ISLAMABAD: Eminent rise of early seedling in tunnels and tubes has been observed among the vegetable farmers in Upper Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to gain early market rates of summer vegetables.
Talking to APP on Friday, vegetable leader of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) Dr Ghullam Jellani said the council introduced early seedling method of vegetable farming in 2011 in upper Punjab and KP that trend spiraled among the farmers.
He said summer season kicked off early in Sindh province that provided an opportunity to grow vegetables early, whereas framers of Potohar and KP region had to wait for rise in temperature which marred their chances to benefit early market rates.
“Early seedling method has been introduced to facilitate the farmers by germination of vegetables seeds at low temperature. Tubes, tunnels, and disposable glasses are used for early vegetation that prepare seedling of vegetables 30 to 60 days earlier that makes the farmers able to prepare crop in time matching their pace with Sindh province”, the official said.
A vegetable grower of Rawalpindi said early seedling experiment of cucumber, ridge gourd, marrow, mint gourd and pumpkin in Potohar region was successful as the method was much cheaper than vegetable incubation and produced crops by the end of April.
“Seeds of cucumber, ridge gourd and pumpkin germinated in March as said vegetables take only 30 days for early seedling in glasses, whereas seeds of cauliflower and mint gourd germinated by the end of January that requires 50 to 60 days for preparation in tunnels,” he said.
Another farmer of KP said vegetable growers were unable to acquire market rates of early crops prior to early seedling method that provided marked profit to farmers and fulfilled demand of summer vegetables.
“Rising trend of early seedling at micro farming has enhanced the availability period of fresh vegetables in the market,” he added.
Talking about the benefits of early seedling, a vegetable seller said, vegetable markets of Potohar region were forced to buy Sindhi vegetables in the month of April that had higher prices few years back, but now summer vegetables were available with the onset of summer in reasonable prices amid early seedling method.
“Bringing vegetables from Sindh province nor only incurs heavy expense, but also takes 3 to 4 days which effects the quality of vegetables,” he expressed.
