Self-reliant: CSIR-IIIM to grow tulip bulbs in Pulwama

Pulwama: In a major breakthrough step to reduce India’s dependence on tulip bulb imports, the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM), Jammu, has been able to cultivate tulips in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. This is a tremendous achievement in the floriculture sector of the country. Credit should be given to CSIR-IIIM for making us self-reliant in the floriculture sector. Earlier, tulip bulbs were imported from the Netherlands and other nations.

The tulip garden of Srinagar is famous across the world for its dazzling beauty, which is difficult to describe in words, attracting local and overseas tourists. With the development of the new Tulip Garden-cum-Experimental Field at Bonera, the dual effort of CSIR-IIIM has been working relentlessly to make Jammu and Kashmir a hub for the production of tulip bulbs. The project got underway in 2022 with just 10,000 bulbs, and currently, it is growing above one lakh bulbs, growing over 12 kanals of land.

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Dr. Zabeer Ahmed, Director of CSIR-IIIM, said that eight varieties of tulips are being studied at Bonera. Scientists have left no stone unturned to grow local tulip bulbs. The sole purpose of this effort is to decrease tulip bulb imports, creating better opportunities for Indian farmers to enhance their incomes.

The CSIR Floriculture Mission stresses growing quality flowers across the valley, deploying all the modern methods, and bringing better processing units after harvesting. The Bonera Tulip Garden was recently opened to the public and got a tremendous response on the part of visitors, showing a prosperous future for local tulip growers and creating rural job opportunities as well.