The new seed bowl of Telangana

Endowed with favourable agro-climatic conditions and soil, Aswaraopeta emerges as a hub of horticulture crops mainly mango, oil palm and cashew over the years.

April 21, 2015 11:17 am | Updated May 23, 2016 04:51 pm IST - KHAMMAM:

The horticulture hub of Aswaraopeta has positioned itself at the forefront of cultivation of horticultural crops and production of quality seedlings of various fruit crops in the entire Telangana State.

Endowed with favourable agro-climatic conditions and soil, the tribal sub-plan mandal emerged as a hub of horticulture crops mainly mango, oil palm and cashew over the years.

The mandal, which is home to reputed institutions such as Horticulture Research Station, Coconut Seed Garden and Oil Palm Processing unit, is poised to play a vital role in realising the Telangana government’s ambitious plan of making Telangana State a “seed bowl” of India.

There are around 200 private horticulture nurseries located across the mandal. The private nurseries as well as the seed gardens of the Government Departments and agencies concerned earned wide reputation for supply of quality seedlings of different horticultural crops.

Farmers from not only the entire Telangana but also from the neighbouring States flock to Aswaraopet to procure the mango grafts, oil palm and coconut seedlings.

The coconut seed garden spread in 49 acres in Aswaraopeta is one of the prized possessions of the district.

It won wide accolades for raising quality seedlings of hybrid coconut varieties such as Chowghat Orange Dwarf (COD) and Malayan Orange, Green and Yellow Dwarfs.

The coconut seed garden is not only serving the needs of coconut farmers by supplying them quality seedlings on subsidy but also helping the Horticulture Department officials and owners of nurseries in enriching their knowledge base, says K. Suryanarayana, Assistant Director, Horticulture-II, Khammam.

A team from the Coconut Development Board of Assam had procured 12,000 hybrid coconut seed nuts from the seed garden in Aswaraopet recently. The garden has earned wide acclaim for its seed nuts and seedlings among the farmers of the State as well as the neighbouring States, he remarks.

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