in diversifying.

“The CoE is likely to be operational by March next year. For setting up infrastructure such as polyhouse and cold chain facility, the tender has already been floated. The centre will focus on low volume and high-value flowers so that the farmers’ income grows by 2-3 times after diversifying into floriculture,” said Gulab Singh Gill, Joint Director, Horticulture, Punjab.

He said the centre would serve the purpose of quality planting material in the form of seedlings of flowers and other ornamentals.

Besides other infrastructure, the centre will have hi-tech nursery with automated irrigation system. According to people familiar with the project, quality planting material will be produced to meet demands of the farmers. In addition to this, there would be hi-tech polyhouse having Dutch technologies with automated climate control, irrigation and fertigation system.

The production technologies of four crops, namely, rose, gerbera, chrysanthemum and carnation will be standardised in this structure in a controlled atmosphere.

Apart from Dutch polyhouse, naturally ventilated polyhouse, shade net house, net house and walk-in-tunnels will be established for demonstration of filler crops, cut greens and potted plants.

The centre will also have post-harvest management facilities. Further, to standardise temperature and humidity level required to increase the shelf life of different flowers, a pack house having pre-cooling room and cold room with a capacity of 2.5 MT and 5 MT will be set up.

Besides Punjab, Haryana also has a Centre of Excellence for vegetables in Karnal and for fruits in Sirsa under Indo-Israel project. In Haryana, proper implementation and adaptation of Israeli technologies have benefitted thousands of farmers in the state, resulting in rise in their incomes.