“The winter of 1984 and 1985 saw little precipitation. Majority of the apple plants in lower Kotgarh, Karsog and Rajgarh had dried up in those two years.
The current situation is even worse, apple cultivation is passing through the toughest phase at the moment,” said Pratap Chauhan, an apple growers from Kotkhai.
Most apple growers agree with Chauhan. Like the past two years, this winter, too, is approaching the end almost dry. From January 1 till date, the state has seen 74 per cent less than normal precipitation.
And as per the weather department, the precipitation is likely to be less than normal in the coming days. The three consecutive largely dry winters have pushed apple cultivation to the brink in the state.
“Apple growers are not even thinking of crop at the moment. Their entire attention and efforts are aimed at saving the plants, which are drying up without adequate snowfall and rainfall,” said Chauhan.
While the fresh plantation last year saw heavy mortality rate due to dry winters and dry summers (some growers claim the mortality rate was as high as 70 to 80 per cent), the growers fear the same this year too.
“If it doesn’t rain shortly, a lot of orchards are going to dry up, especially those in the sunny areas. The growers should avoid fresh plantations this year if they do not have water for irrigation,” said Dimple Panjta,” another orchardist.
Lokinder Bisht, a progressive grower from Rohru, feels it’s a wake-up call for the apple growers to get into water harvesting.
“Given how snowfall and rainfall is decreasing with every passing year, the growers will have to get into water harvesting. The government should facilitate growers by offering some subsidies for constructing water harvesting tanks,” said Bisht.
Usha Sharma, Senior Scientist, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Rohru, admitted that the dry spell had assumed serious proportions, putting the plants under severe stress.
“We have noticed a high mortality rate in the saplings planted last year. Also, the canker is spreading fast in older plants. These problems are particularly serious in the orchards located at the mid and lower altitudes,” she said.
She fears that the chilling-hour requirement of the Delicious varieties, especially at lower altitudes, might not be completed if the dry spell continues.
The Delicious varieties need over 1,000 chilling hours to have proper flowering and good fruit setting. “In current situation, the growers should go for water conservation measures like mulching, digging up small pits and holes in the orchards to retain water as and when it rains,” said Sharma.
Bisht, meanwhile, alleges that the government and the Department of Horticulture are hardly doing anything to help out the growers in such hard times.
The Department of Horticulture should at least do some damage assessment due to the drought-like conditions. “Both the growers and plants are under tremendous stress. The government and the department should lend some assistance in these difficult times,” he said.