Gadchiroli, July 20 (District Correspondent) Gadchiroli district is no longer known only as a ‘steel hub’ created due to mineral resources, but is also moving towards becoming an ‘orchard hub’ that promotes environmental -friendly and sustainable agriculture. Against this backdrop, District Superintendent of Agriculture Officer Ms. Preeti Hiralkar recently visited the government fruit nursery set up in 10 hectares in the remote Kasansur area of Etapalli taluka and took a detailed review.
For the last three years, the initiative to produce seedlings of fruit crops such as cashew, mango, chiku, guava, custard apple, tamarind etc. has been successfully implemented in this nursery. Notably, cashew cultivation has been expanded to 608 hectares in Etapalli, Aheri, Bhamragad and Sironcha talukas by the Agriculture Department in collaboration with the Directorate of Cashew and Cocoa, Kerala.
The climate in Aheri subdivision is hot and humid like Konkan, and is suitable for orchard cultivation. However, due to the lack of means of transportation and communication facilities in remote areas, the farmers here mainly depended on paddy cultivation. Now, due to the efforts of the Agriculture Department, farmers are seen turning to various orchard crops as well as crops like gram, tur, sesame and cotton on the embankment.
A mother tree garden of cashew varieties Vengurla-4, 7 and 9 was established in Kasansur Nursery three years ago, and a mother tree garden of Keshar mango will also be developed soon. Therefore, Gadchiroli district is likely to be known as a ‘cashew-mango-chiku hub’ in the future.
In this context, Ms. Hiralkar inspected the entire premises of the nursery and directed to prepare a plan including the necessary items for future development. This plan aims to make the nursery ideal by including fencing, repair of the training centre, shade net, plastic tunnel, solar energy-based power generation unit, etc.
