Facility for indigenisation of tulips set up at Lodhi Garden in Delhi

The two-room facility comprises a cold storage chamber with the capacity to store around 50,000 tulip bulbs in controlled temperatures

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) unveiled its first tulip growth-cum-storage-chamber facility — Tulip House — at Lodhi Garden on Tuesday, where the civic body has cultivated tulips with bulbs harvested from last year’s cycle, officials aware of the matter said.

Flowers begin to bloom at the tulip chamber. (Vipin Kumar/ HT Photo)

Civic officials said that the harvested bulbs can be propagated in a controlled environment by altering relative humidity, temperature (2-20 degrees Celsius), light, and exposure to ethylene. “We decided to initiate research and trials for tulip bulb multiplication and production in India to promote indigenous bulb use and less dependence on imported bulbs,” an NDMC official said.

Another senior NDMC official from the horticulture wing said that around 54,000 bulbs were harvested from the NDMC area after tulips bloomed in February-March 2023 out of which 52,000 were sent to the research institute at Palampur for recultivation while about 2,000 bulbs of 8-10cm size were stored in a chamber for three months followed by other procedures.

The two-room facility comprises a cold storage chamber with the capacity to store around 50,000 tulip bulbs in controlled temperatures varying between 2-20°C. The second room is the tulip propagation chamber with a capacity to grow around 2,000 bulbs which can be raised to 4,000 bulbs in a temperature-controlled environment of 10-22°C.

“Around 2,000 bulbs were harvested from the NDMC area after tulips bloomed in February-March. They were stored in the chamber till July and then kept at a low temperature of 5-6°C for 10 weeks till the first week of October. The bulbs were then put in the production chain by sowing them in the growth chamber to increase their size to at least 10cm,” the official said.

NDMC claimed they achieved more than 70% survival rate in the facility which is more advanced than its three high-tech nurseries. However, the size of the flowers from reused bulbs is relatively smaller and the department is still working on improving the nutrition levels to increase the overall flower size.

“Lieutenant governor VK Saxena during his various visits to tulip plantations last winter stressed exploring ways to ensure indigenous seeding and production of tulip saplings to not only reduce import costs and augment their availability but also give a boost to the local floriculture Industry,” the second official said.

The council started the development work on the tulip house in April 2023 after taking inputs from the LG secretariat, scientists from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology.

NDMC has also entered an agreement with CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (CSIR-IHBT) Palampur, to transfer 52,000 harvested bulbs while 2,000 bulbs have been stored in Lodhi Garden for experimentation. The results from the Palampur institute are still awaited.

Officials said that the key reason behind the high survival rate may have been controlling the exposure to ethylene which leads to bulb degradation.

The first lot of tulips started blooming in the propagation chamber on November 1. “Since the trial is to get bulbs of proper size, flowers will need to be pruned. The initial results are positive. NDMC has been able to achieve good flowering from last year’s imported bulbs,” the second official added.

The council has imported around 300,000 tulip bulbs for the upcoming winter out of which 200,000 bulbs will be used in the New Delhi area while 100,000 bulbs will be handed over to the Delhi Development Authority. Each bulb costs ₹26. “One bulb can be used for two to three cycles. If the experiment is successful, we will be able to reduce the import costs,” the official said.