Bhubaneswar, March 2: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today inaugurated a centre of excellence on horticulture near Deras on the city outskirts.

Built on 25 acres with Rs 18-crore assistance from Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the centre will focus on producing quality planting materials of horticulture crops.

There centre has five poly-greenhouses, 24 poly-tunnel houses and seven net houses for production of various high-yielding varieties of vegetables and flowers. The protected structures have special facilities to reduce temperature to as low as 6°C for off-season vegetable cultivation.

Similarly, several irrigation facilities, such as drip, micro and boom, have been installed according to requirements for various crops.

An official in the horticulture directorate said the greenhouses would protect seedlings from environmental stress along with ensuring good germination and higher productivity.

“One automatic seedling machine with arrangements for sowing five lakh seedlings a month has been installed at the centre,” said horticulture director S.K. Chadha. He also added that the facility would act as a training centre for farmers and entrepreneurs.

Besides cultivation of vegetables including brinjal, tomato, capsicum, chillies and cucumber, the centre would also cultivate various flowers, including rose, gerbera, lilium, gladiolus and marigold. The centre has been set up with latest technologies from Israel and the directorate of horticulture would manage it.

Another official of the horticulture directorate said a weather station would be set up to record local weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind velocity, required for crop production under protected condition.

According to official statistics, the state has more than 40 lakh hectares of high and medium land conducive for cultivation of horticultural crops. But, only seven-lakh hectares is used for vegetable cultivation, while flowers are cultivated on 7,500 hectares. The main difficulty is lack of awareness regarding the use of technology needed for cultivation of horticultural crops.

“Our farmers need to adopt modern technologies to increase their yield. Horticultural crops can give encouraging returns to the farmer. So, the new centre would help our farmers in adopting the modern technologies,” said an official.