SEES Field trip to Ranchi: Students gain insights on Agroforestry Systems at BAU and ICAR RC ER
September 23, 2016
As a part of the course on “Agroforestry Systems”, seven Master’s students from the second year of the School of Ecology and Environment Studies went for a field visit to the Regional Station, ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region (ICAR RC ER), Ranchi and Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi (BAU) on September 16-17, 2016.
Faculty members, Dr. B. Mohan Kumar, Professor and Dean (Acting) and Dr. Prabhakar Sharma, Assistant Professor accompanied the students on the trip.
The purpose of this trip was to familiarize the students with the field experiments and laboratory facilities at the regional station of ICAR Res Complex for ER Ranchi and Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi; and in particular, the experimental/demonstration sites on agroforestry, intercropping, crop production plots including forest and horticulture species.
The students interacted with the faculty and researchers at the two institutions, visited the labs and field units and gained insights on the research and development of agroforestry, horticulture, green manures etc. The tour was guided by Dr. AK Singh, Head and his colleagues at ICAR RC ER, and Dr. MS Malik, Professor and Head (Silviculture and Agroforestry, BAU) and his colleagues at BAU.
The units visited include the following:
ICAR RC ER (16 Sep 2016): Agroforestry experimental block (agrisilviculture, silvopastoral and other trials), Medicinal/ Aromatic plants Block, Protected Cultivation Unit, Vermi-compost Unit, and Mango, Guava and Citrus Orchards.
BAU (17 Sep 2016): Visited agroforestry experiments including agrisilviculture, silvopasture, arboretum etc under the All India Coordinated Research Project on Agroforestry centre. Also, visited to labs, nursery, medicinal plant unit, seed production plots and the processing facilities at the College of Forestry, BAU, Ranchi.