Vernalization

Through this initiative, KOPIA primarily provides rain shelters, storages, drip irrigation units, mother bulb cultivation and mother bulb vernalization facilities, agro-chemicals, etc., to the farmers of the model villages.

However, this method had already been known by farmers since the 1800s, and had recently been discussed in detail by Gustav Gassner as "vernalization" (from the Latin "vernus", of the Spring).

Spring cereals are planted in early springtime and mature later that same summer, without vernalization.

Vernalization allows the plant to grow to an adequate size before flowering.

Where winters are too warm for vernalization or exceed the hardiness of the crop (which varies by species and variety), farmers grow spring varieties.

Winter varieties do not flower until springtime because they require vernalization : exposure to low temperatures for a genetically determined length of time.