After 4 yrs of lull,Farmers expect bumper hafoos yield this year

Surat: If the beginning of the season is any indication, farmers in south Gujarat can expect a bumper Valsadi Hafoos (alphonso) yield in 2019 summer.
It will be after nearly four years of constant fall in the yield that mango growers are expecting a good harvest. For the past three years, the production had almost halved due to vagaries of weather. This time, the temperatures have gone down at the right time in the beginning of December. Farmers said if this weather trend continues without unseasonal rains, the yield of mangoes is likely to be above 70%, which is bumper harvest in the mango growing districts like Valsad and Navsari.

Dr SK Sharma , in-charge of Pariya farm of Navsari Agriculture University (NAU) in Vaslad district,said , “Looking at the temperature and weather condition over the last one month, chances are bright for wonderful flowering and bumper harvest of mango barring. Only unseasonal rains could play spoilsport.” Pariya farm houses over 500 varieties of mangoes “For flowering on the mango tree and setting of the fruit in proper shape at time, there should not be huge variations in the day and night temperature. This means if the day time maximum temperature is around 30 degrees Celsius , night time minimum temperature should be around 15 degrees.”

This year, South Gujarat region has seen average temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius. Now, with the beginning of December, mercury has started dipping to 15-20 degrees in night which augurs well for the fruits like mango.

“In case of cloudy atmosphere on some days, farmers must be ready for insect management on hafoos trees,” said Dr Sharma. Ramesh Naik, a mango farmer in Navsari said, “Coming 45 days are going to be crucial. However, looking at the present climate and temperatures, we are very optimistic of harvesting 65-70% of the trees and get more fruits this year.”

Dinesh Padaliya, assistant director, horticulture said, “We have to wait till January 15. All we can say is that the flowering this year will be in abundance as compared to last year . Vegetative flush on trees has been timely after monsoon and it augurs well for mangoes. This will mature timely in coming days. We only hope flowering doesn’t wither away unnecessarily.”