ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru organised an off-campus capacity building training programme on “Advances in ICAR-IIHR Technologies for the beneficiaries of SCSP Project at Botanical Garden, Puducherry UT on 30th June,2023 to create awareness about recent ICAR-IIHR technologies and also ICAR-IIHR input distribution to the beneficiaries of SCSP project. The programme started with welcome address by Mr. N.K.Shanmugavelu, Deputy Director of Horticulture followed by Chief guest address delivered by Dr. B.Ramakichenin @Balagandhi, Director of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt of Puducherry, Botanical Garden, Puducherry.
Afterwards, Dr. V.Sankar and Dr. R. Senthil Kumar, Principal Scientists of ICAR-IIHR,Bnegalore explained about various ICAR-IIHR technologies in fruits, vegetables and flowers crops and interacted with farmers and cleared their doubts. At the end of technical session, ICAR-IIHR developed fruit plants (Mango, Guava, Avocado, Custard apple,) flower crops (Crossandra ,tube rose and gladiolus ) and cover crops mucuna seeds were distributed to the all the SC beneficiaries of Puducherry state. Scientists also emphasized the Horticulture Department Officials of Puducherry to take up demonstration of ICAR-IIHR released varieties and hybrids of fruits, vegetables and flowers and also urged to make use of IIHR seed portal for purchase of seeds and planting materials required for respective region. The participants expressed their satisfaction about conduct of the training and opined that the programme was very much useful in updating their knowledge pertaining to advances in various vegetable, fruit and flower crops technologies developed by ICAR-IIHR which will be useful for their own state. About 90 beneficiaries attended this capacity building program along with 09 officials from Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Puducherry, which was coordinated by Dr. V.Sankar and Dr.R. Senthil Kumar.