Promotion of walnut cultivation in India – Enhancing income and improving livelihood of farmers

 

1. Title / Name of Technology : Promotion of  walnut  cultivation in India – Enhancing income and improving livelihood of farmers 
2. Situation analysis/ Problem statement: Walnut (Juglans regia L.) is one of the important nut crops of temperate region. There is a tremendous scope for its commercial cultivation in entire Himalayan region. The elevation of 1200 to 2200 m is considered congenial for walnut cultivation but can be taken up even beyond this limit offering more scope for area expansion. The total area under walnut cultivation is 109 thousand ha with 300 thousand MT production in India. The Jammu & Kashmir leads both in area (85620 ha) and production (275450 MT) in India. Although it is grown in many countries but the demand of walnut has increased manifold during last few decades because of its health benefits. The old scattered plantations of walnut are mostly of seedling origin and are of non-descriptive nature. Little attention was given in earlier time for promotion of this crop and only few organizations worked systematically on this crop. Due to continuous efforts and awareness created for promotion of walnut production in India from last decades, systematic plantation of walnut with standard cultivars is now coming up. The major problem in walnut is non-availability of quality planting material of standard cultivars for increasing its area and production which in turn will boost the productivity of quality walnuts. 
3. Description of Technology/ Interventions: ICAR-CITH, Srinagar has taken a lead in walnut research and selected many elite genotypes, out of which 10 selections were released and some more will be released in the coming years. These cultivars have better nut size, thin shelled, better kernel size, better & easy kernel recovery and acceptable kernel colour. The multiplication of these cultivars has been taken up on a large scale by the Institute for supply to stakeholders/farmers to boost walnut production in the country. But the increasing demand of planting material could not be fulfilled by a single institute and many organizations have to initiate the multiplication of standard varieties. The scion wood of these varieties is still a constraint and ICAR- CITH, Srinagar has emphasized from initiation for establishment of mother blocks of these varieties in state departments, agricultural universities, private nurseries and farmers field. 

4. Impact, outcome of technology adoption/ intervention: The walnut crop has long juvenile period and comes into commercial bearing after 10 to 15 years.In last decade, ICAR-CITH, Srinagar has supplied on average about 5-7 thousand plants per year to various stake holders in different states. The planting material have been supplied to different states like J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Tamil Nadu. The varieties have fruited in different states and now it is the time for its mega scale multiplication.  Besides these, number of programmes were organized for popularization of various production technologies especially planting material production. The mega change in production of quality walnut & its impact of these varieties can be seen in future. ICAR-CITH, Srinagar has supplied 69156 plants covering an area of 445 ha till March 2020. More impact of quality walnut production can be seen in future in Uttarakhand with sharp increase in area and production.  The detail of planting material supplied to different states is shown below:

Date Of Success Stories: 26 Oct 2020