Coimbatore : The district collector, K Rajamani today inaugurated an arid zone fruit orchard established on the premises of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

The 1.05 hectare orchard has 17 types of arid zone fruit crops viz., Fig, Annona, Aonla, Jamun, Ber, Sapota, Lasoda, Chironji, Bael, Manila Tamarind, Karonda, Phalsa, West Indian cherry and Wood apple for the benefit of students and farmers.

In addition, these fruits are rich in vitamin C and Minerals and fruit crops are suitable to dry land and water deficit low fertile areas of Tamil Nadu.

Rajamani also visited the exhibition on Arid zone fruit crops with value added products and planted the Annona plant in the Arid zone fruit orchard and inaugurated the planting.

He made a visit to the 112 year old Botanical Garden of the University, to saw various renovation operations which are in progress.

The Collector visited the Plant Conservatory which has been given a face lift with improvement in its infrastructure and strengthening
of its plant wealth.

The plant wealth has been enriched to house around 500 diverse collections of plants belonging to various categories including foliage ornamentals, indoor flowering plants, palms, ferns, bamboos, cycads, cacti and succulents and medicinal and aromatic plants.

A tree planting activity was performed as a part of this visit and traditionally and historically important native tree species namely Saraca indica was planted in the Botanical Garden by the District Collector and Dr Kumar Vice Chancellor of TNAU.

A demonstration was made on QR (Quick Response) coding of the plant species in the TNAU Botanical Garden to enable effective dissemination of scientific knowledge about the plants to the visiting public, students, researchers and garden enthusiasts.

Dr. A.S. Krishnamoorthy, Registrar,Dr. L. Pugalendhi, Dean (Horticulture) and other University officials were present in a tree planting programme.