No more apple of grower’s eye

Bumper crop, poor returns
A BUMPER crop does not necessarily mean bumper returns for the growers. However, it does create all sorts of problems for them. The glut in the market sends prices crashing and makes growers all the more vulnerable to exploitation by the arhtias. Shortage of trucks and packaging material is also a common feature.

Kulu farmers seek ropeways
Subhash Sharma
KULU: Apple production this year has almost doubled in most parts of this district. Last year, the total yield was 48,365 metric tonne. However, areas around Kulu, Raison and Bajaura have registered a decline, says the Deputy Director, Horticulture, here.

Hi-tech storage could stabilise market
THE lack of requisite post-harvest infrastructure is a major cause for the inability to check the wide fluctuation in the apple market. At present only about 20,000 tonne of the produce is processed, which is only about 2 per cent of the total. In the USA and other apple growing countries, 50 to 60 per cent of the produce is processed.

How apple came to be in Himachal
Manoj Kumar
THANEDHAR: The red and golden "delicious" varieties of apple, which today hold a place of pride in the domestic and export market, came to Himachal Pradesh in the 1920s as a gift from a mother to her son.

No more apple of grower’s eye
Rakesh Lohumi

APPLE industry, the mainstay of Himachal’s economy, is coming under increasing stress because of dwindling yield—this year’s exception notwithstanding—lack of adequate post-harvest management infrastructure, and the ever-growing cost of production.

The Rs 1,000 crore industry, which generates an economy of about Rs 5000 crore, has been in the doldrums, causing concern to farm scientists, the growers and, of course, the government.

Opting out

While Himachal Pradesh continues to be the apple bowl of the country, cultivation of the fruit, which brought prosperity to the hills, is no longer economically an attractive proposition. In fact, in some of the lower hill areas people have already started switching over to alternative crops. For instance, in the Rajgarh area growers are now going in for peach and other stone fruit, while in the lower Kulu valley they are switching over to the more remunerative vegetable cultivation.

While the area under apple has been rising steadily over the past three decades, the production has not been increasing proportionately. The apple revolution started after Independence but gained momentum only in the seventies. The area under the fruit shot up from 26,000 hectare in 1970 to 92,820 hectare in 2001. However, productivity, which ranged between nine and 10 tonne per hectare three decades ago, declined to six tonne. In fact, the average yield for the past five years was still lower at around five tonne per hectare.

Apart from the climatic changes being caused due to global warming, a number of man-made factors like indiscriminate use of fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides, inadequate plantation of pollinisers, failure to contain diseases and the abject lack of irrigation are responsible for the ever-declining productivity.

Poor pollination

Growers have been obsessed with commercial varieties like "royal delicious," "red delicious" and "rich-a-red" and neglecting the pollinising varieties. This has been one of the major causes for poor fruit setting. Scientists maintain that ideally at least one-third of the plants in every orchard should be pollinisers like the "golden delicious," "Kali Devi," "Mackintosh," "Stayman winesap" and "Spartan." The orchards in the state do not have even 5 per cent of such varieties. The growers have replaced traditional varieties with commercial ones without planting an adequate number of the pollinisers. As a result, the process of pollination, which leads to fruit setting, has been hit.

The growers have also not been managing the orchards on scientific lines. A majority of them have not been pruning the plants as recommended and also not adhering to the spay schedules.

Worse, in a bid to harvest the crop at the earliest, growers of the lower and mid-hill areas have been using colour sprays. Mr Baldev Chauhan, a progressive orchardist from Rohru, laments that most of the growers are unaware of the long-term impact of chemical fertilisers and colour sprays on the productivity and health of the plantations and the keeping quality of the fruit. No doubt, the output is increased, but the quality of fruit deteriorates. It loses shine and starts rotting early. At times the growers barely manage to take it to the market. The shelf life of apple has been a big advantage all these years. Until recently, growers have been storing the fruit for up to six months for their own consumption without any cold storage, he explains.

Ageing plantations

Another reason for the declining productivity is that the ageing plantations are not being replaced. The productive life of an apple plant is around 45 years and, as such, the plantations that came up in the 1950s should have been replaced a decade ago, as new plants take seven years to come to fruit. At present about 25 per cent of the plantations have completed their productive life.

Mr R.P. Sharma, Director of Horticulture, says the department is seized of the problem and has already imported rootstock and new high-yielding varieties for the purpose. Over the past two years, 91,000 rootstocks have been procured from Holland and New Zealand. Once the rootstocks are established, they will be grafted with popular international varieties like "scarlet", "Adams apple", "gold spur", "pink lady", "royal gala" and "Braeburn" imported from the USA. The plants will be distributed among the growers.

Bumper crop, poor returns

A BUMPER crop does not necessarily mean bumper returns for the growers. However, it does create all sorts of problems for them. The glut in the market sends prices crashing and makes growers all the more vulnerable to exploitation by the arhtias. Shortage of trucks and packaging material is also a common feature.

This season, apple production is set to cross the 4-lakh-tonne mark for the first time. Certain areas in the Rohru and Kotkhai, which account for the bulk of production in Shimla district, are having a bumper crop after almost a decade. In all, as many as 2.20 crore boxes of apple are likely to be produced and about 1.50 crore have already been sent out of the state.

For once, the weather god smiled on the growers. The hills had reasonably good snow after years during the winter and the monsoon was vigorous and in time. The result was that harvesting in the lower hills was delayed because of continuous rain, which helped in increasing the size of the fruit, as a result of which the production exceeded the estimates by 25 to 30 per cent. Unlike the previous years, when the fruit size was small, this time growers needed bigger trays to pack the fruit in cartons. However, the trays of the required size were not available as the private manufacturers have been making smaller trays.

The overlapping of the harvesting periods in the lower and mid-hills made things worse as the demand for cartons, trays and trucks increased abruptly. The shortage caused panic among the growers of high-hill areas, who started procuring their requirement much in advance. The state Fruit Growers Association, however, maintains that the tray manufacturers had created artificial shortage in view of the bumper harvest to exploit the growers. This forced the government to import trays from China, which took long in arriving.

The prices also saw wide fluctuation in the Delhi market, where 80 per cent of the produce is disposed of. Initial consignments fetched up to Rs 950 per box in the beginning of August but crashed to Rs 200 by the third week. The downslide could have been prevented by regulating the arrivals. As against the normal 500 to 600 trucks, over 1,000 trucks had been reaching the market daily during peak season. Last year, too, the crop was good and about 3.45 lakh tonne of apple was produced. However, the flow of produce was better regulated and the prices remained largely stable. The average price for the season was Rs 305 per box. This year it is likely to come down by Rs 20 or 30 per box, even though the market has again started looking up and the prices have touched Rs 500 per box.

Dr L.R. Verma, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Horticulture and Forestry University, observes that proper management could solve all these problems. A close watch has to be kept on the crop right from the time of fruit setting so that the requirement of cartons, trays and trucks could be properly estimated and arrangements made in advance.

A redeeming feature has been that smaller market likes the one at Dhalli, near here, also had buyers. A large number of growers disposed of their produce at Solan and Chandigarh markets. It is an encouraging development, which in the long run could help break the monopoly of the Delhi arhtias, who not only exploit them but also illegally charge 6 or 8 per cent commission from them.— RL

Kulu farmers seek ropeways
Subhash Sharma

KULU: Apple production this year has almost doubled in most parts of this district. Last year, the total yield was 48,365 metric tonne. However, areas around Kulu, Raison and Bajaura have registered a decline, says the Deputy Director, Horticulture, here.

The main reason behind the better crop this year is sufficient rains and a very mild attack of diseases. Though there were reports of "early falling" and mite attack from certain areas, the Deputy Director says that was brought under control.

The district has orchards in remote areas where roads are not available. Farmers had put up their own ropeways to bring down their produce. Anand Prakash, a progressive farmer, alleges they were served notices to dismantle the ropeway after a helicopter crash at Prini this summer. However, farmers represented to the local legislator and the Chief Minister, who ordered the withdrawal of the notices.

Anand Prakash laments that the government has discriminated against Kulu farmers by not giving any incentive for putting up ropeways. There are clusters of orchards at very high altitudes from where the only practical way to transport the produce down to roads is through ropeways. The government has put up such ropeways in many parts of Shimla.

Fruit growers also say that there was a shortage of apple trays, which continues till date. Admitting the problem, the Deputy Director, however, pointed out that a majority of the farmers were using the traditional wooden boxes, because of which the shortage did not affect the transportation much. The government discourages the use of wooden boxes and provides incentive to growers to shift to corrugated cartons.

Chander Kiran Prarthi, Chairman, District Marketing Board, says there are six marketing yards in this district, including Larji, which started this year. He says the board is planning to establish three such yards at Luhari, Ani and Nirmand.

Hi-tech storage could stabilise market

THE lack of requisite post-harvest infrastructure is a major cause for the inability to check the wide fluctuation in the apple market.

At present only about 20,000 tonne of the produce is processed, which is only about 2 per cent of the total. In the USA and other apple growing countries, 50 to 60 per cent of the produce is processed. Also there is no controlled-atmosphere storage (CAS) facility in which apple could be stored up to 10 months without an deterioration in quality.

In the ordinary cold stores only low temperature is maintained. But in CAS the atmosphere is also controlled by maintaining the level of oxygen and carbon dioxide as desired. Reduction in oxygen and increase in carbon dioxide level lowers the rate of respiration of fruit tissues, as a result of which the freshness is maintained, explains Dr V.K. Joshi, a scientist of the horticulture university, who specialises in post-harvest technology.

Besides setting up CAS facilities in the apple belt, efforts should be made to process larger quantities by making new products like apple cider and carbonated apple drinks. The fruit could also be canned like pineapple, for which the university has already developed the technology, he says.

The Horticulture Department has undertaken a study to ascertain the feasibility of setting up CAS facilities at various places. However, it is likely to take a long time to set up such facilities, during which time middlemen will rule.— RL

How apple came to be in Himachal
Manoj Kumar

THANEDHAR: The red and golden "delicious" varieties of apple, which today hold a place of pride in the domestic and export market, came to Himachal Pradesh in the 1920s as a gift from a mother to her son.

Florence Stokes, mother of Satyanand (Samuel Evans) Stokes, an American who had settled in Kotgarh, wrote in October 1921, "My Christmas gift to you must be the Stark’s Golden Delicious. For other apple trees, I have ordered for you, you shall pay, but these must be your mother’s contribution to your orchard."

The local people, who still remember Satyanand Stokes for introducing apples in the poverty-stricken area, say that it was due to his efforts that Himachal Pradesh could be put on the world map of apples. Says Mr Devinder Jaret, secretary of the Shatla Premal Cooperative Fruit Growers Society Limited, "The cash crop of apple has brought prosperity and education to almost every home in rural Himachal. We will always remember Stokes with love."

Stokes, a young American from Philadelphia, had come to India in 1904 to work in a leper home at Sabathtu, a small town near Shimla, run by the Leprosy Mission in India, but decided to settle here and work among the people of hills.

Struck by the poverty, he wanted to find an alternative to the low-yielding maize and potatoes. He wrote to a friend on March 26, 1912, "If I can find anything which will yield the farmers here a larger crop per acre, I shall be doing the people a real service."

An American in Khadi, a biography of Stokes by Asha Sharma, pays rich tribute to this legendary person. Certain domestic varieties of apple were already being grown in the region at the time, but the credit for introducing the American "delicious" variety through scientific and commercial cultivation goes to him.

After Stokes married a local girl, Agnes, and decided to settle down permanently, he started looking for new crops. On his visit to America in 1914, he took soil samples from Kotgarh for testing and brought various varieties of apple for experiment. Of these, the "red delicious" and "golden delicious" became the most popular.

By 1928 there were about 1000 apple trees in Stokes’ orchard. He used to sell apples in Shimla, wrapped in green paper under the trade mark HH, an abbreviation for Harmony Hall, the name of his orchard, besides ‘Kotgarh Apples’ marked on the boxes. Initially, older farmers ridiculed him for his new-fangled ideas. But once he started distributing apple saplings free of cost, people became interested. Within a few years, the Kotgarh area was covered with blooming apple trees.

Though most of his family is now settled in the US, Ms Vidya Stokes, president of the Himachal Congress, and Mr Vijay Stokes, one his grandsons, are in India.