Bulbs of flowers from Holland now being grown in Uttarakhand

Nainital, Apr 7 (ANI): Bulbs of flowers, which were earlier imported from Holland, are now being grown in Uttarakhand.

The Indo Dutch Horticulture Technology Private Limited in Nainital along with the Uttarakhand Government is implementing this project first time in India.

Through the process of tissue culture with multiple techniques, millions of bacteria free Gentidiria plants are grown.

"The basic benefit of this system is that all are disease free plants. They multiply at a fast speed so that if within a year, we can meet the demand for ten lakh plants easily. If it had been in fields, we wouldn't have made even one lakh of them," said Dr. Shailendra Kumar, a tissue culture expert.

The Uttarakhand Government has installed a processing unit at the SIDCUL Florist Park in Nanital for growing these flower bulbs.

According to Sudhir Chaddha, the director of Indo-Dutch Horticulture Technology Private Limited, poor farmers of India can now afford to buy these seeds at low prices and can receive the training of growing the flower seeds.

"I feel that in this first initiative of such a big project, almost twenty to thirty million which means almost three crore bulbs would be made. Therefore, this will substitute the imports. We will be able to stop the imports of these bulbs to a maximum extent. Indian money will not go out. This would be beneficial for our farmers as whenever they would need the seeds, they can come here, get their training as well as the seeds," said Chaddha.

Floriculture in India is being viewed as a high growth Industry. Uttarakhand has a suitable environment for floriculture and it is also emerging as an industry in the state.

Holland flowers have a large market in different countries of the world. Holland exports its flower bulbs to almost every country. By Vipul Goel (ANI)