In order to promote crop diversification, chairman of Punjab farmers' commission GS Kalkat visited Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), one of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU)'s training Centres, in village Rauni near Patiala, on Wednesday.
Kalkat said to conserve depleting groundwater of Punjab and to ensure remunerative price for other crops (except rice), maize and soybean are good diversification crops for the kharif season in the existing rice-wheat cropping system.
The centre has grown five acres of maize hybrids in kharif 2013, out of these hybrids, four hybrid seeds were from private sector whereas one was of PAU (PMH-1). The KVK has also grown three soybean varieties at its instructional farm.
"From sowing to harvesting, span of maize cultivation, dignitaries from state and central government have visited these field trails and appreciated the efforts of KVK scientists,"he said.
Kalkat said to help the maize cultivators, the state government has also set up state-of-the art maize dryer plant at Nawashaher grain market due to higher moisture content at the time of harvesting.
Apart from supervision of soybean trials farms, the team also visited variety trial of basmati. Kalkat said the state government had also launched an agriculture diversification mission under which out of 28-lakh hectares of paddy, 12-lakh hectares would be shifted to alternative crops like maize, sugarcane, pulses, soybean, cotton, basmati, fruits, vegetables and agro-forestry.
{{/usCountry}}Apart from supervision of soybean trials farms, the team also visited variety trial of basmati. Kalkat said the state government had also launched an agriculture diversification mission under which out of 28-lakh hectares of paddy, 12-lakh hectares would be shifted to alternative crops like maize, sugarcane, pulses, soybean, cotton, basmati, fruits, vegetables and agro-forestry.
{{/usCountry}}He was accompanied with SS Bains, member of farmer's commission, SS Gosal, director research and JS Chawla, in-charge maize section.