New Delhi, 26 October, 2012: The Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Fruits in Mangiana, near Sirsa, Haryana, will host the first citrus cluster seminar on Sunday, for 20 representatives from CoEs from four states across India. As part of the Indo-Israel cooperation in Agriculture Agreement, citrus experts from Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, will come together in Mangiana to share interstate knowledge and experience, along with acquiring Israeli knowhow and technologies in citrus growing. These include modern nursery procedures, modern production of seedlings, young plant pruning and shaping, fertigation, tree spacing regime and ridge planting.

 

The seminar participants will also observe first-hand citrus varieties from Israel which were introduced and planted in the Mangiana Centre, such as the world famous Jaffa orange, the Michal easy peeler, the late harvested Valencia and the early harvested Newhall oranges. These proven varieties have been successfully grown in Israel and exported around the world, and have become a symbol of Israeli agricultural excellence. They are expected to diversify the citrus varieties grown in India, significantly expand the orange harvest period in India from October to May and thereby substantially increase the farmers’ income and decrease the need to import citrus fruits from abroad.

 

The citrus Seminar will be hosted by Dr. Satyavir Singh, Director General Horticulture & Dr. Arjun Singh Saini, Additional Director Horticulture, Dept. Of Horticulture, Government of Haryana. The workshops will be lead by one of Israel’s leading citrus experts, Mr. Dov Rabber, together with the Indo-Israel citrus cluster head, Dr. Dewanand Panchbhai, Professor of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Nagpur University.

 

Mr. Uri Rubinstein, Agriculture Counselor in the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi, a citrus grower himself who will also take part in the seminar, said that this is a promising start for cooperation between agriculture experts from different states across India who are involved in the Indo-Israel agriculture cooperation program. “Our purpose is not only to share Israeli knowledge with our counterparts in India, but also to make sure that this knowledge is shared and discussed between experts from the different States, and successfully implemented by farmers across India”, Rubinstein added.