Sri Vijaya Puram, Oct. 24: As a part of the study tour of the five days Annual Community Living Camp-2024 of the Tagore Government College of Education, Sri Vijaya Puram, 91 teacher trainees of along with six teachers visited the campus of ICAR-CIARI on October 23, 2024. The trainees were taken to the Horticultural Plants Propagation Unit of the Institute, wherein they were made aware about the native horticultural genetic resources of the Bay Islands and various efforts made by the institute to conserve and sustainably utilize the diversity.
The trainees took keen interest in learning about potential crops of the islands mainly woody pepper, Andaman Kokum, blood fruit, etc. apart from the exotic minor fruit crops. The mechanism of manipulating micro climate inside the polyhouse was also explained to them apart from demonstration of various technologies such as cultivation of woody pepper in protected structure, potted cultivation of West Indian Cherry, air layering and grafting operations, lemongrass cultivation, methods to identify good quality spices and field distillation unit. The trainees were also briefed about the micro-plot facility and Nakshatra Garden of the Institute. The visit was coordinated by Dr. Ajit Arun Waman, Senior Scientist, ICAR-CIARI.