Financial Commissioner Agriculture, Mr Pramod Jain today reviewed the functioning of Seed Multiplication Farm, Chinore during his visit to the border area and inspected the field condition of wheat, toria, oats, gram, mustard and potato seed crop.He advised the staff of the farm that there is still much scope to boost production and productivity through implementation of latest farm production techniques.Mr Jain also inspected the latest machinery being used at the farm like combines, seed drills, trans-planters, multi-crop-threshers, tractors, potato planters, ridgers, offsets etc. and said that efficient use of the machinery should be ensured.He directed the Farm staff to prepare a proper plan for running the farm on modern scientific lines with utilization of latest machinery and available technologies to produce best quality seeds for the farmers.He further asked the farm staff to bring every inch of the land including cultivable waste land of the farm under cultivation through micro-irrigation and improved systems. He stressed to take all steps to prevent encroachment and trespassing of the farm land by unscrupulous elements. He impressed upon the officers to review the functioning of the farms periodically to identify the gaps and to bring innovations and improvements for enhancement of production and productivity.
Director Agriculture, Jammu Mr Ashok Malhotra, who accompanied the Financial Commissioner, apprised him of the developments made in the quality seed production of crops at the Farm despite being located at vulnerable international border and having limitations of irrigation facilities. It was informed that the farm is spread over an area of 2586 acres out of which 300 acres is irrigated. He also informed that the farm is running in profit for the last few years with the introduction of the scientific management interventions and use of better technologies including line sowing through Seed-cum-fertilizer Drills, Paddy Transplanters, plant protection measures and harvesting of crops by Combines.He apprised him that foundation and breeder seed 14 high quality elite and high yielding varieties of wheat, 5 of oats & barseem, 4 of mustard and 6 varieties of pulses are being multiplied at the farm in the current Rabi season in an area of 2265 acres for multiplication and supply to the farmers during next rabi season.Narender Mishra, Farm Manager, SMF, Chinore apprised that the latest breeder seed varieties among these for wheat are PBW-644, DBW-71, PBW-621-50, HS-240, WH-102, Raj-4083 and for mustard are RB-50, RSPN-25 and DGS-1. The breeder seed of wheat Shalimar-1, Shalimar-2 and Oats variety Subzar received from SKUAST-Kashmir is also being grown at the farm during current rabi crops.