In a first, trees at GNDU get QR-coded nameplates
Amritsar, July 19
As global voices of concern grow over the dire need for enhancing vegetation cover in order to combat threatening challenges of climate change, GNDU took another step towards sustainable campus.
The university has more than 45,000 trees and shrubs on its campus as a result of rigorous plantation drives during the last six years.
Now, the university’s Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences has come up with QR coded nameplates for all trees and shrubs inside the campus that can be scanned to access information regarding a particular plant species. The university has also developed an e-learning platform for information regarding all species of plants found inside the campus.
e-learning platform for info on all species
The Guru Nanak Dev University has more than 45,000 trees and shrubs on its campus
The varsity has also developed e-learning platform for information on all species of plants found inside campus
The trees have been tagged to digitise information regarding the green wealth inside the campus
The information linked to QR codes is the outcome of Electronic Database of Plants (eDOPS), which is freely available on GNDU website
The purpose of the exercise is to create an awareness regarding native plant species
The trees have been tagged to digitise information regarding the green wealth on the campus. The information on trees and shrubs have been documented by the students of MSc Botany. The entire exercise has been conducted under a team of experts, including Prof Avinash Kaur Nagpal, Prof Saroj Arora, Dr Astha Bhatia, Jyoti Kalayani, Dr JS Bilga, Gurwinder Singh and Akanksha Bakshi.
Dr Avinash Kur Nagpal informed, “Each student was asked to contribute one nameplate with botanical and common names, family, economic importance and a QR code. Each QR code is linked to a file in the database providing detailed information of the plant species with its flowering and fruiting times, gardening notes, economic importance, detailed morphological information, etc.
She said the purpose of the exercise was to create an awareness regarding native plant species among general people. “In recent times, most of us are ignorant about trees and shrubs growing in our vicinity. Many of us can identify a maximum of five to six plant species, a few can identify 10-12. Only a botanist, who is working on trees and shrubs, can identify many but not all. The identification of a tree or shrub is not enough, we need to know more about its morphological details, flowering and fruiting times, economic importance, gardening notes, etc,” she said.
The information linked to QR codes is the outcome of “Electronic Database of Plants (eDOPS)”, which is freely available on the GNDU website. Developed by Bhupinder Pal Singh and Dr Gurveen Kaur, eDOPS includes images/pictures of different parts of plants which is an invaluable resource for correct identification of plants. The database contains information of about 145 plant species of trees and shrubs, mostly from the GNDU campus and Amritsar.
Prof Jatinder Kaur, Head, Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, said eDOPS would be enriched further with information on more species of trees and shrubs and other groups of plants.
