Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
Extreme temperature resilience – from -14 o C to +55 o C.
Ability to re-grow very quickly after being affected by drought, frosts, salinity and
adverse conditions.
Tolerance to wide range of soil pH from 3.3 to 12.5 without soil amendment.
High level of tolerance to herbicides and pesticides.
Highly efficient in absorbing dissolved nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus
and heavy metals in polluted water.
Highly tolerant to growing medium high in acidity, alkalinity, salinity, sodicity
and magnesium.
Highly tolerant to Aluminium, Manganese and heavy metals such as Arsenic,
Cadmium, Chromium, Nickel, Lead, Mercury, Selenium and Zinc in the soils.
Palatability - Cattle, goats, sheep, pigs
Use of Vetiver System can potentially enhance yield of crops.
Vetiver is being used in by farmers in agricultural fields across the world for a
variety of reasons ranging from soil and moisture conservation to pest control to
use of leaves as raw material for handicrafts.
The only limiting factor for vetiver is lack of sunlight.
Its wide climatic adaptability renders it suitable for use across all agroclimatic
zones of India. It should be included as part of the first stage of various
initiatives proposed for rejuvenating rivers – be it through afforestation along
river banks, or farm land or other government lands.
1. INTRODUCTION
Vetiver plant species belonging to the genus Chrysopogon are native not only
to India but also South-East Asia and South & Western Africa. However, the
Vetiver System (VS) developed by Netiver Network International, is based on the
application of genotypes closely related to only the South Indian variety of vetiver
grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides).
594 Annexures