Jammu: Director Agriculture Hari Krishan Razdan Wednesday inaugurated the sale of pasteurized compost to the Mushroom growers of the state for the first time at Mushroom section of Directorate of Agriculture Talab Tillo, Jammu here Wednesday. This has been rendered possible due to startup of newly established Pasteurized compost manufacturing plant at the Mushroom Demonstration & Training Center (MDTC) Jammu.
Speaking on the occasion, Director Agriculture said the production and distribution of pasteurized compost at reasonable rates will act as bonus for the mushroom growers of the Jammu division as earlier they have to manufacture the compost manually which is a tiresome process involving much labour or they have to purchase the readymade compost at high rates from outside the state. He asked mushroom growers to take the full advantage of this new facility which will help in doubling of the production of disease free mushroom besides reducing cost of cultivation and labour. He further advised them to follow the concept of co-operative farming and organize themselves into Mushroom Growers Associations, Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) and Self Help Groups (SHGs) for getting maximum profit through value addition by setting up their own production, canning or pasteurized compost unit to achieve the goal of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022.
It was apprised that Pasteurized Compost Production Unit has become fully operational for the first time in the state leading to production of high quality Pasteurized compost up to 18 Tones per cycle and time period per cycle has been reduced to 18 days as compared the 28 days by traditional method which will help in boosting the mushroom production in the Jammu Division. First lot of 18 tones of pasteurized compost (1800 bags of 10kg each) is ready for sale. Each pre-spawned bag of compost is being supplied to the mushroom growers along with casing material that will give a yield of 2.5 kg of mushroom as compared to 1.25 kg while using traditionally made compost. Further it was informed that by the up gradation of Spawn Production Laboratory soon, the spawn production capacity will increase to 250 Tones/annum from 50 Tones at present for supply to the Mushroom growers of Jammu Division.
Others present at the inauguration included Joint Director Agriculture (Extension) BuleshZutshi, Deputy Director of Agriculture (Trainings) Sunil Koul, Deputy Director Agriculture (Central) Jagmohan Bhat, Mushroom Development Officer, Vijay Kumar Bhagat, Agriculture Information Officer, J. C. Raina , SDA, Sham Khajuria, AEO Information, Vikas Sharma besides other staff of the MDTC Jammu.
