nInorder to prevent the carbon emissions and other noxious gases, Delhi airport has announced the opening of India’s largest airport nursery in the vicinity of the Airport.
The airport officials claimed the nursery area is across more than 400,000 squarefeet area and referred it as North India’s largest hi-tech plant nursery.
“Each plantation season, the nursery will have lakhs of air purifying plants which will help cut down the carbon-footprint and maintain the highest standards of air quality level in the airport vicinity.” “The nursery is home to more than 1.16 Lakh indoor plants variety with some exotic plants brought from Thailand and Indonesia. Delhi Airport authority claimes to have more than one lakh flowering and foliage plants at its in-house nursery, which includes about 40,000 chrysanthemums and more than 60,000 potted seasonal flowers propagation every year,” an airport official said.
Alongwith creating a green and pollution-free zone in and around the airport, the plants from the nursery also provide for picturesque attractions for passengers.
More than 60 plant species grown at the nursery are aesthetically displayed in Passenger Terminal Buildings (PTBs) and other associated areas of the airport. In Terminal 3 alone, more than 30,000 plants are displayed, which are periodically replaced with fresh plants from the nursery. Besides, plants would also be grown at the nursery for the multi layered plantations on the approach road and Central area.
The air-purifying plants include a mix of foliage and flowering trees viz. white fig (Ficus infectoria), golden shower (Cassia fistula), Indian Pulai (Alstonia scholaris), Anthocephalus cadamba (Kadamb), Copperpod (Peltophorum ferrugineum), Gulmohor (Delonix regia), Neeli gulmohur (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Bokul (Mimusops elengi), Whip Tree (Colvillea racemose) among others.
To ensure favorable growth of all the plants, the temperature and humidity inside the nursery is managed by digitally controlled cooling fan and pad system supplemented with automatic fogging and irrigation system.
“All of this goes in sync with the weather conditions outside which is closely being monitored by the Horticulture team of the organization. Apart from this, airport authority has developed two net-houses (100,000 sq. feet) along with modular sprinklers and foggers, covered with aluminate and two poly houses (2690 sq mt) with dual coverage of five layered special polyethylene sheet and aluminate.