The first and only centre in Turkey for Cold Hardiness Test was opened officially with a ceremony. Dr. Ahmet ALTIPARMAK the Governor of Erzurum and Mehmet DANİŞ, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock along with Prof. Dr. Mustafa ILICALI, Deputy of Erzurum for the Justice and Development Party, Mehmet Sekmen, the Major of Erzurum, Dr. İsa ÖZKAN, Department Head of GDAR and several other guests participated in the ceremony.
Deputy Minister Daniş, speaking at the ceremony noted that "In our country, new varieties and species are needed in terms of cold hardiness. In this regard, great losses are encountered occasionally not only in Eastern Anatolia but also in western part of Turkey; Thrace, Aegean and partially in Central Aegean. In Turkey where four different seasons exist, we need to develop new varieties suitable for different climate conditions.".
Governor ALTIPARMAK in his remarks stated that "The foundation of Centre was laid back in 2014 and the aerial view of the facility resembles a snow flake. It is an exceptionally good service. The place will serve to everywhere in Turkey."
The Centre which was built in 2016, lays on an area of 2400m2 of land and consists of four main facilities including; plant breeding unit, plant tissue culture unit and full and semi-automated greenhouses along with acclimatization units and cold cabins.
In the Centre, as studies will be conducted under controlled conditions, unfavourable conditions will be eliminated. Thus, institutes, universities and seed companies carrying out breeding studies will be able to early test their material and apply selection to eliminate thousands of genotypes before proceeding with the later stages. This will immensely save time, labour and cost for researchers.