Switch over from seedling to root stock-based orchards: Experts

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 15

Farmers and horticultural experts today told apple farmers that a major game changer for the state’s sinking apple industry would be a slow but sure switchover from the long-trusted seedling varieties to the root stocks-based apple orchards to compete in global apple markets.

They sounded an alarm, saying the codling moth, an insect, and the fire blight can spell disaster for the state’s Rs 4,000 crore apple industry if imports of apple root stocks and foreign varieties are not quarantined.

Laxman Thakur, chairman, Ecohorts, Nandpur, who came here after a week-long exposure tour of the latest high-density orchards in South Tyrol in Italy as a member of the International Fruit Tree Association (IFTA), said, “The blind import of root stocks-based apple varieties without proper quarantine measures will ruin the long-hailed seedling-based apple orchards — Codling moth, an insect and the fire blight, a bacterial disease, have remained uncontrolled even Europe. It can be disaster here as we have no technical support to meet the challenge.”

The time to manage the 45-feet-high apple tree is gone as farmers face labour crunch and have no machineries to manage these, Thakur added. On high-density apple orchards in South Tyrol, small apple cooperatives have fetched returns on 18,000 hectare of apple orchards that farmers in Himachal are getting in producing apples on 20,000 hectares, he said.

They invest in grading and packaging and store apple in Controlled Atmospheric (CA) stores to control glut markets, which ruin returns in markets in the state, he added.

The farmers plant multi-branched apple trees raised on M-9 root stocks, that are raised and nurtured through judicious use of sprays, soil testing, pruning, drip irrigation, fertigation and grass mulching. They harvest apple in three to four years as the long gestation period, which is bane of seedling orchards in Himachal, is taken care of, said Thalur. “The M-111 is suited to Himachal, which has a hilly terrain. But diseases like codling moth, fire flight and scab pose challenges there are controlled by chemicals,” he observed.

The switchover needs to be slow but sure as apple produced in Europe is likely to invade Indian markets. Europe is targeting consumer markets in India, for which, farmers and the government should be ready, Thakur warned.

Private companies should encourage farmers here to grow nurseries accredited with the National Horticulture Board and the horticulture university should take measures for quarantine before giving certified plant materials to the farmers, added Dr KD Verma, consultant with Ecohorts, who accompanied Thakur in an interaction with the media here today.

The game changer is a sustainable balance between the seedling and root stocks varieties, said Thakur. The future generation can make apple farming a major vocation only if it switches over to root stocks, which are easier to manage and the government provides good roads, cool chains and CAS, that can be set up in farmers' cooperatives with government assistance, he added.