Plans to indigenise tulip bulbs in works

In a bid to plant tulips in the Capital, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has decided to use bulbs of flowers which have wilted to indigenise the flower, officials aware of the matter said on Sunday.

Currently, the NDMC imports all the tulips it plants from the Netherlands, and officials said that their plantation is carried out in the city in mid-december. The tulip season ends in early March.

“The import cycle is repeated every year but now we have decided to collect the bulbs from wilted plants and use them to create fresh bulbs out of them,” the official said.

The council plans to rope in the Csir-institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT) in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, for the trials. “We have been communicating with NDMC to supply the exhausted tulip bulbs to us. Along with our local farmers, we can try to propagate these imported bulbs under various conditions,” said Dr Sanjay Kumar, outgoing director of CSIR-IHBT.

This comes even as the city is ramping up its tulip count in the spring. Lieutenant governor VK Saxena on February 11 said NDMC procured 140,000 tulip bulbs this year against the 40,000 last year.

A second NDMC official said the bulbs are sourced from the Netherlands at ₹30-40 per unit. “Since the number of flowers is expected to be increased, we plan to undertake the research and development process so that the pretreated Dutch production can be replicated in our country,” he said.

NDMC starts the preparation for plantation of tulips in July-august by inviting open tenders, the second official said. “After importing the flower bulbs, they are kept in quarantine, followed by keeping them in low temperatures . Plantation

of the bulbs is carried out in the second week December and it takes 30-40 days for them to bloom,” he said.

The official said the tulip flowering period was now over and bulbs will be allowed to dry up in the soil for a month. “The bulbs will then be stored in specialised packaging. The survival rate of these bulbs in various conditions to be studied in Palampur. We had tried reusing the bulbs in Delhi weather last over two years but it had failed,” the official said.

CSIR-IHBT’S Kumar said talks with NDMC are in an advanced stage.“we have been experimenting with tulips and we have been successful in creating a garden completely made from indigenous bulbs of tulips sourced from Lahaul,” he said.

“The process is in pipeline. Once the new director assumes office, things will likely get in motion,” IHBT public relations officer Dr Shashi Bhushan said.