Indigenous technology for soilless vegetable raising developed by PAU, Ludhiana.
Ludhiana, November 26, 2014: The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has successfully developed a low cost indigenous greenhouse hydroponics technology (soilless vegetable raising) for higher vegetable yields, and lower water and nutrient consumption. The technology has been developed using recirculation system on the pattern of USA and European countries. The Director of Research, PAU, Dr Balwinder Singh inaugurated this technology today in the research field of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr V. P. Sethi, Professor and Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PAU has been instrumental in designing and developing this indigenous technology under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) project. Dr Balwinder Singh congratulated Dr Sethi for developing such a useful and need based technology.
Dr Sethi informed that this technology has been developed within two years of continuous efforts and experimentation. In this method, plants are grown in suitable size pots (two plants per pot) filled with porous root media, having properties similar to soil. A balanced solution of water and nutrients is premixed in a dossier system and pumped to each plant intermittently in a controlled manner, thereby, enhancing the crop yield many times in much lesser space as compared to conventional soil based greenhouse/polyhouse cultivation. “Most importantly, use of this technology significantly lowers the cost of pesticides and nutrients apart from limiting the use of precious water (saves about 90% water),” he said. The main feature of this soilless technology is that it eliminates the problems of all soil borne pathogens, he highlighted.
At present, cucumber, tomato and capsicum crops, which have attained fruiting stage in less than six weeks time after transplanting, are being tested under this technology.
Dr Ashok Kumar, Additional Director of Research (Farm Mechanisation and Bio-energy), Dr R. K. Gumber, Additional Director of Research (Crop Improvement) and Dr. P. S. Chahal, former Associate Director of Research appreciated the efforts of Dr Sethi. Various heads of departments from the College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, PAU were also present on the occasion.
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Date:
Wednesday, November 26, 2014