The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations will provide technical support to fruit and berry crop nurseries in Kyrgyzstan. The organization reported.
It is noted that horticulture in Kyrgyzstan has shown steady growth in recent years. However, with the emergence of new orchards, the problem of lack of quality and high-yield saplings of fruit trees and berry crops becomes more acute.
«The local potential of saplings producers — nurseries and research institutes is limited, at the moment their production volumes cannot meet the needs of the market. Experts also have questions about the quality of planting material. At best, they do not meet the requirements, for example, in terms of external characteristics, but there are also more cases when saplings do not correspond to the declared variety. As a result, gardeners have to buy planting material abroad. The volume of this type of import is increasing every year. However, along with the number of saplings imported to Kyrgyzstan from abroad, the risks of importing alien pathogens and pests of fruit and berry crops into the country are growing,» the organization noted.
FAO, together with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kyrgyz Republic, is launching the project «Introduction and promotion of innovative approaches for the use of advanced technologies in horticulture», which will provide methodological and technical support to fruit nurseries and producers.
Over the next year, on the basis of the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture, it is planned to create two nurseries, in which saplings of improved varieties of apples, cherries, pears, apricots and berries will be bred.
Another important component of the project will be the training of agronomists and farmers in the main areas of planting material production. It is planned to train more than 60 specialists in total.
