Agriculture experts cultivate purple wheat variety at AGC farms

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 29

Looking for healthy dietary solutions to growing lifestyle problems and breaking a new ground in the farming sector, a team of faculty and farming experts at agro farms in Amritsar Group of Colleges (AGC), Manawala, have now cultivated purple wheat.

The team had already cultivated a variety of black rice, red rice, and black wheat as part of its agro technology learning programme for students of agricultural sciences. Purple wheat is among the three varieties of coloured wheat that was developed by the team of researchers at Mohali’s National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI). It is rich in anthocyanins, proteins, dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals. It has more iron and zinc than normal wheat.

Ragini Sharma, one of the directors, AGC, said the new variety of wheat had been grown through a natural method. “We used vermicompost in fish water to raise the level of yield and to achieve other targets in wheat. Vermicompost is nutrient-rich organic compost. Rather than using it directly in the field of purple wheat, if it is combined with fish water it would give better results. We have been using fish to create liquid manure for a variety of crops in our farms. They primarily release nutrients in the water body and application of such water as irrigation in wheat crop improve quality and increase yield,” she said.

She said the Department of Agriculture had been promoting integrating vermicomposting into fish-cum-agricultural activities to only improve fish yields but also improve water and resource management, thus promoting sustainable aquaculture, and improving food security and ecological balance. “As far as the food market for coloured wheat is concerned, wheat is a nutritionally important cereal grain worldwide and is second only to maize in terms of production and utilisation,” she added.

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