New Delhi: India’s premier agri-research body ICAR has worked out a plan to motivate farmers of Arunachal Pradesh to take up large scale cultivation of highly lucrative walnuts.
The horticulture department of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) — in coordination with Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture (CITH), Srinagar and other ICAR research centres — has worked out a plan to make the state a large producer of stone fruit walnut in the country.
“There is huge potential of walnut production in Arunachal Pradesh. On experimental basis we are managing some orchards of walnut in districts of Tawang and West Kameng of the state. We are focusing on more mother walnut orchards to propagate walnut production in the state,” Nazeer Ahmed, Director, CITH, Srinagar (ICAR) said.
ICAR has also send a proposal for more funds for this project in the 12th Five Year Plan, he added.
According ICAR data, the state has 20,000 hectares of land suitable for walnut production.
Around 30,800 hectares is under walnut cultivation in the country, with the annual production at 36,000 tonnes.
Due to its versatile use in food, pharmaceutical and cottage industries, there is likely to be a huge demand for walnuts in the coming years.
CITH has also identified and developed four high yielding walnut varieties and also developed technologies for higher production.
Presently production of walnut in India is around 1.2 tonne per hectare which is very low in comparison to 3-5 tonne/hectare in advanced countries.
The high yielding varieties of walnut developed by CITH has been named as CITH-1, CITH-2, CITH-3, CITH-4 and CITH-5. All these varieties have been released for use among farmers.
India exports walnut to more than 40 nations with earnings of more than Rs 300 crores of foreign exchange annually.
The top importers of Indian walnut include Egypt, UK, China, Germany, France, Netherlands, UAE, Greece, US, Kuwait, Australia, Hong Kong and Spain.
The Indian walnut, being of a high quality kernel with good nuts, has tremendous potential even for exploiting as organic crop.
Within the country, most of the walnut plantations are of seedling origin with each plant being a genotype with tremendous variability owing to its out breeding nature.
It is grown mainly in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh. Jammu and Kashmir is a major walnut producing state contributing more than 85 per cent of total production of the country. (PTI)