Usaim Syed is a 15 years old Plantsman of Kashmir from Anantnag. He studies in 9th grade and has a love for plants that has seen him grow a great number of unique plants around his house.
Japanese pine, Red maple, Rubber fig are just few of the variety of plants Usaim harbours in his garden. He has acquired his knowledge from YouTube videos of planting and has implemented it to learn techniques to grow tens of plants from a single source plant.
Beginnings:
His journey as a plantsman started when he saw indiscriminate cutting of trees in his neighbourhood. “They were cutting trees down like it was waste. It would have taken that tree hundred of years to grow that big, but it took only a few minutes to take it down”, Usaim Syed said in an exclusive with Kashmir Digits.
The idea then struck his mind and he decided to grow his own plants with new growing ideas and spread awareness about planting more and more trees. He is well versed with various technqiues of plantation nad keeps finding different ways to grow a seed or a cutting. He uses methods like propagation, where he cuts the thin branches of plants and grow them in the soil. The young plantsman also uses some rooting hormone on them which help in increasing the rate of root development.
He says these methods are easy and can be tried by anyone. “You just need to add a little honey to your cutting and then cover the part where you’ve cut it with cinnamon powder and you have your own rooting hormone” he says while explaining the way to make root hormones at home.
Usaim also germinates plants from seed like Red maple which if sold for can go for up to 1 Lakh rupees. His methods are cost effective and can be be learned by anyone willing to greenify their surroundings.
Damage to Kashmir’s ecosystem:
Usaim also believes that the environment in Kashmir is getting damaged due to a lot wood chopping and wood theft. “People still don’t realize why these wild animals are coming on streets and around residential areas, people are destroying their homes, if there is no forest there is no shelter for them. So obviously they will come down to residential areas”, he said in context of the recent wild animal attacks in the valley.
He urges people to take deforestation seriously and preserve the land God has given us. “We should stop destroying the natural habitats of wild animals as they are important to us or it will harm us and the future generations”, Usaim urged in a message to the people.
Green Message
Usaim had a message for his fellow Kashmiris, “I will continue to plant more trees and raise awareness and I would say to people do the same and go green”, surely we must pay heed to his words here.
At a young age Usaim Syed has led by example and has shown a lot can be done preserve our beautiful land if we make some efforts right now. If this young boy can understand the damage done to our ecosystem and what cane be done to preserve it, then surely we must take responsibility and do our bit to help Kashmir be green and clean
(Kashmir Digits story).