MANSEHRA: The National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute, Shinkiari, has successfully grown kiwi fruit on experimental basis in parts of Mansehra district.

“The soil and environment of Hazara division is very suitable to grow kiwi and therefore, we planted kiwi plants on experimental basis. The experiment turned out to be more successful than our expectations and we sold the fruit on the market,” senior scientific officer of the institute Dr Noorullah Khan told reporters on Friday.

Dr Noorullah said kiwi was grown initially in parts of Mansehra district, including Baffa and Shinkiari area.

“Kiwi’s yield here is much more than what China and New Zealand get. Annual production from a tree here is around 42kg compared to 32kg recorded by the two countries,” he said.The official said kiwi was also grown in Abbottabad, Havalian and Battagram areas and there was a high likelihood of the initiative’s success.

He said the average yield of kiwi plants grown abroad was 3,000-4,000kg per acre but the institute’s experiments revealed that if the fruit was grown commercially, its yield could exceed that.

Dr Noorullah said 22-28 degree centigrade was an ideal temperature for kiwi plant, which could even survive the 35 degree centigrade temperature.

POLIO AMBASSADORS: The Pakistan PolioPlus Committee, a nongovernmental organisation working for the eradication of polio, on Friday appointed around 600 students as ‘polio ambassadors’.

“I hope that you will play an active role for the elimination of this virus,” Rotary Resource Centre head Abdul Latif told polio ambassadors in a function at the Government Degree College, Oghi.

SACKED: The company executing the Suki Kanari hydropower project has terminated the services of 342 workers.

President of the traders body Tahir Hussain Shah told reporters on Friday that the sackings went against the 2015 agreement signed between the district administration and the residents, whose land was acquired for the project.

He said all those sacked were locals.

Preliminary secretary for energy and MNA Salah Mohammad Khan and chief minister’s aide Ahmad Hussain Shah said they would take up the matter with the company’s bosses for the dispensation of justice to workers.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2020