For those with a green thumb, it doesn’t matter where they live, whether in a city or a large expanse in a village, they will find ways to keep company with happy plants. The coming weekend, will surely put a smile on the faces of plant lovers as the annual Plant Festival, organised by the Botanical Society of Goa in collaboration of the city of Panjim is back in the city. The Plant Festival 2022 will be held on November 18, 19 and 20 from 10 am to 6 pm at Garcia de Orta, Panjim. The festival will feature nursery plant stalls, farm fresh produce, value added products, agriculture and garden inputs, small business enterprises and much more. There will also be stalls for snacks and competitions for kids and adults and many events.
The current committee includes landscape designer Daniel D’Souza as president, Jovita Sequiera as vice president, Alvito D’Silva as secretary, Priyanka Naik as treasurer and Akshatra Fernandes as joint secretary, Miguel Braganza is an equally important part of the Botanical Society and has been one of the most involved founding members and is instrumental in organising both, the Plant Festival as well as the Konkan Fruit Fest.
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BSG has been promoting the love of plants and education on the conservation of biodiversity in Goa for several years. After a seven year hiatus, the festival was back in 2019 only for the Covid pandemic to put the festival on hold for two more years. This year, the team is even more excited to organise the festival along with loads to innovative competitions.
“We could not organise the festival for two years due to the Covid restrictions but we did conduct the Konkan Fruit Fest in 2021. With the efforts of the members of the Botanical Society of Goa and likeminded individual from different walks of life who have supported this festival, we are back with the festival which will see the participation of many nurseries and stalls,” says Daniel D’Souza, president of the society.
There will be many competitions this year including new competitions like paper quilling car, vegetable print painting, best honey competition and grafting competition. The prize distribution will be held on November 20 at 4 pm. “There are agriculture colleges in Goa like the Don Bosco College of Agriculture, Sulcorna and Ramanata Crisna Pai Raikar School of Agriculture, Savoi Verem, whose students can participate in the competitions. Participants have to get their own scion, rootstock, secateurs, budding knife, grafting tape, polybags etc.) Plants to be used for grafting is either a flower or fruit and they can use any grafting method like cleft grafting, veneer grafting, saddle grafting, side grafting or approach grafting method and no other propagating methods,” explains Daniel.
Another interesting competition that will be held for the first time in Goa is the best honey competition, “There are many honey producers in Goa now and we will get to see a variety of honey for the competition. Depending on the season, we will learn and even identity the honey. In the months of April-May, the honey is collected from seasonal fruits like cashew, mango and jamuns, whose flavour is quite distinct. Honey is collected throughout the year as honey bees collect pollen,” says Daniel.
There will be 15 stalls of nurseries and even a show stopper with Daniel D’Souza collection of rare and exquisite plants.
