Over 500 farmers trained in Kota to promote Raj Oranges

More than 500 farmers have been trained by the Centre of Excellence for Citrus Fruits here which is working for plant development and orchard management under an Indo-Israel initiative.
The state-of-the-art centre for plant development and orchard management located on Nanta road aims to give a boost to cultivation of citrus fruits in the state and is working for the development of 24 varieties.
"Over 500 farmers from the Hadauti region have been trained at the centre in over two years. We are developing 24 varieties of citrus fruits which include Clementine, Michale Daisy, Kinnow, Nagpur Mandarin, Nagpur Seedless, Jaffa, among others," Rashid Khan, Deputy Director of the Horticulture Centre of Excellence for Citrus-Kota, said.

The farmers were made aware and trained on the intensive horticulture technologies, post-harvest and value additional technologies, fertigation, canopy management and irrigation management techniques in the centre which was set up in 2014-15.
"We are developing disease-free healthy saplings here for distribution to farmers on subsidised rates. Drip and ridge bed system, fertigation and other Israel technologies are being used in the Centre," he said.
Khan informed that maintenance of the plants through Israeli technology increases input cost by 10-15 per cent and the profit of farmers may goes up to nearly 30-35 per cent.

"We have primary and secondary nurseries where the plants are developed and kept before we give it to the farmers for Rs 50 (each sapling). The saplings are first grown at the primary nursery and shifted to secondary nursery.

"Farmers can get full commercial fruiting after five to six years and one plant can survive up to 24-25 years depending upon the maintenance," he said.
He said that the centre has close to 65,000 plants of 12 varieties ready with it.
Spread over 6.8 acres, the centre set up with the assistance of Israel was inaugurated in April last year which has the primary objective of developing citrus fruit saplings.
The Hadoti region comprising of Kota-Jhalawar and nearby area has favourable conditions for the cultivation of citrus fruits. Jhalawar is know as the Nagpur of Rajasthan because of its orange production.

Principal Secretary- Agriculture, Neelkamal Darbari said that in the forthcoming Global Rajasthan Agritech Meet (GRAM) in Kota later this month, the centre will be drawing attention for the "yeoman service" it is providing to the citrus fruit industry of the region.
"Potential of post-harvest processing projects will be explored by the investors at GRAM from 24-26 May at Kota.
"The centre has proved to be a boon for the region considering that the citrus production of fruits is its strength. The climate is suitable for orange orchards. Kota division is contributing 98 per cent of the state produce in terms of 'Nagpur Orange'.

"While majority of oranges produced here are of Nagpur variety, there is a scope of introduction of new varieties of oranges like Jaffa, Valencia and Daisy," Vijay Pal Singh, Director of Horticulture department said.
The Centre of Excellence for Citrus Fruits, Kota was set up as an Indo-Israel work plan under National Horticulture Mission.