Horticulture is a sun rise sector in Indian agriculture. The horticultural crops and associated commodities comprising of fruit and plantation crops, vegetables, tuber crops, flowers and other ornamental plants, spices, medicinal and aromatic plants, mushrooms, honey etc. have vast potential in augmenting agricultural production for nutritional security in the pre-dominantly vegetarian society and generating export surplus.
Horticultural crops have vast diversity in their adaptation, seasonal production, uses and variety of ecosystem services for sustainability in long run. Horticulture Sector has potential for generating variety of employment options for increasing income of stakeholders and creating sound ecology for holistic development of landscape across countryside. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi through its Institutes in collaboration of the State Agricultural Universities and a few other institutions has been spearheading the R&D in horticulture to provide technology driven support to the farmers and other stakeholders for sustainable development. In this drive, forty varieties of different horticultural crops identified by different institutes are proposed to be unveiled for farmers by the Honourable Prime Minister of India for cultivation in various agroclimatic regions of the country under climate change situations.
These varieties include eight of fruit crops comprising of three in mango (Arka Uday, Ambika & Arunika), two in guava (Lalit & Arka Kiran) and one each of bael (Swarna Vasudha) and pomegranate (Solapur Anardana). These fruit crop varieties are climate resilient, with superior quality and useful for processing. In plantation crops, six varieties comprising of two each in coconut (Kalp Suvarna & Kalpa Shatabdi), cashew (Nethra Jumbo-1 & Nethra Ganga) and cocoa (Vittal Cocoa Hybrid-1 & 2) are being dedicated. These varieties are drought tolerant or amenable to rainfed production with higher productivity and specific quality traits.
There are 11 varieties of vegetable crops such as three in potato (Kufri Chipsona-5, KufriJamuniya and Kufri Bhaskar), two each of sem (Kashi Bouni Sem-207 & Arka Vistar) and tomato (Pusa Shakti & Pusa Hybrid Tomato-6) and one each of bottle gourd (Kashi Shubhra), okra (Arka Nikita), muskmelon (Thar Mahima) and water melon (Thar Tripti). These vegetable varieties have higher productivity (tomato & potato), resistance to multiple diseases (tomato, okra, watermelon), tolerant to high temperature (sem and potato) and for processing (potato).
A total of six varieties of spices such as two in small cardamom (IISR Manushree & IISR Kaveri), one each in nutmeg (Kerala Sree), fennel (RF-290), ajwain (Gujarat Ajwain 3) and aam ginger (IISR Amrit). These spice crop varieties have higher productivity, drought tolerance and improved quality (nutraceutical compounds) traits. Flowers and medicinal plants include two each in gladiolus (Arka Amar &Arka Aayush) and velevt bean (Arka Dhanvantari & Arka Daksh) and one each in marigold (Pusa Bahar), tuberose(Arka Vaibhav), crossandra (ArkaShreeya), ashwagandha (Arka Ashwagandha) and mandukparni (Arka Prabhavi). These varieties of flowers and medicinal plants have higher productivity, tolerance to important pests and diseases or higher active medicinal compounds. The ICAR has made systematic plans for large-scale production of seed and quality plants of these varieties for farmers and other stakeholders for the larger benefit of horticulture sector and society. To make the outcome of R&D on these varieties more meaningful, a well thought out strategy is afoot on large scale trainings and demonstrations of location-specific production, post-harvest handling and processing technologies to stakeholders including licensing for commercialization. It is expected that varieties dedicated by the Honourable Prime Minister of India to farmers will pave way for input saving, enhancing productivity of horticultural crops and profitability of stakeholders during Amrit Kaal of India.