Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Project at HNRDI, Pune

Jan 2002, I joined Mumbai based NGO Health Naturally R & D Institute (HNRDI) as a Project Co-ordinator for Medicinal & Aromatic Plant: Cultivation & Conservation project, sponsored by Ministry of Health & Family welfare (GoI). The Project Farm is situated on the bank of Warasgaon Dam (Near Panshet Pune).

Major activities :

1. Total 43 species identified from Sahyadri range.

2. Cutivation centres started at three different locations a. own farm, b. Deshmukhwadi, c. Goradwadi.

3. Well equipped nursery with capacity of 2 lacs sapling per annum.

4. Herbal garden at farm & Harbal Kitchen garden project for poor communities for self help.

5. Seed bank

6. Develop processing yard for finished produce. Processing activities for sorting, grading, drying, pulverizing and packaging.

Arial view of the farm (range of Sahyadri Hills) : The best infrastructure in such a remote area

This is my first agro-farming project were immediate task was Land development (i.e. Plotting by contouring the land). : It was 45 degree slop & successfully done with JCB

Small project, small team, small ideas, but... BIG INNOVATION

Protected nursery for conservation and multiplication of endangered species.

Nursery having capacity of producing 2 lacs saplings per annum

Its herbal garden of Turmeric- Ambehalad (Curcuma amada )

Lemon grass (Cymbopogon Citratus) : Mother block

Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus)

Training program for identification of endangered species and its conservation practices

Visit of Pawari Madam (Tata foundation) & Dr Jitendra Arya (Chairman , HNRDI) to the centre.

--------------for more details visit www.drarya.com -------

Bottle gourd Farming

Budhani (Hoshangabad MP) ..... it was winter of 2008, we planned for growing Bottlegourd on 5 acres area. The selected land was fallow since last 5 years. There were lot of weeds and wild bushes grown naturally. Beside the land there was a dence forest with range of insect habitate. We started cleaning of land, levelled it and prepared for sowing. We put about 10 MT of Vermicompost and prepared wide ridges of 1 m width , 20 cm height and about 150 m long. After that we put online drip system (drippers of 8 lph at 6 ft distance). .. and the rest things are here in this video...