Shimla, Feb 8
Enterprising people in tropical
Karnataka are experimenting in growing apples, mostly cultivated in the
cold regions of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
Horticulture
scientist Chiranjit Parmar from Mandi town in Himachal Pradesh, who is
the brain behind the success of this temperate fruit in the tropics, has
been providing technical know-how to growers in Karnataka.
The plantation is in the experimentation stage and its commercial cultivation is yet to take root.
Parmar
said it could be done in other tropical areas like Kerala and Tamil
Nadu where there is virtually no winter season and it would
revolutionise India's apple cultivation.
The apple plantation in
Karnataka has started bearing fruit in less than two years. Normally, it
takes six-seven years in the hills, Parmar told IANS.
The first
apple saplings were planted in 2011. Now more than 6,000 saplings have
been planted across Karnataka, mainly in Coorg, Tumkur, Chikmanglur and
Shimoga areas. All of them were supplied from the horticulture
university nursery at Bajaura in Kullu.
The success has encouraged more and more people to opt for apple cultivation.
Parmar,
a former horticulture expert of the Solan-based Y.S. Parmar University
of Horticulture and Forestry, who experimented after seeing the
successful plantation of apples in tropical Indonesia, attributed the
reason for the speedy growth of apple saplings in Karnataka to the
absence of the dormant phase there.
"In the hills, apple plants
during winter shed leaves and remain dormant (a natural phenomenon which
helps resist extreme cold). In Karnataka, there is no winter and there
is no dormancy stage. A plant continues to grow throughout the year and
matures in a shorter duration," he said.
According to him, a
year-and-a-half-old apple plant in Karnataka can start bearing flowers.
In the next seven-eight weeks, the fruits will be ready for harvesting.
Parmar
said that for growing apples at any place in the tropics, the minimum
temperature should not fall below 12 degrees Celsius during any part of
the year and the maximum should remain below 40 degrees.
The absence of winter helps growers get two crops a year unlike the hill states where there is one crop, he said.
On
planting new saplings in tropical areas, Parmar said the saplings could
be procured only from apple-growing belts in the hills after dormancy
was over. And these should be replanted in less than two days.
But apples grown in tropical conditions have a shorter shelf life compared to those grown in temperate areas.
Apples grown in Karnataka have a time period of 12-15 days, whereas those from the hills have a time period up to a month.
Parmar
said that in Indonesia, where apple yield per hectare was 65 tonnes, 10
times more than Himachal Pradesh, the farmers have developed a
technique that changes natural biology of the plant. They physically
remove the leaves after the harvest.
This helps the plant bloom again after two months and the next crop is ready after four months -- which means two crops a year.
Parmar said K. Nagananda in Bengaluru has grown apples in pots in his roof garden.
Likewise, Janardhan at Tarikedi near Chikmanglur has planted apples along with areca nut.
Calistha D'Silva from Abburkatte in Coorg, who planted apple trees, informed him that the fruits tasted natural.
(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at [email protected])
