JAMMU: Director Horticulture Jammu Gul Sayed today conducted an extensive tour of Samba district.

During the tour, he visited Government Fruit Plant Nursery, Vijaypur wherein he planted a sapling of Mango plant. He inspected Mother block of Dragon fruit, an exotic fruit plant, established under the component "Production of Designer Plants" of HADP as well as protected cultivation structure having micro- irrigation facilities. The Director took stock of the ongoing developmental activities in the nursery and gave on spot instructions to the nursery staff regarding the production of quality grafted planting material in the nursery. He also emphasized on introduction of new cultivars of fruit plants and opening of fruit plants sale outlet in the nursery.

While inspecting the nursery, he appreciated fruiting in the experimental mother block of Date Palm which was established during the year 2020-21 and came into bearing. This nursery is catering the requirement of sub-tropical fruit plants of the farmers of Jammu province to a greater extent.

Further, the officers were instructed to get soil testing of orchard of every farmer so that a balanced dose of fertilizer may be applied in the orchards for better productivity and also asked to issue advisory on plant protection measures to be taken in the orchards for production of quality fruit.

Further, the Director inspected naturally ventilated Poly House structure at Sarore established under HADP by Navneet Sharma, who after rendering 25 years in financial sector has become a Horticulture Entrepreneur.

Meanwhile, Director inspected various projects viz: dragon fruit orchard at Ramgarh and mango orchard at Gupwal. The Director also had an interaction with the farmers and urged them to come forward and avail the benefits of various schemes of the department especially HADP and Revised Modified High Density Plantation Scheme.

He was accompanied by Chief Horticulture Officer Samba Sh. Anil Gorkha, DL Subject Matter Specialist Raivati Raman Sharma, HDO Vijay Kumar and other officials of the department.