Whirwind cattle mow down SKUAST saplings, scientists' labour

Whirwind cattle mow down SKUAST saplings, scientists' labour
PRADEEP DUTTA

JAMMU, JULY 15: It took only a few hours to ruin years of hard work. More than hundred varieties of saplings were mowed down, to the dismay of researchers who had been working on them for the past many years.

The nursery of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) at R S Pura, about 20 kms from here was destroyed by the cattle accompanying the border migrants who had forcibly occupied the university campus few days ago.

The border villagers had grabbed the SKUAST premises in protest against the Government's ``dilly-dallying'' on its earlier promise of providing land at an alternate site. These villagers have been facing hordes of problems due to intermittent firing by the Pakistani troops during the past two years.

As they pitched camps on SKUAST lawns, the villagers' cattle had a field day feeding on everything that came their way, including plants meant for research. The angry villagers did not realise their cattle were not only undoing the hard work and toil of SKUAST researchers but also, indirectly, inflicting heavy losses on their own farmer community.

It was only after a lot of resentment from R S Pura locals and assurances by the authorities that the protestors headed homewards.

However, it was too late by then; the damage was done. ``Had they stayed put for another couple of days, everything in the university farm would have perished,'' said an agronomist.

The scientists and researchers at SKUAST have expressed their concern over the extensive damage to plant seedlings. `` It is through this university farm that the Agriculture Department procures good variety of rice seeds. This is later distributed among peasants for sowing,'' explained Kuldeep Singh, a plant breeder.

When contacted, B D Gupta, chief scientist SKUAST, said at present it is not easy for them to assess the loss because they are yet to verify how many varieties have been uprooted and in how many of them only foliage has been grazed. ``But some of the rice varieties that have been destroyed include IT 410, PC 19 and Basmati 370,'' Gupta said.

Another plant breeder said even if only foliage has been eaten up, it would still take another 7-8 weeks to transplant, thus delaying the sowing of seeds.

A scientist in rice plant breeding, C L Raina, said it is not right to assess the loss only in terms of plants destroyed. ``Saplings can be grown again, but what about the varieties on which a particular MSc student or a scientist has been working on for long. Their hard work has gone waste and they have to start afresh, going through each problem phase-wise and then formulating their data accordingly,'' Raina said.

Singh said if hybrid varieties have been grazed by villagers' cattle, the loss will be much more, in terms of time and hard work.

``We first select from seeds available in the farms and good variety seeds from outside. Then we hybridise two to three varieties to form a disease-resistant and high-yield variety. Presently, I am not sure if any such indigenous variety has been eaten up by the cattle. If so, it will be a great loss for our state,'' he remarked.